How about Labors policy to raise the tobacco excise, where is the media furore over that? Data shows the highest consumers of tabacco are low income households, if the $5 gp copayment was going to push millions of Australians into poverty and hardship, imagine what havoc is going to unfold paying hundreds or thousands of dollars extra a year for ciggies.

Just imagine the absolute hysteria that wed be hearing right now if Abbott was out destroy poor people by jacking up the price of cigs. :lol:

The Malaysia solution would've been vastly preferable. So Nauru is not the best answer we have.

Much better than "oh i dont like the current arrangement there has to be better way i have no idea what is though" which is an admission than the current arrangement is the best answer we have.

The Malaysia solution would've been vastly preferable. So Nauru is not the best answer we have.

How about Labors policy to raise the tobacco excise, where is the media furore over that? Data shows the highest consumers of tabacco are low income households, if the $5 gp copayment was going to push millions of Australians into poverty and hardship, imagine what havoc is going to unfold paying hundreds or thousands of dollars extra a year for ciggies.

Just imagine the absolute hysteria that wed be hearing right now if Abbott was out destroy poor people by jacking up the price of cigs. :lol:

Cheaper and more humane but what does that matter when you can act like a dickhead and accuse people of not caring about people drowning?

Nah you are struggling on this point. This is a public health issue. Tobacco has relatively inelastic demand, but ultimately it isn't a staple of life.

Lib and ALP govts have increased tobacco excise previously - it is a relatively bipartisan issue.

If Abbott raised it there would not have been an uproar.

The Malaysia solution was just a political solution because they didn't want to deal with the political fall out and embarrassment of re-introducing the Liberal party pacific solution and admitting they were right all along. They preferred to keep borders open and boats sinking and locking up children than admitting the liberal party policy worked.

Nah you are struggling on this point. This is a public health issue. Tobacco has relatively inelastic demand, but ultimately it isn't a staple of life.

Lib and ALP govts have increased tobacco excise previously - it is a relatively bipartisan issue.

If Abbott raised it there would not have been an uproar.

The fact is increasing the price of cigs is going to mean less money to spend on the "staples of life". People might be able to see a doc for free but will they be able to afford the medications, how will they pay their bills? One of the reasons for the massive backlash to the $5 GP co payment was that some people would not be able afford to see a GP and if forced to pay it, it may tip them over the edge and into abject poverty, homelessness, etc. Of course this was all just hysterics confected to provoke fear outrage and defeat the policy, and it worked. $5 to see a GP isn't a lot of money, if that was going to have such a deleterious impact on those on low incomes imagine how much worse off they will be once the excise kicks in. I also wonder if increasing the price of cigs is going to have a corresponding impact on the purchase of medicine and whether this is going to contribute to people sicker and adding more expense to our public health system? Why are the doctors silent on this? Oh I see, there incomes aren't directly affected.

Of course the real issue here isn't the pretend concern for people on low incomes, people don't really care if poor people can't afford medicine, doctors or cigarettes, the the real issue is how dare the Liberal party in any way tamper Labor's monopoly right, ownership and sole guardianship to the healthcare system.

They didn't want to re-introduce the policy because it's cruel and inhumane and some factions of the party wanted something better. Ultimately they did pretty much everything the Liberal party did except boat turnbacks and give the border security mob fancy uniforms and try and give it a military feel. Numbers were already on the decline before the Libs got in.

Anyway we've done this at least 10 times since 2007, if "Stop the Boats" and "Axe the tax" is the best you can come up with for this term of government it shows how incompetent they've really been. #putLibsLast

Not sure what the underlying argument is here but just want to add 2c

Cigarette tax increases forced my wife into quitting for good. We could afford her habit but she realized she was throwing money away. This is one of the reasons the tax is in place - to discourage smokers.

2ndly Health care should be free. end of/

2ndly Health care should be free. end of/

Cruel and inhumane? What's more cruel and inhumane than luring people out of their life savings and to the their deaths on leaky boats, and locking up their kids in detention? The greens and the labor party are the chief connoisseurs of cruelty and inhumanity, their policies often achieve the exact opposite. And if they were so cruel and inhumane why did they re-introduce most the pacific solution (minus turn backs)? How do they sleep at night? Of course it was only after they brought back the liberal approach to border management did the boats start to decline, but it was only after the libs got back did the boats stop.

