The Australian Greens party

wayneL · 23 August 2010

Re: The Greens - The New Radical Socialists

IFocus said:
Out of interest without changing the base how do you increase services i.e. health and education maintain a modern military, expand infrastructure for productivity gains etc.

I see many complain now about health and education but with no commentary on how we pay for it.

Given the resources boom shouldn't there be a dividend paided and I base this on the royalties settings decades ago that don't as a % equate to today's pricing some thing that the Liberals are willing to give away.

IMO the level of funding is not the problem. We all know government bureaucracy is incredibly... obscenely wasteful and inefficient. IME it is wilfully so.

Socialists like to bleat about services and plead for more mountains of cash to fund them, but it just encourages more waste, rather than better services.

noco · 23 August 2010

Re: The Greens - The New Radical Socialists

IFocus said:
Out of interest without changing the base how do you increase services i.e. health and education maintain a modern military, expand infrastructure for productivity gains etc.

I see many complain now about health and education but with no commentary on how we pay for it.

Given the resources boom shouldn't there be a dividend paided and I base this on the royalties settings decades ago that don't as a % equate to today's pricing some thing that the Liberals are willing to give away.

Simple IF, increase the GST to 12 1/2% or even 15%. The trouble is neither party would have the guts to do it.

Does not matter how the funds are raised, the consumers eventually will have to pay. A super profits tax, a CPRS or an ETS will affect us one way or the other. At least with the GST we do know how much it will cost. Other methods are unknown as we experienced years ago with sales tax. Sales Tax was oftened increased by Governments without the consumer ever knowing.

Hope you get my point.

Bushman · 23 August 2010

Re: The Greens - The New Radical Socialists

wayneL said:
IMO the level of funding is not the problem. We all know government bureaucracy is incredibly... obscenely wasteful and inefficient. IME it is wilfully so.

Socialists like to bleat about services and plead for more mountains of cash to fund them, but it just encourages more waste, rather than better services.

in otherwords, an excercise in government building rather than nation building.

Julia · 23 August 2010

Re: The Greens - The New Radical Socialists

IFocus said:
Out of interest without changing the base how do you increase services i.e. health and education maintain a modern military, expand infrastructure for productivity gains etc.

Easy. By reducing the bloated bureaucracy. In Qld at least the personnel employed in admin exceed those actually involved in health care.
And by more efficiency, something pretty much unknown to the bureaucrats.

Calliope · 23 August 2010

Re: The Greens - The New Radical Socialists

Julia said:
Easy. By reducing the bloated bureaucracy. In Qld at least the personnel employed in admin exceed those actually involved in health care.
And by more efficiency, something pretty much unknown to the bureaucrats.

Yes, billions have been poured into health services and yet they go backwards. It is a bottomless pit.

Excuse my off topic injection of a little satire;

Mofra · 23 August 2010

Re: The Greens - The New Radical Socialists

drsmith said:
Is ~30% of GDP as tax not enough to provide welfare and government services ?
If not, then what percentage of GDP is appropriate ?

The net tax from resources needs to be reviewed, but obviously not how the ALP did it. This to me more than anything else is what precipitated Kevin Rudd's downfall and the present electoral outcome for the ALP.

Depends how much is wasted

$1.4b on the Seasprite project is a perfect example - all gone on a helicopter that never saw active service, was only pursued because we "maybe" at some time might have pursued a fast Corvette-style vessel development in conjunction with Malaysia, and the hanger on this theoretical vessel may have been too small for a Seahawk. We then took a 1950s airframe, tried to jam if full of ECM gear and top notch avionics, fit it with a Euro missile, and then couldn't get the thing to work properly.

IFocus · 24 August 2010

Re: The Greens - The New Radical Socialists

Is ~30% of GDP as tax not enough to provide welfare and government services ?

If not, then what percentage of GDP is appropriate ?

I don't know but neither side address the coming of rapidly increasing health cost's.

This to me more than anything else is what precipitated Kevin Rudd's downfall and the present electoral outcome for the ALP.

Certainly in WA the scare campaign cut through nicely

IFocus · 24 August 2010

Re: The Greens - The New Radical Socialists

wayneL said:
IMO the level of funding is not the problem. We all know government bureaucracy is incredibly... obscenely wasteful and inefficient. IME it is wilfully so.

I have been told by those in the game that health care for the aging population and mental health care costs will rise due to increasing volume.

IFocus · 24 August 2010

Re: The Greens - The New Radical Socialists

noco said:
Simple IF, increase the GST to 12 1/2% or even 15%. The trouble is neither party would have the guts to do it.

Howard fortunately set it up so all the states have to agree pretty much mission impossible and some I think

drsmith · 24 August 2010

Re: The Greens - The New Radical Socialists

IFocus said:
Howard fortunately set it up so all the states have to agree pretty much mission impossible and some I think

Fortunate indeed.

Otherwise that goose would be just too easy to pluck.

noco · 24 August 2010

Re: The Greens - The New Radical Socialists

IFocus said:
Howard fortunately set it up so all the states have to agree pretty much mission impossible and some I think

It all depends how it is explained and whether it can be proved to be a better system to raise revenue for the likes of health care. We and the politicians are not facing reality that health care is costing us more and more each year and additional funds are needed to provde the services we all desire.

As I stated on another post, no matter which way a Government tries to provide funds in other ways, we the tax payers are going to pay for it one way or the other.

