Gotta love Keating . He is gold .

Yeah that "the recession we had to have" line was a screamer.
Given that he presided over the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression and debt since WW2 I wouldn't say he is Gold, rather bronze or copper.

Edited by rusty: 11/5/2014 11:16:03 AM

Isn't Howard the same bloke who smashed him at the 1996 election?

i'd go with mold

Yeah but he had good lines though and uses big words like 'obscurantist ' bestest pm evrr

he lead the true believers a merry dance with his empty rhetoric.
the joke was on them at the end of the day.

Cuts, but Hockey also plans roads and jobs

DateMay 11, 2014 - 1:36PM

Colin Brinsden, AAP Economics Correspondent


After weeks of being flayed for the potential nasties in Tuesday's budget, Joe Hockey has tried to cool concerns with a plan to boost jobs.

The treasurer's first budget will contain a six-year road building plan in excess of $80 billion, which Mr Hockey believes will create tens of thousands of jobs and prevent unemployment hitting the 6.25 per cent rate predicted by the previous Labor government.

"We are going to do everything we can to make sure we never get there," he told Channel Nine on Sunday.

He also confirmed that Prime Minister Tony Abbott had written to the Independent Remuneration Tribunal to freeze the salaries of politicians and senior public servants for a year.

It means they'll miss out on a 2.4 per cent increase while also paying a new deficit levy on all high income earners.

"We've got to send a very clear message to the electorate that whatever we are asking the electorate to contribute to the budget repair task, we are going to contribute ourselves as well," Mr Hockey said.

His comments came as a new opinion poll showed Labor being backed by an election-winning 54 per cent of voters, against 46 per cent for the coalition.

People are strongly opposed to key budget measures that include lifting the pension age to 70 and a co-payment for doctor visits.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said the quality of health care shouldn't depend on someone's credit card, and he flagged that Labor wouldn't make life easy for the government.

"We see no point in a petrol tax, a GP tax, a hospital tax," he told reporters in Melbourne.

"We think it takes Australia down a very sick and sorry path where some Australians will not get the medical care they need because Tony Abbott is putting pressure on their budgets and on their cost of living."

Government frontbencher Jamie Briggs has conceded it will be a "very difficult" budget to sell to both the general public and to get through the parliament.

"We didn't create this mess but we are going to take the responsibility to fix it," the assistant infrastructure minister told Sky News.

Mr Hockey refuses to accept that initiatives - in what he is calling his "contribute and build" budget - would be breaking an election promise.

Some initiatives include a deficit levy on high income earners and an increased fuel excise but Mr Hockey said: "We never said we were going to never change a tax or alter a tax".

He said if the government went down the road of raising fuel excise, which has been frozen since 2001, the revenue would go into roads.

The commonwealth would contribute in excess of $40 billion to its roads plan, which Mr Hockey said would be matched by the states and the private sector.

He said the budget would be fixed in a structural manner, but at the same time stimulate economic growth and address the significant drop off in mining investment.

"Everything we are doing on Tuesday night is going to be about jobs and about prosperity," Mr Hockey said.

Read more: http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/cuts-but-hockey-also-plans-roads-and-jobs-20140511-383e9.html#ixzz31NrMjI6J

Senior public servants to escape Prime Minister's pay freeze

DateMay 11, 2014 - 3:59PM
Markus Mannheim

Almost all senior public servants will escape the Abbott's government's decision to freeze the pay of top bureaucrats.

Treasurer Joe Hockey said on Sunday that "MPs and senior public servants" would not receive salary rises, so as to help the government save money.

He said Prime Minister Tony Abbott had written to the Remuneration Tribunal to request the freeze, and he expected the tribunal to agree "in due course".

However, the proposal will only affect 24 officers, each of whom recently received their largest-ever pay rise.

The bureaucracy's 2750 senior executives will be exempt from the freeze, as the tribunal has no authority to set their salaries.

Nor will the freeze affect the several hundred office holders - such as agency heads and other executives in statutory roles - whose pay the tribunal does determine.

Mr Hockey's spokeswoman confirmed the freeze would only include the 18 federal departmental secretaries, the five heads of the Defence Force and Public Service Commissioner Stephen Sedgwick.

The tribunal recently awarded what it described as "significant increases" in pay to the 24 top-ranking public servants and military officers, after independent reviews found they were drastically underpaid compared with executives with similar responsibilities in the private sector.

