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The Daily Abbott

psionl0 said:
If the politicians haven't got their spending priorities right in spite of unbridled borrowing, they are not going to improve their spending priorities by borrowing even more money.
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It's hardly 'unbridled'. WA needs a massive boost in infrastructure to support the boom.

If you want to look at stupid spending, how about the baby bonus. People were encouraged to have babies, but spending on hospitals to support the increasing population is falling way behind demand.
 
a_unique_person said:
It's hardly 'unbridled'. WA needs a massive boost in infrastructure to support the boom.
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If it results in a net profit for the taxpayer then it is a good thing. Otherwise, it is taxpayers subsidizing mining corporations. I haven't got enough information to tell which is which (even including the benefits that the extra employment brings).

Similarly, Abbott's main priority is to encourage his backers - not whether there is a net benefit for the taxpayer.
 
psionl0 said:
If it results in a net profit for the taxpayer then it is a good thing. Otherwise, it is taxpayers subsidizing mining corporations. I haven't got enough information to tell which is which (even including the benefits that the extra employment brings).
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So, first of all we have to determine...

1) Is the investment worthwhile.
2) Is it being done with responsible debt management.
 
a_unique_person said:
So, first of all we have to determine...

1) Is the investment worthwhile.
2) Is it being done with responsible debt management.
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I would also add risk assessment/management (how long can we expect the phenomenal demand from China to continue?) but otherwise we are in agreement. Of course, it goes without saying that what is profitable for the tax payer is also profitable for private enterprise (and less risky for the tax payer).

I see little evidence that the current crop of politicians think this way.
 
While the acting Opposition Leader reinforces his denialist credentials:

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/polit...nge-link-simplistic-truss-20130109-2cfv6.html

In Brisbane on Wednesday, Mr Truss acknowledged the record heatwave, but said Australia's climate was changeable, with hot times and cold times.
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No crap, Sherlock?

''It's too simplistic to link one hot spell to climate change.''
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No Truss, what's simplistic is what's happening between your ears.

The really scary thing is that if, amazingly, Abbott becomes PM, this tool Truss will be his deputy.
 
lionking said:
While the acting Opposition Leader reinforces his denialist credentials:

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/polit...nge-link-simplistic-truss-20130109-2cfv6.html




No crap, Sherlock?



No Truss, what's simplistic is what's happening between your ears.

The really scary thing is that if, amazingly, Abbott becomes PM, this tool Truss will be his deputy.
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He also tried to suggest that bushfires emit more carbon than burning coal, that was wildly misleading, to say the least.

http://theconversation.edu.au/fact-check-do-bushfires-emit-more-carbon-than-burning-coal-11543
 
picture.php
 
He's back from holiday, and what better way to start your election campaign than with anti-scientific lies.

“Isn’t it bizarre that this government thinks that somehow raising the price of electricity is going to clean up our environment, stop bushfires, stop floods, stop droughts? Just think of how much hotter it might have been the other day but for the carbon tax!”

Thus spoke Tony Abbott at the Liberals’ “federal campaign rally” on Sunday in Lidcombe, in Sydney’s west.

Some might quibble with the Leader of the Opposition about his take on the carbon price. Among them, perhaps most prominently, is Abbott himself. After all, in 2009, well before the putsch he led against Malcolm Turnbull, this was his observation:

“If Australia is greatly to reduce its carbon emissions, the price of carbon intensive products should rise.”
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http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/01/29/deconstructing-tony-abbott-and-the-manufacture-of-authenticity/
 
Tony Abbott, protecting the Super entitlements of the wealthy, all set to cut the entitlements of the much more numerous poor.

MORE than 900,000 Victorians would face tax increases under a Tony Abbott-led government, thanks to his pledge to close off the low-income superannuation concession.
Across Australia, 3.6 million people would lose the concession, which reduces to zero the normal 15 per cent rate applied to super contributions.
The concession, which costs the budget about $1 billion annually, was introduced by the government last year and was to be paid for by revenue raised by the mining tax.
It benefits people earning less than $37,000 a year who would otherwise have no concessional advantage from superannuation.
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At its maximum, it is worth $500 annually, but most people get less than that.
The number of people affected by its removal dwarfs those likely to pay more tax if the Gillard government moves, as expected, to increase concessional superannuation rates for the top few per cent of income earners.
Superannuation policy has emerged as a class-war issue between the parties.
Labor accuses Mr Abbott of callously hitting 3.6 million of the poorest taxpayers while opposing changes to curb disproportionate tax advantages for the wealthy.


Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/po...oor-hardest-20130208-2e3wz.html#ixzz2KOjTv4Ly
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Abbott, the man who would happily damage our economy for a vote.

http://www.theage.com.au/business/abbott-partly-to-blame-for-tax-debacle-20130217-2el8q.html

When governments stuff up in a democracy we think the solution is obvious: toss 'em out and give the other lot a go. But if you want a democracy that also delivers good government, it ain't that simple.
For too long, the private partisanship of those who want to see good economic policy lead to good economic outcomes has blinded us to an obvious truth: if you look back at the reform we've implemented, you find almost all of it happened because it had the support of both sides.
It's been too easily forgotten that all the potentially hugely controversial reforms of the Hawke-Keating government - deregulating the financial system, floating the dollar, phasing out protection and moving to enterprise bargaining - were supported by the Coalition.
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After all that, Labor deserves no mercy. But the truth is Tony Abbott also played a part in lumbering the nation with a bad tax.
The case for requiring the miners to pay a higher price for their use of the public's mineral reserves at a time of exceptionally high world prices (even now) is strong. Remembering the miners are largely foreign-owned, a well-designed tax on above-normal profits is a good way to ensure Australians are left with something to show for all the holes in the ground.
Similarly, the argument that a tax on ''economic rent'' (above-normal profit) is more economically efficient than royalty payments based on volume or price is strong, as is the argument that taxing economic rent should have no adverse effect on the level of mining activity. Relative to royalties, quite the reverse.
But Abbott's response was utterly opportunistic. Abbott would have opposed the tax whether it was good, bad or indifferent. He saw an opportunity for a scare campaign and he took it, particularly when it became clear the big three miners were out to defeat the tax by bringing down the government and so would have bankrolled his election campaign.
It was fear of what Abbott would say that prompted Labor to delay the release of the Henry report until it could rule out most of its controversial recommendations. It was the success of Abbott and the miners' joint campaign against the tax that, added to his loss of nerve on the emissions trading scheme, made Rudd vulnerable to his Labor enemies.


Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/business/a...tax-debacle-20130217-2el8q.html#ixzz2LHNCSF00

The irony is that just as Abbott was trashing Labor about a mining tax that would wreck the economy and kill of mining, the WA Liberal Party was increase it's own mining tax, without a single word about it. An opportunistic, bullying wrecker.
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