NOTE: Nothing new I can report on the comments debacle, sadly. All I can do is reiterate that it’s not supposed to be this way, and the intention is that it will be fixed. If you use Google Chrome, as you should, this plug-in will get the blog looking more like it ought to (with thanks to AR).
UPDATE: We’re all good again. Thank you for your forbearance, where applicable.
Essential Research is now back in line with Newspoll, with the latest reading of its fortnight rolling average recording Labor with a lead of 53-47 after a one point gain for the Coalition. On the primary vote, the Coalition is up two to 37%, Labor is down one to 36%, the Greens are steady on 10% and One Nation is steady on 8%. Also featured:
• Questions on political donations, including from whom political parties should be allowed to accept them, which records a net positive only from “individual Australian voters”, and heavily negative results for unions, companies (especially foreign), property developers and casinos. Forty-one per cent support a ban on foreign donations to activist groups, with only 31% opposed.
• On the government’s proposed changes to the Racial Discrimination Act, there is an all but perfect split between strongly support, strongly oppose and no strong opinion either way, following a question that explains the finer detail of the change.
• Fifty-one per cent support and 20% oppose “a carbon emissions trading scheme in the electricity sector to provide more incentive for investing in renewable energy and low-carbon electricity”, demonstrating how much difference including the rationale in the question makes when gauging such issues.
• A question on who should have tax deductibility for donations has churches and religious groups ranking second after “groups that campaign on social issues” at the bottom of the list.
• Respondents were asked which interests were represented by Labor, Liberal and the Greens, and received the responses you would expect, with little change recorded since the question was previously posed in September 2015.
poroti,
The gist of the argument is that Tax is not simply a zero sum game of…you make 300 large per year so you should slice 35% off it and give it to the tax man.
What Bowen was saying was that, instead of a Buffett Rule, a Treasurer in search of Revenue would be more responsible to look at the Structural Imbalance in the Budget, such as with the tax treatment of Negative Gearing and Capital Gains Tax, and fix them.
From memory he gave other examples of Structural Saves that would be more effective in bringing Revenue into the Budget, but he also said Labor would have more to say in the future about them.
Plus he made the valid point that there are a lot of wealthy people out there who carry, and take seriously, the Philanthropy burden in Australia, supporting Foundations at Universities and the like, Medical Research, whatever, and so the Buffett Rule would have a chilling effect on that.
A r
I use Chrome on an android tablet (samsung), will your plug in work on it please
Oh AR! My gravatar! You are the sun, the moon and the stars! 😀
Labor’s position on workers’ rights has been dubious since the 1980s. They’ve been more interested in maintaining a revolving door between senior union posts, parliament, and lobbying, than in recognizing the realities that workers face. One such reality is that industry-wide systemic issues heavily influence what happens at the workplace level, and what happens to an individual worker. Yet it is Labor that institutionalized the neoliberal fantasy that industrial issues are confined to each workplace and have no industry-wide systemic aspects that workers should be allowed to take industrial action about. If you support Labor doing that then you are no friend of workers.
Methinks Bowen has drunk the Koolaid
Chris Bowen also made the telling point that the Buffett Rule has been out there for a while now, and there have been Progressive governments elected since, and not one of them has tried to legislate it.
C@
Listening to the podcast you posted, one can now understand why Gillard was toast.
Chris Bowen thinks he’s the next person to walk on water.
Does that version of Chrome allow plug-ins?
If it doesn’t, then no hope.
If it does, then maybe – give it a try.
Yet another point Chris Bowen made wrt the Buffett Rule, was that if it were introduced it would adversely affect the Venture Capital Angels who are putting money into poor entrepreneurs good ideas. He said that they don’t always make their money back because not all ideas take wings. A Buffett Tax would make them think twice about continuing to fund innovation and that would ultimately be a net negative for the Economy.
Loss of potential Revenue from successful new business start-ups and loss of Venture Capital. That capital would likely go overseas. As would the start-ups seeking finance.
