We’re about half-way between the weekly BludgerTrack and when I’m anticipating the next opinion poll, this being the period of pre-budget calm before the storm, and a new thread is wanted. So I’ve decided to hang this one off the latest ANUpoll survey, an exercise conducted by the Australian National University two or three times a year to gauge the public mood on a specific area of public policy, and track the salience of various issues over time. The subject of the latest instalment, which was conducted by phone from a sample of 1200 in February and March, is tax and equity in Australia. Among various findings on tax that would be familiar from those who follow Essential Research, the report also finds support for increased spending on social services at its highest level since the series began in 1987. The report also finds that, in spite of everything, 56% consider the existing system “moderately fair”, on top of another 4% for “very fair”, while 22% rate it “not too fair” and 18% “not at all fair”.
The survey also features regular questions in which respondents are asked to name the first and second most important political problems, out of a list that presently includes 27 options. To make this easier to interpret, I’ve condensed results into various categories, which are hopefully generally self-explanatory (particularly economy/budget, environment and better government – security/external covers wars, terrorism, defence and immigration, while services covers health and education and such). The progress of these results since 2008 is shown in the chart below.
From which a number of points are clearly worth noting. Concern about service provision mounted to giddy heights after the 2014 budget, but promptly returned to normal after Malcolm Turnbull became prime minister. The combined result for the various economic issues is at a low point in the latest survey, having peaked in the years immediately following the global financial crisis. Security/external and crime/society, which are largely conservative concerns, are on an upward trend. “Better government”, I’m guessing, was a popular response among Coalition supporters while Labor was in power, but is not a correspondingly popular choice for Labor voters now it’s the Coalition’s turn.
Scott Bales Sunday, May 1, 2016 at 4:26 pm
Let’s face it, Howard won four elections. You don’t need charisma to win elections.
Scott @ 4.26
Maybe not boring as much as dependable. Or better yet, stable.
I continue to be astonished that the Labor policy announcements to date regarding winding back tax concessions are declared by the commentariat to be courageous, etc. I agree with them and don’t think they should go any further. But they are certainly not courageous. It just shows how far the cause of obvious common sense tax reform has been debased by political grandstanding.
Bowen and Shorten are deliberately underplaying the criticisms. And it’s working. Especially as Turnbull wastes his political capital fighting an absurd battle against winding back the excesses of negative gearing.
shiftaling @ #743 Sunday, May 1, 2016 at 4:26 pm
This was the tweet:
C@tmomma @ #741 Sunday, May 1, 2016 at 4:25 pm
It’s the East-West link on high powered steroids.
Why should ‘government spending as a share of the Economy reduce, it must!’, as Scott Morrison says?
Doyley:
Yep.
Lol, Scott Morrison proudly proclaiming that the government isn’t increasing the Deficit. BS Artist on steroids.
I’m listening to the Oakes/Morrison interview.
Because it feeds their rhetoric of Labor high taxing big spenders. Stutchbury spent most of his time on Insiders this morning trying to reinforce exactly that point.
Does anyone know how to get the A-league final live on ABC grandstand digital or the ABC radio app.
bemused @ #748 Sunday, May 1, 2016 at 4:37 pm
I tried to read a little last night because I thought that, as some people had responded, there might be some substance. Unfortunately, it was unintelligible gunk of the most incomprehensible kind. Track pad slide stuff.
Labor is NOT ‘promising an unfunded plan for Education’, as Scott Morrison stated today.
C@tmomma @ #753 Sunday, May 1, 2016 at 5:01 pm
Wonderful. Scott Morrison verballed by the Nine Network. Karma.
COTMOMMA – Did you notice that Scott said labor would be lifting taxes to pay for its spending commitments BUT they were unfunded. It’s one or the other Scottie Baby.
How bloody funny is that!?! Scott Morrison criticising the Victorian government for ‘not spending $1 Billion on the East West Link’. A criticism, by the guy who has increased his government’s Deficit, of a government who has projected a $9 Billion Surplus!
‘You don’t get the Budget back to Surplus by increasing taxes’ !?!
Police Officers, Nurses, Train Drivers are the people who predominantly use Negative Gearing’!?!
Given that the budget is in deficit, can anyone provide a list of what expenditure items are funded and which aren’t funded?
No?
Didn’t think so.
It is just more nonsense like the even more nonsensical ‘fully costed’.
C@tmomma Sunday, May 1, 2016 at 5:13 pm
You might want to read this: http://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2016/apr/28/how-negative-gearing-replaced-the-great-australian-dream-and-distorted-the-economy
One of the graphs is “Proportion of people in occupations who negatively gear”.
C@tmomma @ #766 Sunday, May 1, 2016 at 5:12 pm
It is a simple accounting identity.
Revenue – Expenditure = Surplus/Deficit.
If revenue > expenditure then surplus
If revenue < expenditure the deficit
Yo can arrive at the required end result by varying either or both expenditure and revenue.
Why is there such a fetish about these simple facts?
Noticed a comment about Sherry Sufi as the lib candidate for the seat of Fremantle.
Sherry Sufi regularly gets articles up on the remains of the good? old Menzies House website.
For an Economy just experiencing it’s first deflationary Cost Of Living figure last week, Scott Morrison is placing a lot of eggs in the ‘Growth and Jobs’ basket.
bemused,
Why does Scott Morrison have an Austerity fetish? Why does he believe that it is the job of government to lay waste to revenue streams?
deewhytony @ #771 Sunday, May 1, 2016 at 5:20 pm
Has Menzies House got Dry Rot? 😉
C@tmomma @ #773 Sunday, May 1, 2016 at 5:23 pm
An article of faith among Tories that all government expenditure, except for defence and a limited number of other items is intrinsically evil.
lizzie
Carp constitute 95% of the Murray Darling Basin fish biomass. If that suddenly goes to, say, 5%, the consequences could well be devastating for, say, Murray Cod. Quite unpredictable consequences, IMO.
