Tony Abbott has reshuffled his cabinet in response to Assistant Treasurer Arthur Sinodinos’s announcement of his decision to step down, together with the government’s general state of disarray. The principal changes are that Defence Minister David Johnston has been dumped from cabinet to the back bench, and Sussan Ley fills his cabinet vacancy as Health Minister, having previously been Assistant Education Minister. This initiates a game of musical chairs in which Defence goes to Kevin Andrews; Andrews’ portfolio of Social Services goes to Scott Morrison; and Morrison’s portfolio of Immigration and Border Protection goes to Peter Dutton, the former Health Minister.
The promotion of Ley and the departure of Sinodinos leaves two vacancies in the outer ministry, which are filled by the promotion from parliamentary secretary of Josh Frydenberg, who takes Sinodinos’s role, and Simon Birmingham, who takes Ley’s. The second casualty of the reshuffle together with Johnston is Queensland Senator Brett Mason, who has lost his position as parliamentary secretary. The three parliamentary secretary vacancies are filled by Christian Porter, slightly compensating the Western Australian contingent for the dumping of Johnston; and Kelly O’Dwyer and Karen Andrews, who together with Ley’s promotion to cabinet alleviate the front-bench’s glaring deficiency of women.
All of which gives me a helpful opportunity to launch a new thread as the Christmas/New Year poll drought takes hold. There is also the following to relate:
• The one new poll to keep us amused is an Essential Research survey conducted for The Australian, which found Chris Bowen with a narrow 29% to 27% lead over Joe Hockey on the question of “who would you trust to handle the economy”, compared with a lead for Hockey of 34% to 23% in August. More contentiously, respondents were asked to nominate “Australia’s best treasurer of the past 40 years”, but with only five options included – it apparently being taken for granted that no one would nominate Jim Cairns, Bill Hayden, Phillip Lynch, John Kerin, Ralph Willis, John Dawkins or Chris Bowen, even to the extent that no “others” option was included. The responses ran, in order, Peter Costello (30%), Paul Keating (18%), John Howard (12%), Wayne Swan (8%), Joe Hockey (4%). The Australian’s report by Troy Bramston rather audaciously sold this Hockey being “regarded as the worst treasurer of the past 40 years”. Even when better structured than this, I doubt the utility of such polls, which often reflect the degree of competition for the esteem of partisans of one side over the other. It would be more instructive if respondents were rate each contestant in turn favourably or unfavourably. More on this from Kevin Bonham
• Labor is set to have two changes to its Senate line-up early in the new year, the first being the result of John Faulkner’s retirement next month. His vacancy will be filled by Jenny McAllister, the party’s national president and a colleague of Faulkner in the Left, who joined him in advocating for reform to the party’s preselection processes earlier in the year. McAllister was preselected to replace Faulkner in July after he announced he would not contest the next election.
• Labor’s Senate position in the Australian Capital Territory is set to pass from Kate Lundy to Katy Gallagher, following the former’s surprise announcement last month of her intention to retire, and the latter’s resignation from her position as the ACT’s Chief Minister. Lundy will depart on March 31, creating a casual vacancy to be filled by Gallagher the following day. Gallagher was encouraged to take the position by Senator Penny Wong, who shares her alignment with the Left, and Bill Shorten. She has been succeeded as Chief Minister by her former deputy, Andrew Barr, a move which had Gallagher’s endorsement despite Barr’s alignment with the Right.
• Katy Gallagher’s vacancy in the ACT region of Molonglo will be determined by a countback, with reference to Gallagher’s preference votes from the last election. According to Kirsten Lawson of the Canberra Times, “Labor number-crunchers” expect the seat to go to Meegan Fitzharris, chief-of-staff to Andrew Barr, who was the third-strongest performing candidate on Labor’s ticket at the 2012 election with 2.9% of the vote, behind Gallagher (26.2%) and Barr (4.2%). Preferences nonetheless resulted in the third Labor seat going to incumbent Simon Corbell (2.1%).
briefly Posted Friday, December 26, 2014 at 12:56 pm @ 2024
Knowing our banks they’ll just charge their customers for any compliance costs, together with a rather unhealthy markup.
bemused
I don’t ever recall posting gifts to myself either.
I’m talking about genuine gifts coming from friends or family.
MTBW
Abbott no more cut that meat than he cleaned up after the Qld floods. He is a poser.
Puff
And there I was thinking he was a real man.
That smirk is enough to make you feel sick.
