Listened to Hack tonight and learnt a few things. 1) Apparently because we live in Australia that means there shouldn't be anyone who's homeless 2) there's a simple solution to homelessness. Get a job. and 3) Someone earning $100k a year isn't rich.

Point 1 wouldn't be too hard to achieve (to a certain point, there will always be the xyz % who are on drugs, mental problems or w/e and can't be on their own) if that's what we really wanted to happen. Problem is you'd get the negative gearing, baby boomer property junkies having a sook about not having a 'free market' to gouge rents on. 2 is stupid, because unemployment will always exist. 3 is just stupidity. 100k is more than enough for even a big family as long as you aren't spending it on pointless crap.

If that is true, then why did they say that they'd do the exact opposite before the election? Are you suggesting Abbot only found out about the level of netional debt after the election?

Should also mention those points are from someone who also believes that we shouldn't compare ourselves to other developed countries because there's no point, and also believes we should be spending nothing on the environment because, and I quote, "There's more important things".

That happens every where . It says a lot about our society . As people think being homeless is a choice .

All politicians break promises...both Labor and Liberal. Abbott realises what needed to be done to get in. I was quite sure anyway he was going to resort to the budget cuts that the Liberals are renown for. I don't like it anymore than you do, but this does all go back to when Rudd was handing $900 to everybody like it was monopoly money. Money that was ill spent by Labor. I don't rate either party...I was a big fan of Hawke / Keating back in the day...but this current Labor party have no idea how to run a country.

Swan and Gillard looked like absolute dunces when they promised a surplus and couldn't deliver it.
No one pointed a gun at their heads to make that promise yet they had to somehow try to make themselves look economically responsible but in the end looked like complete idiots.

Tony Abbott's trust deficit: has the PM underestimated the Australian people?


The Coalition is trying to sell a budget with contradictory internal logic which also spectacularly breaches faith with the electorate

Lenore Taylor, political editor


theguardian.com, Friday 16 May 2014 19.43 AEST   


Paul Keating underestimated John Howard. John Howard underestimated Kevin Rudd. Kevin Rudd certainly underestimated Tony Abbott. It’s not clear whether Tony Abbott has underestimated Bill Shorten. But he may have underestimated the extent to which Australians value affordable healthcare and education, and a social safety net they can rely on. Not to mention the extent to which they value truthful politicians.


At the same time Abbott may have overestimated his own formidable skills as a political campaigner as he tries to sell a budget with contradictory internal logic which also breaches faith with the electorate just as spectacularly as Kevin Rudd did when he shelved his emissions trading scheme.


That the Coalition may have underestimated Labor’s ability to reap political capital from the budget is understandable. While the government has been faring poorly in opinion polls, support has not been shifting to Labor, with voters instead nominating the Greens, “others” or, if it were available, one suspects, “none of the above”. Even Shorten’s colleagues have been fretting that their leader has been sounding hollow, half-hearted, as if he “hasn’t quite switched on yet”.


Shorten’s budget speech in reply was his best performance yet. It should have been. Given the budget’s content, he was shooting at an open goal. But the speech had resonance because it channelled the shock many Australians were feeling at the deep ideological shifts suddenly confronting them and because the basic message about inequity is backed by state premiers, doctors, educators, welfare groups and disability groups.


Many of the measures included in the budget were among the least popular of the mooted spending cuts or revenue rises, according to recent polls.


The difficulties the government has created for its own side of the argument are less explicable.


In the lead-up to the budget, the basic narrative seemed clear. The government argued that it needed to cut spending and increase taxation to reduce the deficit and pay down debt over time. The “pain” would be shared and the “gain” would be budget “repair”.


But people never really bought the idea of an immediate crisis, despite the government’s best efforts.


In a recent Essential poll, 56% said “cost of living” was their most concerning economic issue. Only 6% nominated the budget deficit and a tiny 5% were most concerned about the national debt. That makes it harder for the government to say that by blocking budget measures Labor is “in denial” about the “debt and deficit disaster”.


And the budget pain was not shared. It clearly hit the disadvantaged hardest, and much of the money was not directed at improving the bottom line, but rather at different priorities such as building roads and setting up a new medical research fund to try to find a cure for cancer and other diseases. “What?” you could almost hear from lounge rooms around Australia. “We’ve got a crisis so bad I have to pay more for a whole bunch of things but we can somehow find $20bn to cure cancer?”


The budget also breaks pre-election promises on almost every front. The only thing more likely to offend voters than obvious multiple broken promises is the government’s attempt to argue that it hasn’t broken any.


For example, arguing that somehow Abbott’s endlessly repeated “no new taxes” promise has been kept because the “overall impact of revenue measures” is $5.7bn lower” is cold comfort to people contemplating the very specific impact of revenue measures such as a deficit tax, a Medicare co-payment or a fuel tax hike, which will definitely be “higher” for them.


(The “overall impact” figure is calculated by looking only at the impact of specific government decisions and including the abolition of the carbon and mining taxes, which were in last year’s mid-year economic statement. But the “overall impact of revenue decisions” taken in this budget alone is a $5.5bn increase, and revenue as a percentage of GDP is also forecast to increase every year until 2018.)


It’s also tricky. Ripping $80bn out of forecast funding for the states so that the premiers are forced to make the public case for an increase in the goods and services tax, or another tax, is like a big kid pushing the little kids out to do their dirty work, and given how mad the premiers are, it is also likely to be seen that way.


The government’s strategy is clearly based on a deep confidence that it has time, that it won’t be forced back to the polls by a recalcitrant Senate, that it will have years to reach a rapprochement with the angry states and that it will bring down two more budgets before it has to face the voters.


Its immediate tactic seems to be to legislate the budget in two tranches. It has already quietly introduced the appropriations bills and the legislation for the deficit tax or “temporary budget repair levy”.