The typical departmental secretary's total salary package was $539,580 two years ago, but will reach $716,800 in July this year after a series of "catch-up" increases.

Similarly, the head of the Defence Force's remuneration package was $539,580 at the beginning of 2012 and will reach $798,720 in July.
The Canberra Times is seeking informed commentary on the public service. Email ps@canberratimes.com.au for details.

While the pay freezes will have a negligible effect on the budget, the Treasurer indicated they were symbolically important.

"I think we have got to send a clear message to the electorate that, whatever we are asking the electorate to contribute to the budget repair task, we are going to contribute ourselves as well," Mr Hockey said.

He did not say how long the proposed freeze on politicians and top public servants' pay would last.

The government is presently negotiating a new wage deal for about 165,000 public servants. It has warned them to expect a salary rise of as low as 1.5 per cent a year, and only then if they can find savings to pay for it.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/public-service/senior-public-servants-to-escape-prime-ministers-pay-freeze-20140511-zr9gf.html#ixzz31NtSYqtF

Has this government compromised the most sacred process of all, the budget?

DateMay 9, 2014 CategoryOpinion

Ryan Edwards

The 2014-15 federal budget is significantly more important to the standing of this government than past budgets were to its predecessors. By using a record number of processes, reviews and white papers as the basis for its policy agenda and legitimacy, the budget is an important proxy for the integrity of all the other review-style processes underway and the government’s broader agenda.

A budget with accurate economic forecasts, transparent assumptions and well-considered measures will signal credibility and build public trust in the government’s reviews and agenda. A budget with contested economic statistics and forecasts, dubious assumptions and ad-hoc measures will do the opposite.

Fortunately the pre-election fiscal outlook (PEFO) and public economic forecasts by other institutions allow easy assessment of the budget’s fiscal and economic claims and whether anyone is "cooking the books". However, the National Commission of Audit’s release and its possible prominence in the budget raise other concerns about the processes through which public policies are being designed and implemented. The "independence" and "expertise" of such panels are easily assessed by looking at their qualifications and who they represent. How these political processes interact with traditionally "purer" public sector ones is more difficult to scrutinise and hold the government to account on.


Like most before it, the Liberal-National government has repeatedly committed to incrementalism, doing what it promised, and following good process, to the extent that it has been labelled a “process addiction”, with up to 100 reviews currently under review. Good public-sector processes usually lead to things being done better: better advice, better decisions, better policies, better programs and better outcomes for society. Bad process is, at best, none other than inefficiency, waste, and “red tape”. At worst, bad process can also be used to mislead the public and provide a veil of legitimacy for rent-seekers.

Amidst all these white papers and reviews, the most sacred Australian government process is the budget. With the relatively high costs of pursuing freedom of information provisions, the budget is the best proxy available to evaluate the credibility and integrity of all these reviews and the bases for this government’s agenda. It’s also a rather conservative proxy as the Australian Public Service is a known stickler for process and the whole-of-government budget process should be less susceptible to political capture.

Although often referred to elusively in media conferences by the Treasurer, Finance Minister and other government representatives, not much is known about the budget process outside of government. The Department of Finance and the Treasury websites give away little. Fortunately a gem of a paper from the OECD back in 2008, titled “Budgeting in Australia”, provides a useful introduction.

The Expenditure Review Committee of Cabinet (ERC) was tasked with making the most of the government’s expenditure decisions in the budget process. “Professional civil servant” views were provided to ERC to inform their decisions and these were not necessarily the views of their ministers.

Being forced to hear such advice is unambiguously a good thing, regardless of whether it is acted upon. After all the ERC meetings, the complete set of ERC decisions were discussed by the full cabinet in April at “Budget Cabinet”, with supporting, impartial public service advice from all different departments and agencies on the competing proposals. From the perspective of good public administration, the importance of “Budget Cabinet” is a clear contrast to what comes after: the “ad hoc revenue committee” and the “hunting licence”, which was “issued to senior ministers to settle final details of the budget”. An excerpt from the OECD paper:

“In recent years – up to the 2007/08 budget – the “hunting licence” has involved senior ministers deciding on major tax cuts, tax expenditures and other “big ticket” expenditure items in light of the latest surplus estimates. These initiatives are developed in close confidence and are often used as the main headlines of the budget. In recent years, the proposals agreed in this stage, at the end of the budget preparation process, have been very substantial – in fact, similar in size to those approved during the entire ERC process. However, this was not the case in the 2008/09 budget and it remains to be seen whether the hunting licence will become part of the new government’s budget processes.”