[I can’t disagree with that. If a way can be found to administer this at similar cost per dollar recovered as other revenue sources, then by all means, let’s do it.]
Tax on Boxing Day whooo hooooo.
We were discussing this the other day. The basic rule that many don’t know is that a supplier is required to register (for GST) if the supplies they make that are connected with Australia exceed $75,000 in a sliding 12 month window that looks both forward and back.
So if you carry on an enterprise of making jewellery and selling it and you sell less than $75,000 worth connected to Australia you never have to register or pay GST. Doesn’t matter if you are in Perth or Phuket.
So for example if you are a jeweller in Phuket under the current law that applies equally you have no obligation to register so long as your Australian sales do not exceed $75000, but as soon as you do exceed this threshold you (the jeweller in Phuket not their customers) are obliged to register and remit 1/11 of your Australia supply connected consideration to the ATO. Obviously already if the jewellery exceeds the import threshold the foreign supplier is probably disadvantaged as opposed to and equivalent Australian retailer. If you bring down the threshold to less than say $100 you are forcing a small foreign retailer selling low value jewellery to compete against massive Australian retailers. Hardly seems fair.
Secondly are you going to bring down the threshold for travellers too so that you have an obligation to declare everything you’ve purchased overseas and pay GST on it so long as you come back with more than $100 bucks of stuff you didn’t have when you left? Seems unlikely but then if you let travelers bring back GST free stuff but people who can afford to travel have to pay GST when they buy a $200 bit of kit they can’t get in Australia.
Intro to GST aside the important consideration is that under current law we discussed this and consider there are a whole range of websites selling into Australia that almost certainly exceed the Australian registration threshold but aren’t registered. Now the difficulty of catching each parcel and taxing it is huge but surely the ATO can catch and cook a UK supplier who has sold the tax lawyer next to me more than $75k of goods each year.
Finally two GST points before I finish the Boxing Day GST lesson. Number 1 is that first and foremost the GST is a supplier tax not a purchaser tax. You don’t directly pay GST at Dick Smith’s, you pay them the price they charge and Dick Smith pay GST. The import threshold is kind of a backstop. (although there is a whole GST on imports system that applies and I haven’t discussed because I don’t think it is really key to this discussion).
the last GST point is that if we were advising an Australian retailer talking about setting up a foreign operation to take advantage of this ‘problem’ we think the better view is that the ATO would prevail, either using the registration rules as they are now, or we worked up a couple of structures that would be shielded from Australia authorities and we came up with one or two that probably could work with a foreign collaboration, but would on the better view be undone by the ATO using the antiavodance rule in the Australian GST (should be a no brainer for the ATO if the chairman came out and said ‘we are setting up a sham in Asia to cheat on GST).
finally they is at most a very very marginal problem for Australian retailers with the GST – their real problem is that their competitive advantages (physical presence, helpful informative honest staff you can talk to and call for after sales service) have been surrendered such that you have about as much chance of getting good after sales and warranty service from pirates in a dodgy business in Hong Kong as you have from an Australian retailer.
Carey M:
Hope you enjoyed your christmas too.
Puff
I think he might have had a few “shandies”, too. I suppose he must have a few fans who would appreciate the picture!
Raaraa@2052
You won’t have paid for those either.
My point is, some overseas retailers actually mark their goods as “gift”, and this would make it harder to differentiate from genuine gifts.
I’m watching the wrong test match. NZ 5/382 off 68 overs.
[Tony Windsor @TonyHWindsor Dec 24
Julia Gillard To the last decent PM wishing you and Tim the best for next year and the attack dog Rubuen]
People on Twitter suggesting many Libs are so disappointed with Abbott that they’d vote Labor if Labor would “shed” the Unions. I can’t see how Labor could shed the financial support.
NathanA:
They’re about 200 runs ahead of Australia for similar number of overs!
Raaraa@2059
They can be identified and blacklisted for “special treatment”. They will soon learn their lesson.
lizzie:
In my experience Liberals always say they’d vote Labor if only this or if only that. In reality however, the just hold their nose and continue to vote Liberal.
confessions
Yup.
NathanA:
Bradman still has the record for the fastest (by time) 200 , McCullum was about to beat it but was caught on 195 . He had another of his big days out.
How good is it to hear Bill Lawry again on the commentary.
Was wonderful to hear “Got im! Yes he’s out!” again.
Piss the others off and let him go all day solo i reckon.
Hope they can convince Ritchie Benaud to do the sydney test.
