Agreed

I agree, better for them to pass the budget policies they agree with (e.g. debt levy) and block the things they don't (like the medicare co-payment, no dole for the under 30s etc). Give the Libs just enough no noose to hang themselves. The Libs cannot get their policies through by calling a DD, even if they hold government we'll probably end up with more PUP and Greens senators.

Can't see them getting rid of Shorten either unfortunately, that perception of leadership instability is too strong. He never should have won the leadership in the first place and shows (as imonfourfourtwo commented) they really need to keep reforming the party.

Yep, changing to their third leader in under 12 or so months is not a good look.

Even if he isn't the right man for the job, Labour as a whole just need to stick it out and him/them will fail on their current ideology (or lack thereof) as simply being anti-Liberal/Coalition isn't really good enough.

-PB

For those who like their visual aides.

On this budget caper I find it bizarre that there's no access to the dole for 6 months if you're under 30. I'm not exactly sure what you are supposed to live on if, for example, you're a 28 year old bloke with a mortgage, a wife and kids if you've just been sacked.

According to Joe you either need to be earning or learning.

Apparently you can get made redundant one day and walk into a TAFE the next day and say I want to start course XYZ today. More than likely they'll say come back in 2 or 3 months time when the course starts.

And even if you were arsey enough to be sacked and then start a new training course within a week just exactly what are you supposed to buy food with for your family? Textbooks?

I understand they want to change the mindset of young folk who apparently think they'll just go onto benefits as a starting point but I'm thinking this new proposal is a bit harsh.

Spoken by someone who probably has a HECS debt and on his 3rd degree...
I have a Commerce/Economics degree so you really should have done your homework before hand, but knowing you as someone who's only capable of a stringing a few sentences together and not having a long attention span, you should really be going back to study matriculation with the tee toddlers.

Edited by SocaWho: 19/5/2014 09:15:48 AM

And this is the exact scenario that played out in my head when I heard about the Earn or Learn scheme.

It's not that simple to just waltz into tertiary education like that and what pays the bills in the meantime?

Throw in any form of changes to Fairwork and you have some very real volatile situations becoming a reality.

Eg be working at your job, middle management has it in for you and just doesn't like you. Gets you fired for some bullshit reasoning, no recourse due to changes to Fairwork, now without a job and on a 6 month wait for assistance at the very minimum. Try to apply for new jobs, can't use previous management as reference due to arseholeness, most employers would back previous employers word over employees. You are now in a world of shit.

Very hypothetical of course, but a very real situation of Tone ever decided to truly mess with Fairwork like he said he would.

-PB

At a university jobs info night a few months ago, I was told that the average time spent unemployed by new university graduates at the moment from my university (one of the Group of 8) is as high as 6 months.

I 'm finishing off my masters and it took me about 5 months to get mere casual work in my chosen field after I became eligible to work - this after countless job applications and interviews, and a period on Newstart.

It is no picnic out there for graduates. I'm lucky that I'm living with my partner right now. If the new rules had been underway a few months ago, I wouldn't have been able to pay the rent or any of my living expenses, and I'd be moving back in with my parents.

Think about country kids who've moved to the city to do their degree - plenty of them can't move back home when they are looking for work in the city (and can't get Newstart). Or poor kids, or kids who come from broken homes, who have no home to go back to. They're going to be either crashing on people's couches, or they'll be on the street.

These are the kids who are going to get fucked over the hardest - people who actually want to work and are looking, not the lazy dole bludgers and drug addicts, who will continue to do what they do (or they'll turn to crime). It's like using a sledgehammer when a scalpel is needed.

Bill Shorten had it spot on when he said this: "We will never support the conscious development of an underclass". That's what most of these cuts and regressive tax increases do.


Edited by lastbroadcast: 19/5/2014 09:40:11 AM

Yeah I have a HECS debt and a dual degree, Commerce/Information Technology majoring in Financial Accounting however for someone of your apparent education level you seem to lack a lot of it.

As noted before, back to AF and burn ya jerseys m8.

-PB

I don't think its hypothetical at all. It's a very real scenario that is getting played out every day. (Happened to me last year. I'm well over 30 though and had savings to fall back on and a wife who works.)

There would be young blokes and sheilas that could go home and sponge off their parents but as in the above example what's ol' mate with the mortgage and kids supposed to do?

He's pretty much fucked.

My fiance has a Environmental Engineering/Zoology dual degree and has been in the same boat for the past 12+ months hence why she took a job at the Hospital instead.

-PB

How's the pay at Macca's by the way?

That's fair enough - but it's not an option for everyone.

The other thing about Newstart is that it's an activity based payment - ie you have to be either looking for work (through job applications) or actually getting work (eg temp or casual) to get the payment. It's not like you get money for nothing. The payment is designed to give support for job seekers, not something to just sit on. If you just sit on it and don't lift a finger, it gets cut off.

The change means for people under 30, there will be no Newstart support for people in the first six months, regardless of whether they are looking for a job or not, and nor will there be any newstart support for anyone under 25 at all - which also means that people with low skills won't get referrals to job seeker organisations or skills providers. It's actually a really bad policy.

Edited by lastbroadcast: 19/5/2014 09:44:57 AM

Edited by lastbroadcast: 19/5/2014 09:47:53 AM

Sad world when Conroy is the voice of reason :lol:

[youtube]FqeHXxaIgIc[/youtube]

-PB

On another matter, here is mmy core objection to the budget - yes, we have a deficit to make up, but who's paying for it?