The idea that Malaysia solution is a more humane solution is weazel words because they can't face the reality they were thoroughly outdone on refugee and border management. It's just the little escape clause in their consciences so they can feel better about themselves.

What parts of the Malaysia solution would have caused that?

All you've got is "deaths at sea", if you think the Malaysian solution wouldn't have disincentivized people to take unsafe trips across the ocean please elucidate us as to why. Otherwise you should probably stop posting about it.

Most successful quitters aren't the typical low income strata that will be most impacted by the excise.

Again the malaysia solution was just political solution to avoid humiliation of caving into the liberal party demands. Labor could've re-introduced the pacific solution (which it eventually did) but they wanted to score some political brownie points by putting their own spin on the policy, they didn't want to give the liberal party the victory of stopping the boats while in opposition. Nevermind the fact that Malaysia abuses its refugees, isn't a signatory to the refugee convention and it was struck down by the high court because as illegal. It was entirely political mcjules, I know it's really hard for you to admit Labor put politics before peoples lives but that's the cold hard truth of the matter.

Throwing in my 2 cents on the boat people debate:

By far my biggest issue with the current arrangement is the complete lack of transparency. The govt has tried to prevent media from attending, hidden info about complaints and criminal charges against guards etc. They have tried to gag Doctors from speaking out as well.

That is the first thing that must change.

Regardless of whether you support the govt's policy or not, the fact they are so blatantly trying to prevent the public knowing the facts of what is going on is appalling.

Do you realise that Nauru has just charged an asylum seeker for attempting suicide, in an attempt to "discourage others"?

There are plenty of things the govt could be doing to reduce people's misery that wouldn't change the underlying policy, but they aren't doing any of them.

Yes it was illegal but could have been made legal with a change to legislation which of course the Libs blocked because that's all they did in opposition. There were guarantees in the malaysia solution regarding the returned refugees treatment as well as an increased intake (which when we get to crux of the matter is the bit that you don't really like).

I'm not a Labor cheerleader rusty, I'm just anti-conservatives. They've done plenty wrong but when you stack those up against the Liberal party there's no contest. My vote this election is going to go to various smaller parties and independents because I care enough to vet these candidates' policies myself but when it boils down to 2PP my vote will be with Labor. Simple as that.

The legislation could have been passed if Labor agreed to the Liberal amendments but it would have too closely resembled the pacific solution so in the end Labor decided to put politics before human lives. Rather than trying to score political brownie points by doing a dodgy, illegal deal with Malaysia and going through the rigmarole of trying to change legislation, circumvent the high court and sell it to the public they could have simply just re-introduced the pacific solution in its fullness which was already proven to work. But despite this emperical fact Labor thought it was too much of a "liberal" policy to put lives before politics. We don' even know if the Malaysia solution would have worked, it probably would have flopped like all of Labors policies. People smugglers know the Labor party is weak and would've figured out a way to circumvent the agreement and ultimately wreck it.

Again it's just a matter of perspective f you think the Liberal party has done more bad things than Labor. i would say that Labor have done more bad things than the Liberals, particularly in regards to the economy which they seem to be very poor at managing given their history of record deficits and addiction to debt. While they may shy away from taking political risks what Labor are good at is spending money and raising taxes so they can splash out on things like Gonski, NBN and NDIS so in 20 years when the nation is nearing bankruptcy they can look back and say "hey look what we achieved, we almost bankrupted the country but at least we have legacies".

By far my biggest issue with the current arrangement is the complete lack of transparency. The govt has tried to prevent media from attending, hidden info about complaints and criminal charges against guards etc. They have tried to gag Doctors from speaking out as well

What about stopping the boat deaths and locking up children, isn't that also a big issue? Don't you think it's disturbing people get so defensive about their voyeuristic right to know what's happening but seem unconcerned by boats sinking, whole families drowning and kids being locked up in detention (again that's depends on who is governing).

I don't think there's much legitimacy to the transparency issues you have, it's just a red herring to undermine the coalition policies. The far greater issue here are the advocates and various media outlets fetish for manufacturing false stories and embellish details to discredit the government, which could result in offshore detention centres being closed down and the borders being re-opened, queue a return the to the good old days of boats sinking, people dying, kids being locked up, etc.

Says who? Are you basing that on anything? Or is it just your opinion.

Increasing the cost of cigarettes contributes to declining smoking rates. As does plain packaging, which the ALP brought in.

This is about people's health, nothing more. If it was just about raising money, why bring in plain packaging?