Speaking of Bradman, McCallum scored more sixes in his innings today than Bradman did in his entire test career.
“”People on Twitter suggesting many Libs are so disappointed with Abbott that they’d vote Labor if Labor would “shed” the Unions””
Don’t these IDIOTS realize the Unions were responsible for present day WAGE standards!.
Henry:
Lawry and Chappell and Warney. Get rid of the others.
They did a feature on Richie during the tea break, and from the sounds of it he won’t be coming back to commentate any time soon. He and his wife looked blissfully happy doing their retirement thing.
I don’t think the Liberals with be ‘shedding’ big business because some senior business figures are shivs and shonks.
Henry:
You’ll get a laugh out of this:
[Sportingbet @Sportingbet Dec 11
Find out when to avoid the Channel 9 cricket commentary today.]
pic.twitter.com/eO0YE3cLWV
Oops link:
https://twitter.com/Sportingbet/status/542844733467283457/photo/1
lizzie@2061
This really is a major conundrum for Labor.
Less than 20% of the workforce is now unionised and that is not a sufficient base for winning Government.
Labor should not, and cannot, turn its back on the unions, but it needs to recognise present day realities and appeal to a much broader section of the population including many who are not favourably disposed toward unions.
The cost of policing GST on overseas purchases, would exceed the cost of recovery.
Could someone give me a figure limit on exeption, it involves a lot of red tape and unless the monies collected exceeded the cost of collection.
It would be a total waste of time and effort!.
bemused
“”Less than 20% of the workforce is now unionised and that is not a sufficient base for winning Government.””
Read 2068 and get the brain into gear!.
Ha ha we need that roster for this test confessions.
Slater and Brayshaw just shit me to tears.
Interesting that the ABC has introduced quite a few younger commentators into their roster (they’re probably cheaper).
Trent Copeland in particular is very impressive.
Brad Haddin playing for his career here.
So the Abbotts did their xmas message, and it get headlined as:
“Originally published as Why does Mrs Abbott look so sad?”
A number of possibilities come to mind, most not complimentary of her hubby.
Henry
[Interesting that the ABC has introduced quite a few younger commentators into their roster (they’re probably cheaper).]
Or many of those previously commentating are now working for Fairfax.
[ The cost of policing GST on overseas purchases, would exceed the cost of recovery. ]
There are LOTS of reasons not to change the current arrangements, but it does make a damn fine distraction from all the other things that WOULD be cost effective that they wont do because it will affect their donors.
Labor doesn’t need to “shed” the unions, they need to A: remind the populace that because of the unions people have things like 4 weeks annual leave, sick leave, high (by world standards) hourly rates etc and B: reform the party so the union influence on labor is commensurate with their level of representation of the workforce,, ie around 15%.
Henry:
Plus the ABC has Indian commentators which makes the commentary less one-sided.
I will never forget last summer Ian Healy describing a perfectly executed cover drive as a poorly timed sweep shot. Can it get any worse than that?
1934pc@2074
WRONG!
See earlier comments by myself and briefly.
1934pc@2075
2068 has no bearing on this issue.
You are obviously using (very) fuzzy logic.
[but it does make a damn fine distraction from all the other things that WOULD be cost effective that they wont do because it will affect their donors.]
Absolutely! Or a ‘look over there’ distraction from the recent stories about weekend penalty rates being reviewed.
The fairfax commentary is ok too MTBW but I don’t recall any of their commentators being on ABC. Dean Jones, Greg Matthews, Pigeon McGrath etc I don’t remember being on ABC. I listen occasionally mainly to hear old Blowers Blofeld.
Harsha Bogle is very good isn’t he confessions.
Heard Rahul Dravid on fairfax radio and he is also quite impressive.
Ravi Shastri is also pretty good, if somewhat of an egotist.
Henry
I just hear them all sometimes as background noise.
I wonder whether Fairfax is looking to get the rights overtime from the ABC.
Remember Fairfax and the Macquarie Network merged last week.
[2073
bemused
Less than 20% of the workforce is now unionised and that is not a sufficient base for winning Government.
Labor should not, and cannot, turn its back on the unions, but it needs to recognise present day realities and appeal to a much broader section of the population including many who are not favourably disposed toward unions.]
In my experience, almost no-one is troubled one way or another about unions. The only negative voices I hear raised against unions are whinging Liberals, and that is because unions still form the most durable, visible, independent, egalitarian and democratic bulwark against Liberal snobbery and megalomania.