IFocus · 25 August 2010

Re: The Greens - The New Radical Socialists

noco said:
It all depends how it is explained and whether it can be proved to be a better system to raise revenue for the likes of health care. We and the politicians are not facing reality that health care is costing us more and more each year and additional funds are needed to provde the services we all desire.

As I stated on another post, no matter which way a Government tries to provide funds in other ways, we the tax payers are going to pay for it one way or the other.

Agree GST is a good way to collect tax's (maybe best) but the problem is we cannot trust any government not to hike for their own greed its just to big a cookie jar.

Australia must be close to setting a record for a country that's introduce a GST and not raised it a couple of % or more after.

As for rising health care costs and how or if we should pay not sure how this can be tackled but we certainly need the major party's talking about it.

noco · 25 August 2010

Re: The Greens - The New Radical Socialists

IFocus said:
Agree GST is a good way to collect tax's (maybe best) but the problem is we cannot trust any government not to hike for their own greed its just to big a cookie jar.

Australia must be close to setting a record for a country that's introduce a GST and not raised it a couple of % or more after.

As for rising health care costs and how or if we should pay not sure how this can be tackled but we certainly need the major party's talking about it.

Firstly, the GST can only be raised with full agreement by Federal,State and Territory Governments.

If the GST was increased to 12 1/2 % with the proviso that the additional money raised would be injected into health, then I can't see how it would not work.

Don't forget also we have something like 1million tourist coming to Australia each year and they all have to eat, sleep and be merry. All would be contributing to the GST and who would knock back foreign money?

drsmith · 25 August 2010

Re: The Greens - The New Radical Socialists

A few years after the GST is raised to 12.5%.

If the GST was increased to 15% with the proviso that the additional money raised would be injected into health, then I can't see how it would not work.

It's a slippery slope.

Julia · 25 August 2010

Re: The Greens - The New Radical Socialists

noco said:
If the GST was increased to 12 1/2 % with the proviso that the additional money raised would be injected into health, then I can't see how it would not work.

Do you really trust State governments (a) to inject this amount into the health budget, and (b) if they did, to use it wisely, rather than create additional levels of bureaucratic nonsense?

noco · 25 August 2010

Re: The Greens - The New Radical Socialists

Julia said:
Do you really trust State governments (a) to inject this amount into the health budget, and (b) if they did, to use it wisely, rather than create additional levels of bureaucratic nonsense?

Julia, that would be the proviso and could be audited by the Federal Government to make sure the states honoured their responsibilties.

No reason why the funds could not be controlled by Hospital Boards as Tony Abbott's proposal and so eliminate the bureaucrats. Hospital Boards would know a lot more about their needs than those useless bureaucrats. It worked years ago and it can work again.

Smurf1976 · 26 August 2010

Re: The Greens - The New Radical Socialists

noco said:
All would be contributing to the GST and who would knock back foreign money?

The word that immediately comes to mind upon reading that is "The Greens".

The entire concept of bringing in foreign money has been at the seat of many battles with the Greens over the years. They seem to place absolutely no value on it whatsoever, arguing that a domestic service economy is a direct substitute.

drsmith · 26 August 2010

Re: The Greens - The New Radical Socialists

noco said:
Julia, that would be the proviso and could be audited by the Federal Government to make sure the states honoured their responsibilties.

No reason why the funds could not be controlled by Hospital Boards as Tony Abbott's proposal and so eliminate the bureaucrats. Hospital Boards would know a lot more about their needs than those useless bureaucrats. It worked years ago and it can work again.

States honour their responsibilities ??

The best thing that could be done with the state governments would be to limit their taxing abilities to drivers licences, vehicle registration and chook raffles. The feds should fund the rest.

Never give any government an easy option for collecting more tax, otherwise they will, and what they have in abundance, they are less likely to spend wisely.

Ageo · 26 August 2010

Re: The Greens - The New Radical Socialists

I love when i hear people say we need more tax to be able to do more things..... What a load of crap, learn how to manage money 1st before blowing it. I reckon if you went through the whole system and cleaned it up you would find millions upon millions of dollars being misused.

Politician perks is 1 thing i would look at hard..... 1 MP Joe Tripodi (who was my local federal MP before) had racked up over 400k worth of travel in 1 yr! how someone achieves that is beyond me, now times that sorta crap through 95% of every polly in Aus and you would get the picture.

Problem is most polly's think they deserve those perks etc... so all they will expect is more tax to get something done.

They should have a reward for effort program and the people to be the judge for pay increases.....

noco · 26 August 2010

Re: The Greens - The New Radical Socialists

Ageo said:
I love when i hear people say we need more tax to be able to do more things..... What a load of crap, learn how to manage money 1st before blowing it. I reckon if you went through the whole system and cleaned it up you would find millions upon millions of dollars being misused.

Politician perks is 1 thing i would look at hard..... 1 MP Joe Tripodi (who was my local federal MP before) had racked up over 400k worth of travel in 1 yr! how someone achieves that is beyond me, now times that sorta crap through 95% of every polly in Aus and you would get the picture.

Problem is most polly's think they deserve those perks etc... so all they will expect is more tax to get something done.

They should have a reward for effort program and the people to be the judge for pay increases.....

You are so right. There must be heaps of savings at all levels of Government. The problem is, it is not their money, so the average bureaucrat could not care less.

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