Roy Morgan has published a phone poll of 544 respondents featuring a series of preferred leader questions. Main findings: Kevin Rudd leads Brendon Nelson 65-18 and Julia Gillard 49-21; Gillard favoured as best non-Rudd Labor leader over Swan 44-12; Peter Costello the favoured Liberal leader of 31 per cent, compared with 20 per cent for Malcolm Turnbull and 10 per cent Brendan Nelson.
[BTW, while we are here fiddling, New York (or at least the banking sector of it, and hence the world) is burning. Seems Lehmann laid off their mortgage based securities with just about every governmental and financial institution in the world, including many Australian councils and other investors.
They’re saying in serious newspapers this could be the Big One.]
And in a perverse way, it’s a godsend that Labor is out of Government in WA as if the Minig Boom goes pear shaped, Poor old Colin Barnett and the Regions will cop it bad 🙂
[They’re saying in serious newspapers this could be the Big One]
So McCain will be distancing himself even further from GBW?
That should have been GWB 😉
GP
You missed my point.
You said that pensions should be abolished. (Fair enough your pov)
I said that given income tax was introduced to pay the pension, by your logic income tax should also be removed.
So for a Govt to remain in surplus, Liberal philosophy, the money has to come from somewhere.
So what is that source of funds? Company tax or excise?
[They’re saying in serious newspapers this could be the Big One]
Ah, capitalism. Ain’t it grand.
No 154
Yes, ideally income tax should be removed. However that isn’t going to happen.
My view is that a flat tax should be introduced with a high tax-free threshold.
Also running surplus budgets is but part of Liberal philosophy. It is also giving money back to the people, not hoarding it for the sake of a surplus. That is why the ALP’s “raiding the surplus” argument is just obscene beyond belief. The ALP is hoarding taxpayer money – there is a clear need for it to either be returned to the people or productively spent/saved.
With inflation running high GP? That would be moronic.
I recall the coalition making a very big song & dance last year when Labor introduced its national broadband policy. “Those economic vandals are raiding the Future Fund!” fulminated Costello, the biggest of the big spenders.
Of course the fund itself was to remain untouched, only drawing on the interest derived therefrom. To be used for infrastructure to develop our productivity.
But that wasn’t good enough for the Liberals, who now espouse public money be “productively spent”.
No 157
You’re the moron for not having the diligence to engage in the argument.
That again is the point GP – productively spent. What was the productivity increase in the Libs last years in office? Oh yeah thats right 0% repeat zero, zilch, nothing.
We can either spend the surplus on infrastructure or consumption. Howard was concerned about re-election so it went on consumption. Hence his 10 interest rate rises. 🙁
No 158
Cuppa the Future Fund was not designed to facilitate infrastructure spending, but to fund public servant superannuation.
The ALP derived the funding from the Future Fund because they were too lazy to find the money elsewhere.
SNIP: Please stop name-calling, GP – The Management.
Have a sensible response GP, or just avoidance?
No more discussion on who “the moron” is, please.
For the record William, I said the idea was moronic, not that a poster was a moron
[Spare me the idiocy, cuppa.]
Spare me the insults, generic.
The FF remains untouched. Only the interest (some of) is to be used, to develop overdue infrastructure, to increase our productivity and prosperity.
That’s money productively spent.
So the FF was good policy but the “funds” set up by Labor are “slush funds” and stealing the peoples surplus, give me a break.
Also the FF was funded mainly by asset sales not the surplus.
The Jeremiahs and Cassandras look like they might have been right. Lehman Bros files for bankruptcy after the buyers flee. Merril Lynch sold. And the insurance giant AIG will file for bankruptcy if the Feds don’t cough up $40B.
“In one of the most dramatic days in Wall Street’s history, Merrill Lynch agreed to sell itself on Sunday to Bank of America for roughly $50 billion to avert a deepening financial crisis, while another prominent securities firm, Lehman Brothers, said it would seek bankruptcy protection and hurtled toward liquidation after it failed to find a buyer.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/business/15lehman.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
The soap opera continues.
Turnbull refuses to rule out challenge
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24347227-5013871,00.html
No 165
Wrong. The capital may be untouched, but the interest has been inappropriately drawn from, against the original spirit of the fund.
No 166
It’s only becomes a slush fund if either political party uses the money against the original spirit of the fund. In this case, public servant superannuation was its predominant purpose as defined by the legislation.
Tricky arguments like “oh only the interest is being touched” don’t wash. The whole idea of the fund is to earn enough interest to fulfil the government’s future obligations to public servants.
In addition, if I recall correctly, the government, as 50% partner in the broadband network, will be putting profits back into the FF to increase the capital.
No 171
It is absolutely wishful thinking if you think the broadband network will be profitable. Why do you think the government is fronting up the 4.7 billion in the first place? Because it is uneconomic to build in regional and rural areas.
Those assets that were sold to make up the future fund.
What was the “original spirit” of those assets?
Surely not to be sold and the proceeds given to public servants.
GP
What to do about all those Telstra shares in the FF? Parked there to do what, pay PS super?
Codswallop. 🙂
And how much of that interest is left after the government rents back those assets?
Any reason the rental rates on those assets jumped recently?
Shifting column in the spreadsheet is not making money.
It most closely relates to the acquisition method of large corporates who avoid assets like the plague to prop up share prices. If the credit crunch flow on is serious enough the government should be seriously looking at re-acquiring those assets.
Apparently property appreciates unless you’re the government – what a joke Costello has proved – he was speculating on the market instead of developing and investing in his own country.