Unions remain an essential industrial, legal, social and political resource for working people. Were this not so, the LNP would not be so determined to oppose and, if possible, to bust them.
Henry:
Yep, Harsha Bhogle is the best IMO.
WWP at 2055. Re GST
Way too complicated WWP. What you say about foreign businesses may be true but it is not relevant. The govt is talking about getting a GST payment from the buyer/importer. They don’t care where the goods come from or who ships them.
As you say there is currently a system that works via Customs to collect GST. The trick is to cover the small transactions under $1,000 but the cost of collecting the money at the physical transaction point is too high.
Taking the money at the electronic payment point via the banks or PayPal is the logical solution but with several difficulties.
2068
Many of the Liberal voters oppose the unions because they set the wage standards they pay. What they fail to realise is that wages become demand for the goods and services they sell.
briefly@2088
Yes and they give us great parliamentary representatives like Joe Bullock!
Henry @2080 is on the right track.
[Labor doesn’t need to “shed” the unions, they need to A: remind the populace that because of the unions people have things like 4 weeks annual leave, sick leave, high (by world standards) hourly rates etc and B: reform the party so the union influence on labor is commensurate with their level of representation of the workforce,, ie around 15%.]
2080
The unionised proportion of the population is disproportionately ALP voting. Thus a proportion of the ALP voting and potential ALP voting population has a greater proportion of unionised workers and thus fixing it to the proportion in the general population would be arbitrary. Unions should also recruit more members, especially be recruiting in more industries.
I don’t think Labor need to shed the unions, and I don’t want them to. My experience with Lib voters is that at least half of them are not hard core ideologues on this issue, and they recognise, to some extent at least, the legit constructive role unions have often played. They just think the unions have a bit too much influence, mainly via Labor, not that they shouldn’t have any at all. More a matter of degree for them, than an article of faith.
Labor don’t need to swing a big number of voters, a consistent 2-3% is enough, and moving their relationship with the unions to a more democratic basis might just do it.
Would also give Labor a nice campaign line about the Lib’s relationship with the big end of town:
‘We fixed our undue influence problem, when are you going to fix yours?’
The Boxing Day Test has a relatively short history, as traditions go. It started in 1980, with a few Tests starting on Boxing Day in prior years: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxing_Day_Test
$11bn seems an awful lot to cut.
[Gains in disaster preparedness in Indonesia following 2004’s devastating tsunami could be wound back due to cuts to Australia’s foreign aid budget, aid organisations have warned.
The Coalition has slashed the aid budget by $11bn since taking office in September last year, a move that ActionAid said would have repercussions in the region.]
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/26/australias-foreign-aid-cuts-could-affect-indonesias-ability-to-handle-a-tsunami
bemused @2063
[They can be identified and blacklisted for “special treatment”. They will soon learn their lesson.]
Blacklisting the buyer or the seller?
I’d be prepared to consider voting for the Liberals if they shed their Murdoch, their shockjocks, their IPA, their xenophobes, theri racists, their misogynists, their warmongers, their spivs, their science haters and their climate deniers.
That’s too much to ask, IMHO.
Re Just Me @2094: the influence of Big Business on the Liberals is quite plain when examined. The FOFA rule changes is an obvious example. Just who were these changes meant to benefit? Certainly not the wider community.
– We have the Coalition’s dropping of Labor’s planned savings, replacing them with an attack on those who are less able to fight back, like pensioners, students, the disabled, the chronically ill.
– We have an “Audit Committee” made of up Liberal business mates.
– We see Hockey backing away from a crackdown on ‘tax avoision’ by multinationals and wealthy individuals.
– We have the IPA 75 plus 25 points that appear to be the unofficial Liberal policy.
– There is Abbott’s “Coal is Marvellous” statement.
– There is the Liberal’s withdrawal from an earlier position favoring an ETS.
– we have talk of a cut in the Corporate Tax rate in spite of the “budget emergency”
A minor but illustrative example is last year’s forgotten proposal for a referendum on Federal grants to local government. This was non-controversial and would remove doubts over a number of programs initiated by John Howard (e.g. Fixing road “black spots”). After the legislation was passed with bipartisan support, the then Opposition immediately set out to undermine it in the face of apperently ideological opposition by the IPA and business community to any increase in Federal power.
So voters should be encouraged to ask their Liberal member or candidate “who do you work for?” (bullshit answer not accepted) when they rail against union power.
Boerwar@2098
Who would they have left? Just a few donkeys, I suspect.