The dates above imply that the “hunting licence” and “ad-hoc revenue committee” may have been bipartisan processes and standard practice up to at least 2008.

But some things are very different about the 2014-15 Budget.

The National Commission of Audit was symbolically released to the public on May Day 2014, less than a fortnight from budget night. It is reported to have remained a "secret" to Treasury until late as mid-April. While such commissions are a common feature of new conservative governments, whether this particular one is just a staging exercise or whether the government has actually outsourced its key policies to unelected comrades will be determined on budget night.

If the budget turns out to be Tony Shepherd's Christmas wish-list granted early, we have much larger governance problems on our hands. We could then be forgiven for questioning the motives, integrity and public value of the dozens of other sector-specific reviews underway, for example on agriculture, northern Australia, renewables, defence and industry.

If processes remain similar to those described in the 2008 OECD paper, good process would involve all significant budget measures taken from the audit commission being considered by “Budget Cabinet” and making the most of the public service’s review processes and expertise. With Cabinet meeting less than a week out from budget night, the entire 2014-15 budget and the wishes of the audit commission may have been subject to the usual public sector review. The “hunting licence” and “ad-hoc revenue committee” may be relics of the past. If this is so, the government deserves to be commended and has laid a firm foundation to move forward.

However, if signature items such as the “debt levy” are only being agreed in principle with details being withheld from ministers, this appears unlikely. If major budget decisions are still being made this late in the game or have escaped the rigorous Cabinet process, the public’s trust in the dozens of other reviews now underway and, ultimately, the government’s entire agenda, is at serious risk.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/has-this-government-compromised-the-most-sacred-process-of-all-the-budget-20140509-zr7lu.html#ixzz31NzHFwx5

Bring forth the cigars and Bollingers.

-PB

You know that someone is completely incapable of rational discussion when they dismiss Paul Keating. All the Liberals that I know who actually possess any political nous acknowledge him as one of our best Prime Ministers and Treasurers. The fact he is also an entertainer is secondary to his ability.

Just to remind you the Libs aren't scrapping those programs, they're not cutting them altogether. They're just making them more sustainable. And we need shiny new planes because the old fokkers and boomerangs don't cut the mustard anymore.

Australia does not need a Tea Party

America’s Tea Party might be excited to see that its tactics are being replicated as far away as Australia. Australian voters shouldn’t be.

None other than failed U.S. presidential candidate Rick Santorum has congratulated Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott for his scaremongering about government debt. Santorum calls Abbott a “hard-liner” ― high praise indeed ― who is forcing his conservative vision on a nation that doesn’t know what’s good for it. Yet the more Abbott and his team indulge in Tea Party tactics, the more they’re imperiling the future of one of the developed world’s few bright spots.

For the record, Australia is nowhere near reaching the fiscal emergency that Abbott and Treasurer Joe Hockey have recently been hyping. Gross national debt was just 28.8 percent of gross domestic product in 2013, the smallest outside of Estonia among advanced economies. That compares with 105 percent for the U.S. and 243 percent for Japan. Australia remains the only developed economy that’s avoided a recession for more than 20 years; it’s currently growing at a rate of 2.8 percent. There’s absolutely no reason for Abbott and Hockey to treat Australia’s balance sheet like a national scandal.

The real scandal is the government’s attempt to concoct a fake budget crisis, all in order to attack programs they dislike on partisan grounds, including unemployment benefits, assistance for the poor and single mothers, and Medicare-like programs for the elderly and disabled. This austerity push isn’t just mean and unnecessary ― it’s self-defeating. It will starve Australia of the vital investments in education, training and infrastructure the country needs if it’s to diversify its economy and thrive in the decades ahead.

Granted, Abbott doesn’t entirely fit the Tea Party mold. His drive to impose a temporary levy on high-income earners defies Grover Norquist’s fatwa on all new taxes. But even this seems like a device to give Abbott political cover to “starve the beast,” in Ronald Reagan’s words. The same goes for Abbott’s trial balloons about spending a bit more on infrastructure. Such gestures are intended to head off charges that the government is intent on punishing society’s weakest links.

When Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz warned about a “crisis Down Under” in August 2010, he was arguing against precisely this sort of “deficit fetishism.” That was back when Julia Gillard was in power, a leader Abbott blamed for running up the debt. Once Abbott finally deposed Gillard’s Labor Party last September, he eagerly stepped into the very trap Stiglitz had highlighted.

China is much more of a candidate for a debt crisis than Australia is. That’s what should really worry Abbott: Resource-rich Australia remains as big and dangerous a bet on Beijing’s 7.4 percent growth as you’ll find.

Canberra needs to devise ways to make the economy more than just a giant filling station for the Chinese economy. Instead of cutting back on spending, the government needs to be ramping up investments in technology and training to increase innovation and productivity; broadening Internet connectivity; and financing new rail and highway systems. It must combat the forces of climate change, which have increased the frequency and severity of droughts.

When Gillard, who served as prime minister from 2010 to 2013, began down that road, she was derided as anti-business. Abbott’s first priority was to kill her efforts to shake up education, spread the wealth from Australia’s mining boom, set a price on carbon emissions and empower women. His next seems to be scaring Australians into thinking the biggest thing they have to fear is debt itself.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Instead of channeling Santorum and U.S. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, Abbott should return Canberra to the days of Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, whose combined premiership from 1983 to 1996 transformed the nation from a backwater into the Group of 20 star it is today. Hawke and Keating didn’t manufacture fake crises. They lowered trade barriers, internationalized the financial system and created a pension system that offers security to an aging population.

Australia became the “Lucky Country” less because of luck than foresight and such long-term reforms. That remains a far better model to emulate than Tea Party-style scare tactics.

By William Pesek

William Pesek is a Bloomberg View columnist. ― Ed.

http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20140511000445

Says it all really.....

What? Just more irrational fear mongering about the Tea party..?

Cut the mustard for what exactly?

-PB

Flying around Newcastle looking cool.

We went through the uni cost thing a few pages back. The huge debt caused by university students not paying their HECS is unsustainable. Also going to uni is still easy for the poor. They just have to pay back a bigger debt. Raising tuition costs won't hurt their chances of attending.

As for the environment, lets let Clive Palmer write an environmental management plan :lol:

For the purpose they serve.

That your a copy and paste guru?

I don't think the government is doing anything particularly draconian. If people can't afford to pay $6 to see a GP there is an urgent structural problem with the economy and we need to find ways to put people to work and lower the cost of living rather than fretting about $6. The poor would be in fact richer if they had jobs and for those who can't work there is continued carbon tax compensation.

Personally, I think poor people should just have more money.

Which is?

How often do our fighter jets fight in active conflict?

If they were to actually be used to defend Australian territory, would they even do a decent job against other air forces?

Would the new planes even be able to improve on that answer?

-PB

Not too draconian no, but as other analysts etc have said, there are a lot of things the current regime are doing in terms of cuts/measures that aren't required that will cause more harm then good in the long run.

-PB

Didn't we go over the reason(s) we purchased the planes many pages back?

The answer I got to "why do we need to buy the planes at all" was "it's a requirement to stay an ally of America". From what I took from the answer, 'Murica demands it's allies be up to a certain level in terms of firepower/etc - they want their allies to take wars seriously or they'll just go ahead and not support them. As it is, if we get attacked, America takes it as an attack on themselves, and will defend us. If we're not an ally with America, all we've got is the sirs/madams of Britain to look after us.

If we don't sustain our military levels required to stay aligned with America, the whole reason we followed them into the War on Terror is legitimately for nothing.

Then give your money to them then ...

x2

I think we should have less poor people

It's a diverse world of opinions out there. Some economists still think communism is the best system of government, others laissez faire. The proof of the pudding is in the outcomes not the opinions of those in the soft sciences.

Fighter jets serve a deterrence purpose as much as they do an active attack threat. If we were to wind down our defence forces it would make us very vulnerable to enemies who may be attracted to our resources or want to extend their ideological or geographical footprint.

The history is full of conflicts I'm amazed that anyone thinks we live in a world which doesn't involve the threat of imminent conflict, and that Australia is protected by some impenetrable force field.

Depending of the size of the enemy the new planes definitely would offer a significant threat/ deterrence compared to the current fleet. It would be selfish to depend entirely on America to provide all if our defence capabilities, we all have to chip in and do our share to protect ourselves and our allies. I'm staggered that this program which has strong bipartisan support is being dumbed down by some as "boys toys", it just goes to show the stunning naivety of some people.