The idea that "we're all in this together" is bullshit. For the past nine years there has been a table in the budget that shows the net impacts on people from a variety of income levels and demographics. In the current budget, Joe Hockey removed that table so we couldn't see it. Why? because it would have revealed very quickly that the burden is not being shared at all.

When you think about it - corporations won't have to pay the mining tax or the carbon tax, and there's a small cut to the company tax rate. This is partly offset by the Paid Parental leave levy for some businesses. So overall, there's no change, or even a slight cut.

Wealthy income earners will only have to pay a temporary income tax levy of 2%, not a permanent one. Almost all other tax concessions that benefit the rich (eg negative gearing, superannuation) have not been touched.

The introduction of user-pays charges, and the fuel excise increase (and a potential GST increase) are all regressive taxes that hit the poor the hardest, and in conjunction with the benefit cuts, which also hit the poorest, the poor get absolutely fucked over. In fact, some people will lose as much as 10% of their income:

http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/missing-figures-show-poor-are-hit-20140518-38i05.html

You really don't have any idea do you.

Regarding the 6 months no pay for under 30s the Libs expect you to do one of the following:
1. Get your father to give you a job in his law/accountancy firm
2. Get any job you can find because employers love hiring people they know are going to leave as soon as they get a better paying job they're actually qualified for...

in other words, you only want to do the work you like to do
welcome to the real world

You mean in other words that are completely different and don't match the meaning of what I wrote at all?

I'm over 30 so this doesn't apply to me but I'll take any job I can find to support my family. Thinking back to my late 20s, I'd already been working in IT for 5+ years and was on a pretty decent salary. I wonder how many employers would be interested in hiring someone like that to do unskilled work when they can hire others who won't move on any time from 1 week to 6 months after they're hired? How about ones that require at least some on the job training like in retail?

Fortunately I've never (touch wood) required New Start but I can see plenty of scenarios where it's possible that I could.

you dont tell the employer you're going to leave in 6 months. only an idiot would do that.

You don't need to, it's pretty easy to work out. Welcome to the real world pal.

Australia already has one of the highest company tax rates in the world, much higher than many "socialist" countries like Sweden and Norway. It might be populist to want to cut company tax but cutting the investment side of the economy, the one which actually yields GDP growth (and pays for services like Medicare), at the same time we have declining terms of trade and falling commodity prices is dumb. It's clear corporations are already doing their fair share of the heavy lifting by paying 30% in tax compared to say someone on the dole or disability pension who merely absorbs taxes and pays no taxes.



Again the levy puts Australia's taxes at one of, if not the highest in the world for high income earners. It's obvious in additional to paying 49% of their earnings in tax and paying $2,700 minimum for the medicare levy , the rich are doing their fair share of the heavy lifting compared to the unemployed and disabled who pay 0% tax and pay nothing towards the services they depend on.



No one is getting fu_cked over. These people are keeping their carbon tax compensation and the disabled are getting NDIS. The poor who are capable of working can go out and get jobs rather than fretting about whether they can afford the 20c per day (at worst) to go and see a GP. These people get tens of thousands of dollars every year in taxpayer subsidies and transfer payments, it's hardly pernicious that they should contribute a mere 20c every day (at worst) to help build the healthcare system. In fact Labor themselves introduced a co payment in 1989 under Hawke ($3.50 back then indexed to CPI would be rough $7 in todays terms, so there is nothing wicked and pernicious about co payments, even by Labor standards.

The hysteria about the budget is just designed to scare people into thinking without Labor this will be the end of welfare and guilt people into opposing these measures by manipulating ideas like fairness and equality to achieve a political outcome. I wouldn't normally have a problem with this strategy but it's clear Labor have no plans to reduce the budget deficit and fix the fiscal mess they created.

its not easy to work out unless the employee is doing everything half arsed and telling everyone where they'd rather be
if you make it that obvious then you deserve to be unemployed and dont cry to me or about the government

Dunno why I took you off my ignore list. I'd be surprised if you've ever worked for someone you didn't already know (like a relative or a friend of theirs) let alone actually been involved in employing someone.

wrong on both counts
you ignore anything you dont agree with. not really a student of life are you.

Wrong on both counts. The world would be very boring without different opinions but there are some people I disagree with that at least have some understanding of how the world works. You and most recently Socawho do not fall into that category.

Last reply to you. Best of luck trolling someone else.

The top marginal rate of tax doesn't cut in until you earn over $180 000.

Excluding the medicare levy and the debt levy for ease of calculations consider this.

Someone earning bang on $180k pays an average tax on their income of 30% (or $54 550 of the $180 000).

Someone earning $200k pays an average tax on their income of 32% (or $63 550 of the $200 000).

Someone earning $300k pays an average tax on their income of 36% (or $108 550 of the $300 000).

Australians need to get away from this perception that we are massively overtaxed. Here's a thought, perhaps, if we want well-funded services we may need to pay.... drumroll please.............more tax.

https://www.ato.gov.au/Rates/Individual-income-tax-rates/

Phew... my socialist senses are tingling after that.

According to Tony's debt levy that may be introduced someone on $200k a year will pay an additional $10 per week a year for 3 years.

I hope they don't put their backs out with all that heavy lifting they're doing.



Edited by munrubenmuz: 19/5/2014 01:46:07 PM

Oh shucks, The Enlightened one speaks and knows everything and how the world works. :roll:

I know this would apply with big business...why don't you ask someone who works in the Mining Sector what they think of the Mining Tax.

The tax didn't collect any money REMEMBER?