No 174
Have you any idea the size of that obligation? Costello had the vision to make provisions for it now, not recklessly spend the proceeds from the Telstra privatisation.
The ALP, predictably, saw it as a pit of gold ripe for pillaging.
so the Fibs last year voted down Brough’s recomendation for an increase in the base pension rate, what a pack of two faced fools.
No 175
Absolute rubbish mate. The interest of the Future Fund is perpetually reinvested in order to procure a sufficient return to satisfy an ensuing massive public debt owed to public servants.
The government did not touch it at all, except to add more capital from budgets and Telstra 3.
Rudd now believes he can use the Future Fund for whatever he pleases. How arrogant and short-sighted.
No 177
Get back under your rock. Rudd promised to end the blame game, but has since become its biggest advocate.
[Costello had the vision to make provisions for it now]
Sydney Morning Herald, 6 June 2007
[Norway not only runs a trade surplus of about $500 million a month, it has built a sovereign fund of $300 billion. The Australian Government has recently established a Future Fund as well but that is purely designed to replace current expenditure (public service superannuation), not to build infrastructure – in fact, when the ALP proposed to use some of the money for infrastructure it was hysterically accused of raiding the fund.]
http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/trade-data-no-cause-for-congratulation/2007/06/05/1180809516516.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
(Australia went for around 6 years under the coalition without a single month of trade surplus.)
[Rudd promised to end the blame game]
…with the states
and the rent is paid by what
Stop fluffing about with the jargon and engage the brain – you can make money by making a new name for it.
I hope the ridiculousness of this conversation is apparent to the readers.
Whao has all that money that’s making the interest – not the Australian people any more, and yet now they’re obligated to rent the workplaces of their own public service.
In the intellectual spirit of the original question asker – “please explain?”
No 180
Of course, Kohler forgets that Norway is the third largest oil exporter in the world.
No 182
Onimod, what on earth are you blathering about?
Yes, please explain seems to be the apt phrase to apply to everything you say.
Please be less abusive, GP.
Shall we take it nice and slow GP?
I’ll ask simple questions – where did the money for the future fund come from?
I’m not arguing the need for the fund, but if you’re going to blather about spirit and the like, we might as well have some fundamentals to being with to try to discover what the difference between you and the rest of the posters here is.
The sijmple truth of the matter is that the Future Fund is not a Constitutional institution. Therefore, whatever the government who sets it up says it’s, can be reversed by the succeeding government.
The Rudd government is perfectly justified in using the FF for whatever it wants. Howard cannot rule from beyond the political grave.
No 186
The vast majority of the Fund’s capital consists of Telstra shares and portions of previous budget surpluses. If you are under some delusion that the funds came from somewhere else, I’d suggest you are quite mistaken.
[The vast majority of the Fund’s capital consists of Telstra shares]
So what was the “original spirit” of Telstra?
Would you agree it was “against the original spirit” of Telstra (PMG) that it be sold and the proceeds used to fund the retirement of public servants? (as per 169)
No, it is not against the original spirit of Telstra that it be sold because Telstra still has a universal service obligation to all Australians.
You’re trying to argue that it is not “against the original spirit” of a telecommunications organisation, paid for and previously owned by every Australian, for it to be liquidated to fund the retirement incomes of some Australians?
GP
You forgot about the odd Airport here and there – now owned by Macquarie Infrastructure. 🙂
Have a look where those nice generic ‘budget surpluses’ came from GP.
This has been done before – I haven’t got the patience.
On with the cheering…
No 191
The original spirit of PMG was to provide telecommunications services to all Australians. Telstra is mandated by legislation to provide essential telecommunications services to all Australians.
Whether the entity who provides those services is owned by government or someone else is irrelevant.
No 193
Onimod, you can keep living in your own sphere of ignorance but the reality is that you present spin and no facts to support your argument.
Now that I have proved you wrong on Telstra, you deflect the argument to something else.
Oh for God’s sake GP and others.
We had an election. The use of Future Fund money was a specific election policy, tested, argued against and fully debated.
That’s the bloody end of it.
It’s the Commonwealth’s money, not John Howard’s. Rudd sought permission to, and can spend it on infrastructure if he likes with the total endorsement of the only ones who count in this case: the voters.
Fair dinkum Gp, you’d argue about two flies crawling up a wall, and all the way back down again.
To sell the copper network, the only network that enters the vast majority of Australian homes was bordering on criminal.
Sure sell off the retail arm of Telstra, Telecom, PMG or whatever you want to call it. But the Govt should retain control of the infrastructure.
From this national asset we could have made billions – but oh no, sell it to balance the books.
The Liberal Surpluses were a fraud. They were entirely paid for by asset sales, that includes the fake Labor $96 billion debt.
Last word
proved wrong?
Telstra made some 50% of the future fund.
I’ll give you your proof assertion if you’ll answer this – what was the total value of Commonwealth Government assets sold in and around the parliamentary triangle of Canberra during the Howard Government?
There’s no ‘proving’ going on here – it’s a political blog.
Is that really what you think you are doing here?
196 BB
HAHA
…only if JWH had an opinion on the flies…and he probably would!
[The original spirit of PMG was to provide telecommunications services to all Australians.]
It’s not the “universal service” aspect I’m questioning.
When did funding the retirement incomes of select Australians become part of the “original spirit” of a publicly-owned telecommunications organisation?
RUawake wrote:
[You forgot about the odd Airport here and there]
And airports. Do please tell, GP, when did “the original spirit” of airport facilities, built up and previously owned by every Australian, begin to include being sold, with proceeds to fund the retirement incomes of select Australians?