The Albanese government

Sean K said:

We only have about 4 Patrol Boats so at any one time maybe 2 are at sea, but our surveillance assets in the air, space and ashore should have picked these up days ago. Someone decided to let them in, or our surveillance is crap.

I wonder how we pick up a Chinese submarine off the coast?

(To divulge too much of our 'secret' assets, they might have seen this but it was never reported so the enemy does not know we have such capability.)

Click to expand...

Border Force fly planes out of Tuscott North Kimberly have heard them when flying through the area Patrol Boats don't come into it.

IFocus said:

Haha the East Coast cartel getting upset.... good shut the border again please.

Click to expand...

Airbus Albo must have boarded on the wrong plane.
This one headed West and North was where he wanted to go.
Up, up and away the Airbus way.

Interesting play by the opposition.


As speculation swirled earlier this year over the future of the Coalition's already legislated stage three tax cuts, Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor accused the government of deciding that "the way out of inflation is to tax Australians more".

The verdict​

Mr Taylor's claim is overblown.

In simple dollar terms, the total amount of income tax paid by Australians increased by 27.3 per cent over the 18 months to September 2023.

However, this is not a record increase, with much larger historical rises having occurred under both Liberal and Labor governments.

The 18-month period cited by Mr Taylor also includes roughly two months when the Coalition was still in government. Taxes under Labor during the 15 months for which data was available increased by 23.9 per cent.

The winding up of a temporary tax offset for low and middle income earners was just one of several factors contributing to the recent rise in tax receipts.

sptrawler said:

Interesting play by the opposition.

Angus Taylor says personal income tax has increased by a 'record' 27 per cent under Labor. Is that correct?

Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor says personal income tax has increased by a "record" 27 per cent in the first 18 months of the Albanese government.

www.abc.net.au

As speculation swirled earlier this year over the future of the Coalition's already legislated stage three tax cuts, Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor accused the government of deciding that "the way out of inflation is to tax Australians more".

The verdict​

Mr Taylor's claim is overblown.

In simple dollar terms, the total amount of income tax paid by Australians increased by 27.3 per cent over the 18 months to September 2023.

However, this is not a record increase, with much larger historical rises having occurred under both Liberal and Labor governments.

The 18-month period cited by Mr Taylor also includes roughly two months when the Coalition was still in government. Taxes under Labor during the 15 months for which data was available increased by 23.9 per cent.

The winding up of a temporary tax offset for low and middle income earners was just one of several factors contributing to the recent rise in tax receipts.

Click to expand...

A reality and i don't lie it. Unfortunately the trough has to be keep full for those fat cats with their snouts in it.

farmerge said:

A reality and i don't lie it. Unfortunately the trough has to be keep full for those fat cats with their snouts in it.

Click to expand...

Unemployment down, tax takes increase, dole benefits reduce..

Last post 22 February, shows how good a job of staying under the radar Albo is doing.

Then up pops Uncle Paul the Labor Guru and blows it up, another wretched ghost, how many wretched ghosts can we accommodate?
Isn't Malcolm enough.

sptrawler said:

Last post 22 February, shows how good a job of staying under the radar Albo is doing.

Then up pops Uncle Paul the Labor Guru and blows it up, another wretched ghost, how many wretched ghosts can we accommodate?
Isn't Malcolm enough.

Click to expand...

Someone needs to make one of those political cartoons with Keating knocking Albo over the head with a spade and mounds of dirt with the rest in peace sign, where he's buried other politicians.

ANDREW CARSWELL: Jim Chalmers wants to wake the economy from an induced coma of his government’s making​

Andrew Carswell
The Nightly

The wry smiles were so pronounced, they were near-audible.

Here was the Treasurer of Australia, addressing a room full of business leaders last week, defining in bleak language where the nation’s economy sat, and where things needed to change.

It wasn’t a pretty description. Nor was it a revelation for the leaders in the room, who have been warning the Government with such phrases ad nauseam for 18 months.

Chalmers told guests at the Business Council of Australia dinner that the economy was “not productive enough, not competitive and not dynamic enough” and this would indeed “cost us if we don’t attend to it”.

It seems after 18 months of ideological frolics, the Government has suddenly stumbled headlong into the cold hard reality that there is an economy that actually needs to be nurtured and grown.

The shift in economic narrative is on in earnest.

This is a relieving development, and the Treasurer and PM Albanese certainly aren’t hiding this sudden pivot back to growth for fear of embarrassment, even in a room full of baffled business leaders.

Apparently it’s time to wake up the patient after the Government seemingly put the economy in an induced coma for 18 months while it performed some experimental surgery.

The final prognosis? Well, the body hasn’t taken too well to the treatment, hence Chalmers stepping up to the table, defibrillator in his hands.

But it’s OK. We are in a “new growth phase” now.

Economic growth is cool again. Inflation-busting is old hat.

But is it galling for a Treasurer to declare the Australian economy and business conditions are in such a dire state when his own Cabinet colleagues have aided and abetted the weakening?

This is a Government that from its first hour in power has taken a baseball bat to the most productive parts of the Australian economy, belting business in the name of populism, running down productivity, copying and pasting union IR manifestos and rushing them through Parliament, announcing extreme approval standards on development, intervening in complex gas and energy markets only to make things more complex, jacking up wages to unsustainable levels, and effectively chasing investment overseas into countries where worker conditions are below par and environmental standards are non-existent.

Yes, it’s a long sentence.

But it has been for the economy too.