I can remember the pellucid waters of many a biodiversity rich water body pre-carp.
It would be nice to think that these are retrievable.
He is the Liberal party’s director of policy according to the ABC article.
Interestingly of the three candidates profiled for Fremantle, only the Labor candidate comes from a worker’s background. Yes he’s an MUA employee, but only for the last year, the previous 30 being as a tradie on the wharf.
The Liberal candidate is a hack and the Green candidate is a lawyer.
Interesting.
The Liberal Party have pulled Sherry Sufi’s poem ‘to the latest victims of state power at it’s worst’:
https://www.facebook.com/menzieshouse/posts/10155555880650002
Must’ve been a doozy.
C@tmomma Sunday, May 1, 2016 at 5:24 pm
One can only hope.
Sufi? Sufi? The Libs have GOT TO BE KIDDING!!!!!!!!!
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Sufi+Twirling&&view=detail&mid=BC0D71DB6B04A2BFC818BC0D71DB6B04A2BFC818&FORM=VRDGAR
Yesterday Sheridan wrote this. At the most basic level it is about Sheridan’s ally Abbott promoting Japanese subs versus Turnbull buying French subs. Other Murdoch writers are not happy either. Abbott may yet provide his helpful opinion on subs during the election campaign.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/greg-sheridan/japan-sees-chinese-hand-in-decision-to-overlook-soryu/news-story/23c0bd008b06d77b5f3e8bdeee95265a
C@tmummy
Real disposable income has dropped for seven quarters in a row.
The deflation thing is the -0.2% and I think that this may refer to the general value of money. I do not know. I am certain that some Greens economist can light the way on this one.
Sherry Sufi is a ‘he’?
Also a Repeal Section 18C guy:
http://www.zoominfo.com/CachedPage/?archive_id=0&page_id=7362511111&page_url=//www.menzieshouse.com.au/?cat=66&page_last_updated=2015-10-01T17:28:37&firstName=Sherry&lastName=Sufi
I also wonder who he was a political advisor for?
citizen
There is no doubt that the Abbott/Turnbull two-step has damaged relations with Japan. There is no doubt that the resurgent ultra-national militarist right was using Abbott as a stalking horse. Abbott walked straight into it.
But the Liberals gave Abe the sucker punch.
There is no doubt that the Japanese have a sort of manic fear of China. This could have something to do with the fact that they murdered, literally, millions of them in their imperial bastardry phase.
IMO, while C5631 has pride of place in Yasukuni Shrine, and while Japanese ministers keep going to Yasukuni Shrine to worship the spirit of war criminals, the Japanese Government can go and get fucked with its hurt feelings.
Boerwar,
Boerwar @ #782 Sunday, May 1, 2016 at 5:33 pm
So this magical ‘Jobs and Growth’ creation because the Liberals are all that and as envisaged by Morrison,s going to come from where if peoples’ disposable income has been falling for nigh on 2 years!?!
I don’t get Peter Martin. One minute he is swallowing the Coalition Kool Aid and tells us they the better managers of the national economy, next minute he is tipping the Kool Aid bottle over:
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/federal-budget-2016-tax-cuts-80000-is-anything-but-average-20160501-goj9w7.html
C@t
The economic plan is pretty well the same for both Labor and Greens: add to the population by large net migration.
This skins current Australian inhabitants but creates the illusion of growth by way of building houses and units and filling them with consumerist crud.
The Greens at least have a point of difference. They are gazumping both Liberal and Labor by encouraging millions of refugees to create ‘demand’ in Australia.
C@t
Have you considered that Martin might just be independent and assessing things based on his knowledge, experience and expertise?
That’s not to be confused with “being correct” :p.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/markdistefano/live-within-our-memes-amirite?utm_term=.rwxyVy29j#.aolYmY4ad
Don’t think this has been posted great summary of Laurie Oakes giving Scottie the “rounds of the kitchen-” and more!
Player One,
“Another example of the “Mirabella” school of negative pork barrelling?”
Would that be “krop” barrelling?
Budget theme is and will blame unions, low income earners, the poor in the name of God.
Boerwar
If the carp killing works, there will be a huge disposal problem.
Stinky work for the dole?????
Boerwar
Boerwar
Sunday, May 1, 2016 at 5:45 pm
C@t
Yep it was the total basis of effing Abbott and HoJo’s great big promise to create a million or two jobs in however many years. Population growth would see to it without the pricks doing a thing about the economy.
Peter Martin is one of the better economic commentators in this country.
Re Scott Bales @4:26PM: you missed the big one – Howard beat Keating.
B.C.
The only occupation I can see listed is Nurses, and it shows that over 90% of Nurses do not negatively gear. And for those few that do, their average tax benefit is a whopping $229.
Compare that with doctors who negatively gear at about three times the rate of Nurses, and who get a benefit of between $3000 and $4000!
lizzid
lol
The first burst of calici certainly created a stench problem. I imagine that hundreds of thousands (?) of tons of rotting carp might do the same for the pristine waters of the MDB.
confessions @ #795 Sunday, May 1, 2016 at 6:11 pm
Yes – but he still showed all the signs of being on the drip a little while back.
Maybe he has become disillusioned with turnbull now.
Boerwar
Think of it as an “enhanced nutrient availability” event 😉