With the Greens likely to vote for the fuel tax rise and Labor for the deficit levy, this means key elements will have been passed before the new Senate sits, and the Palmer United party won’t get anywhere near a decision on supply. Many of the other budget measures do not take effect for some time and do not need to be legislated with the same urgency, giving the prime minister time to develop new skills in parliamentary negotiation.


The tactics may avert a parliamentary crisis.


The challenge for the government is to avert a crisis of confidence in the electorate about what it is doing, and why. It may or may not have underestimated Bill Shorten and the Labor party, but it may well have underestimated the Australian people.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/16/tony-abbotts-trust-deficit

:lol:

One of my friends friends was having a go at rich people.

Summary:

1) if you earn over 100k you're greedy (lets not talk about risk and hard work, 100k and you're greedy). Solid

2) alcoholics should get disability pension because their life sucks and they shouldn't have to live normal life ever because their childhood was 'possibly' screwed up.

3) people earning over 80k should pay 50% income tax.

People like her make me hate left wingers (she was self identified as a leftie) so so much more.

I think once the MYEFO was released it was clear the revenue projectors were way off and were revised based on more realistic numbers which revealed the deficit was going to be worse than at Labor was reporting. Remember labor were projecting a surplus and we ended up with a $60 billion deficit, which would make a future surplus impossible unless savage cuts were implemented, compared to say the $11, $13 then $18 then $30 billion adjustment leading up to the election. So it's obvious the deterioration kept getting worse and Abbotts election platform of trust, no new taxes etc wasn't going to stand up to the budget mess they inherited. I think had the deficit been closer to what labor was reporting rather than a complete blow out then we definitely wouldn't have seen the debt levy, but clearly the debt mess was leveraged to justify cuts to things like newstart and aged pension sooner rather than later.

It's funny because once/if she starts to earn over $100k she will raise the greed threshold, to say those earning $200k. Then she will justify in her brain that paying 37% tax is fair and only "greedy $200k" earners should pay 50%. People like that just shift the goalposts whenever it's convenient so they never to hold themselves accountable to their own moral standards. You should point out to her that anyone who owns a smartphone and flatscreen TV is a greedy cxnt when there are millions of starving kids in Africa dying to be fed. The lefties are just as superficial, greedy and selfish as anyone , they just don't realise it.

Trust me, she is one of the people you look at and go "you're like 30, it's time to get past dressing like a goth and get a real job."

Thats the problem with communism...the lefties live in their own world thinking everyone should be equal but they don't seem to have a problem with a leftie government living like princes whilst the plebs below live like paupers.

The Global Financial Crisis was the Australian Labor Party's fault, got it.

I wasn't referring to the GFC. I think you're missing the point. They spent money when they didn't need to. Our economy was already in good shape.

This was Julia Gillard's house during her term:



It's in Altona, near where I live in Melbourne.

They have a problem with wealth not being equal but seem to think doctors and engineers should work for peanuts and distribute their wealth. What crap, they slave away at uni and then accept risk their entire life. That's why they get paid more.

Keep raging against that straw man, bud.

As the old saying goes, some are more equal than others.

And this is her other house in Adelaide.



Look we can agree to disagree. I have friends that are of the left persuasion and thats the beauty of a democracy....we can have difference of opinion.

I do find this point interesting. $100K P.A is no doubt a good wage and you can survive comfortably if you're sensible. However, a single income household earning $100K is much worse off tax wise compared to a dual income household earning $50K each yet they would be deemed battlers...



Edited by mcjules: 16/5/2014 09:47:43 PM

I agree. But having said that Ive just come out of hospital for an operation I believe nurses are grossly underpaid for the work they do and they should be paid much more than they are now. Nurses also go to uni but paid buggerall . Police as well ...they have high risk and do a great service for the community...they too are underpaid.

As for welfare, its really tough issue. Australia is one of the highest taxing nations in the world, hence we can afford a welfare system. But some people need it because its just so hard to get a full-time job in Australia. There was a period many years ago I was only working part time and applying for full time jobs every day. Some people don't realise how hard it is.

However the flip side is high taxes drives investment out of Australia because small business find it impossible to operate hence they move offshore...which means jobs go out the window.

Some people may have had a real bad childhood or lived as orphans , being abused ,etc so that sort of thing would affect them and Im all for them receiving benefits to help them recover. But I don't like people who abuse the system ...like the ones that go for a surf everyday or claim a disability pension when there is nothing wrong with them.

The problem I have with the system is that you only have to work 1 hour a week to be classed as employed, which is not a true reflection of the state of the nation's employment.


Edited by SocaWho: 16/5/2014 09:57:13 PM

The market determines your worth, that's why teachers get paid peanuts (because literally almost anyone could become one) while doctors/engineers get paid more because it requires hard work, time and effort.

Theres a real oversupply at the moment of teachers...and many graduates are out of work or only working casually.

There will always be demand for doctors though....as health and disease will never go away.

It's a nice house, with a pool. Speaking as a leftie, she's eared it, like a doctor or an engineer.

Having worked in software since the dot com bubble, when it burst and beyond. Your salary as a professional is entirely market driven. Just because you slaved away at uni and accept risk does not guarantee you a better salary.

Teaching jobs are based on awards so salaries are less affected by the market.

True. Education does not guarantee nothing.

Just ask someone who has done an Arts degree....they will tell you.

I wonder if any "lefties" on here genuinely are communist...I doubt it :lol:

How can you justify that kind of profligacy when there are homeless people on the street? So much for a "fair go".

This is a very interesting point, and is currently something I am experiencing now my wife is on maternity leave and our single income is paying off the mortgage alone. We are certainly by no means poor, but it is intersting that I pay more tax than a dual couple on 50k each. :-k