Chalmers sits right beside Employment Minister Tony Burke in Cabinet. Did he ever lean across and have a frank conversation with Burke while he was wantonly damaging the Australian economy by legislating industrial relations “reforms” that will make Australia one of the most expensive and unproductive places to do business?

In one fell swoop, Burke made a phrase common parlance in board rooms around the nation and abroad: “Why on earth would we invest in Australia under these conditions?”

Not hyperbole.

Take BCA CEO Bran Black’s own words: “I could not begin to tell you how often I hear from CEOs the common point that they’re not quite sure, if they have got free cash, that Australia is the right place for them to invest.”

Our global competitiveness has been shattered. Investment and business confidence are in the mire.

But we are in a “new growth phase” now. Things are going to change around here, alludes Chalmers.

The problem is, the policy landscape that stretches to the horizon of the next election is littered with so many landmines for Australian business that it renders the Treasurer’s new (welcome) growth focus somewhat neutered.

If only economic growth could be manufactured by mantras, and not birthed in enabling and supportive economic policy.

So in the wry smiles of business leaders last week was not only a hark back to the bumpy road just travelled, but also an acknowledgement of what awaits on the road ahead.

Three seats down from Chalmers around the Cabinet table is Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek. Has he ever wheeled his chair down and had a candid chat with the Minister about the Nature Positive environmental approvals regime she is putting together, that risks adding another layer of red tape to business and further stifling investment? It’s not too late.

Because Nature Positive is in danger of being perverted to become Economy Negative.

Even throughout the debate on this exhaustive legislation, Nature Positive threatens to be a dead weight on growth; not just because of its content, but because crossbench senators and MPs are lining up to staple some alarming amendments to the laws, including a climate trigger.

Add the changes to the PRRT regime, extended environmental standards for offshore gas, the announcement of a 2035 emissions reduction target, and a vehicle emissions policy and you have at least six to 12 months of destabilising debate between Labor and the Greens about how hard or soft they are going to flog business.

The only certainty? A flogging.

One can only hope that when crafting the upcoming Budget, Chalmers had one of his new phrases rumbling around his head.

“Fundamentally, we need to concentrate on making Australia a more competitive place within which to do business.’’

True.

Now, go and tell your fellow Cabinet ministers.

So nary a comment about our totalitarian overlords passing the digital ID bill through the senate.

Only a years ago we collectively stood up to be counted about the Australia card, cognizant of its dangers.

Yet here we are with a digital ID which has far more far-reaching and dangerous implications, and we have let it through without a whimper?

What has happened to us that has made us so pathetic now?

wayneL said:

So nary a comment about our totalitarian overlords passing the digital ID bill through the senate.

Only a years ago we collectively stood up to be counted about the Australia card, cognizant of its dangers.

Yet here we are with a digital ID which has far more far-reaching and dangerous implications, and we have let it through without a whimper?

What has happened to us that has made us so pathetic now?

Click to expand...

There has been no debate on this that I can recall. Nothing in the media. Very sus.

SirRumpole said:

There has been no debate on this that I can recall. Nothing in the media. Very sus.

Click to expand...

I guess MSM has studiously ignored it, but it has been all over X for weeks and weeks and weeks.

SirRumpole said:

There has been no debate on this that I can recall. Nothing in the media. Very sus.

Click to expand...

I havent read up on it, but just googled it.

wayneL said:

I guess MSM has studiously ignored it, but it has been all over X for weeks and weeks and weeks.

Click to expand...

Straight off my timeline right now:

A barrister at law on just one aspect of the bill

It is all getting interesting, a while ago I mentioned that Albo had a lot of balls in the air, he landed the voice ok, the RBA took a lot of the flack for the inflation issue, the cost of electricity has been kicked down the road with rebates, so he's doing ok so far.
This refugee issue is becomming an issue so it will be interesting to watch how it pans out.

Yet another thing you might not have heard anything about.

I am no pro- lifer and do agree with abortion in the first trimester, subject to your own conscience.

But abortion up to and including full-term (except in certain, very well-defined circumstances) is absolute barbarism in my opinion.

This is going to be a humongous white elephant that will be hung around Albanese's neck in the future. How can we possibly compete with China for these toxic mirrors? The only way this might work is if we go to war with China over Taiwan and we just have to make crap ourselves.

wayneL said:

Yet another thing you might not have heard anything about.

I am no pro- lifer and do agree with abortion in the first trimester, subject to your own conscience.

But abortion up to and including full-term (except in certain, very well-defined circumstances) is absolute barbarism in my opinion.

Click to expand...

Just checked that out:

sptrawler said:

Just checked that out:

Abortion and the Law (WA)

In WA, abortion is now available on request up to 23 weeks gestation and after 23 weeks gestation with the agreement of the patient’s primary practitioner and another practitioner.

www.gotocourt.com.au

Click to expand...

Just finished reading a book written by a retired neo natal NZ baby doctor and he said it is amazing that we can now save babies that are born at 23 weeks.................................

Does put a different perspective on it

My youngest grandson was born at 24 weeks, looked like a drowned rat.
His skin was almost translucent, weighed in at just under a kg, lived in a humidicrib and spent his first 12 weeks at the neonatal icu unit at Monash.
I was looking at things realistically, and I did not think he would survive, or if he did , would have physical and cognitive issues.
He has just had his first birthday, is crawling, is in the top decile for height and weight for his age, and eats like there is no tomorrow.
The paediatricians say there is nothing wrong with his hearing, his eyesight or whatever else they test for.
We know there is nothing wrong with his lungs, as he is quite vocal.
Miracle as far as I am concerned.
Mick