What about stopping the boat deaths and locking up children, isn't that also a big issue? Don't you think it's disturbing people get so defensive about their voyeuristic right to know what's happening but seem unconcerned by boats sinking, whole families drowning and kids being locked up in detention (again that's depends on who is governing).

I don't think there's much legitimacy to the transparency issues you have, it's just a red herring to undermine the coalition policies. The far greater issue here are the advocates and various media outlets fetish for manufacturing false stories and embellish details to discredit the government, which could result in offshore detention centres being closed down and the borders being re-opened, queue a return the to the good old days of boats sinking, people dying, kids being locked up, etc.

Labor is winning the economic debate – the Coalition's policies prove it

The best evidence of how well Labor is defining the economic debate is how far the government is going to try to neutralise the advantage.

Labor’s “people first” strategy has been based on taking a risk with policies to raise more tax from what Bill Shorten likes to call “the big end of town” – closing loopholes used by wealthy individuals and multinational tax minimisers. It is populist, as the government claims. But it is also popular. And effective policy.

Scott Morrison initially ran the response lines that had been crafted under Tony Abbott – it was an irresponsible “tax and spend” strategy. Old school Labor. Ridiculous to even think about.

Superannuation changes, in particular were not going to happen; “The government has made it crystal clear that we have no interest in increasing taxes on superannuation either now or in the future ... unlike Labor, we are not coming after people’s superannuation,” the treasurer said last year.

Of course no one out-Tony Abbotts Tony Abbott. The former prime minister, ostensibly trying to be helpful, claimed that Labor was proposing not one but five new taxes “a carbon tax, a “housing tax” (reduced negative gearing), a “wealth tax” (a lower capital gains tax discount), a “seniors tax” (superannuation) and a “workers’ tax” on smokers, and that the Coalition would be having none of it. (Even he wasn’t game to attack the idea of raising more tax from multinationals.)

But now it turns out the government is likely to introduce at least two of those taxes in the 3 May budget – the tax on workers’ and seniors. According to Wednesday’s Sydney Morning Herald, the Coalition’s superannuation changes (reducing the threshold at which higher rates of contributions tax kicks in) will raise four times Labor’s proposals. According to the Australian Financial Review on Tuesday it will include further restrictions on how much debt multinationals can assign to their Australian operations – a prime mechanism by which they minimise tax here. And the government has also confirmed that it will increase cigarette excise, although it won’t claim the kind of revenue Labor says it can reap from the measure.

And on Wednesday the government announced its own plans for the Australian Securities and Investments Commission – more money – much of it raised from the banks themselves (which raises some obvious questions about the line between the regulator and those regulated) and more powers, to try to counter Labor’s call for a royal commission into the banks.

Shorten’s response was that the government was “trying to have some sort of competition to out-Labor Labor” which was “not going to cut the mustard” because “Labor’s been leading the economic debate in this country from opposition.”

But of course from a political perspective the government doesn’t actually need to out-Labor Labor. It just needs to neutralise the potency of attack line that “(rich) Malcolm Turnbull is unwilling to hit the big end of town” and the advantage of the extra cash Labor had at its disposal because of the revenue it was raising from its tax policies.

It leaves Morrison’s claim that Australia only has a spending problem looking a bit off-script.

But the government can still differentiate from Labor if it uses the money to offer tax breaks to business, allowing it to continue to claim it isn’t increasing the overall tax burden. It can still run its slogans, Labor is all about “taxing and spending”, the Coalition is about “jobs and growth”.

The Coalition claims Labor’s plan – to raise taxes on those who can afford to pay and use the money primarily for services like hospitals and education – appeals mainly to the ALP base, and that the Coalition’s message – economic competence, a steady plan for a transitioning economy, policies aimed at creating jobs – has broader appeal in the marginal electorates that will determine the poll outcome.

But that claim is contradicted by the Coalition’s own moves to neutralise Labor’s advantage. Whether those efforts work will depend on the effectiveness and credibility of Malcolm Turnbull’s alternative policies. Well see them in the budget. For now Labor is framing the debate from opposition.

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/apr/20/labor-is-winning-the-economic-debate-the-coalitions-policies-prove-it

Yup, the ASIC powers/funding call just reeks of them trying to neutralize the idea of the Royal Commission.

-PB

Yup, the ASIC powers/funding call just reeks of them trying to neutralize the idea of the Royal Commission.

-PB