Nicholas, you seem to like acting as a spokesman for the Greens Party. Could you please let people know what plan B is?
kezza2,
Listening to the podcast you posted, one can now understand why Gillard was toast.
Chris Bowen thinks he’s the next person to walk on water.
What a sourpuss you are! Plus, bereft of an argument to back up your assessment. Just some Panglossian surmise.
AR, how vulnerable is your add-in to disruption if the gerbils change anything?
Could it suddenly stop working leaving things worse than otherwise?
William
I was just going to suggest you give AR’s plug-in a bit of promotion and you have already done so. Thanks on behalf of all potential users.
Thanks AR, appreciate you doing whatever it is you did to get the website looking how it does.
Yeah. Nah.
If someone is making $1 million a year, with a Buffet tax, they’d be left with $650,000 a year. More than enough to invest in venture capital.
Malcolm Turnbull has been investing in start ups for a couple of decades now, even when he wasn’t worth as much AND when tax rates were a lot higher.
So, yeah. Nah.
lol nice work Bemused
Many thanks AR.
C@tmomma,
Yeah. Nah.
If someone is making $1 million a year, with a Buffet tax, they’d be left with $650,000 a year. More than enough to invest in venture capital.
Malcolm Turnbull has been investing in start ups for a couple of decades now, even when he wasn’t worth as much AND when tax rates were a lot higher.
So, yeah. Nah.
What a sourpuss I am?
What an obsequious sycophant, you are, bereft of an argument to back up your assessment
William is obviously being pro-active and trying to make the best of difficult circumstances.
“it would adversely affect the Venture Capital Angels who are putting money into poor entrepreneurs good ideas.”
.
Sweet Jeebus he has drunk deep on the Koolaid. Oh lordy, how as soon as you earn $300,000+ pa donating to orphan seal pup charities is such a given. Pull the other one it has bells on.
Hi guys and gals! (9.07 pm Brisbane time)
The pollie pedal is on, raising money for carers. Tony Abbott says, “I think nothing better symbolises the best in our humanity than the things we do for love.”
Now I know you guys and gals will just say he’s only doing it for travel allowance money…. But you know, he’s been doing it for a long time, as well as some other Liberals and I think Labor ministers?
I don’t think Greens do the pollie pedal. They make talk about energy saving but they don’t ride bikes! Lol.
Anyways, I think Tony Abbott’s comment is insightful and comes from the heart.
I know you guys and gals will abuse me now but I know what’s right and true and his comment to me is a true conservative value.
I’m one of those heathen left leaning CPA’s. A Buffett Tax would be challenging to legislate in practice and you would risk significant unintended consequences, and the end result would be very complex legislation.
However, I don’t buy Bowen’s explanation around the example of a venture capitalist. Typically these people don’t invest money they personally hold into new ventures. They own an entity, or series of entities which hold the assets they use for venture capital purposes and if/when one of those entitles makes a significant loss, that loss is written off against other ventures which are profitable, or the loss is carried forward until such time it is fully applied against future profits.
Bowen has been “captured” and no longer “fit for purpose” . A shame really.
Somewhat. It’s vulnerable if the server-side JSON feed is structurally modified (very unlikely) or if the developers realize that the way they have the comments API structured currently isn’t really ideal for paginating from the most-recent comment backwards and decide to update it (more likely, though at the speed they seem to move probably a long way off).
It’s also moderately vulnerable to any significant changes to the site’s CSS styles.
Yes, though not in a way that causes any permanent harm. If everything suddenly looks weird, just disable the plugin from Chrome’s extensions page.
prettyone
I don’t recall anyone ever saying Abbott only did Pollie Pedal for the allowance, however many have pointed out the unlikelihood of him doing it if he didn’t get the allowance.
Remember, he is someone who tried to claim an allowance for a tour to promote his book.
Hm, guess you can’t hotlink to Chrome’s extensions page. Just copy/paste the following into the browser’s address bar:
chrome://extensions
“Further evidence has emerged in relation to claims of a private deal between One Nation and the LNP”
Oh gawd don’t say there will be people like Sohar, Nicholas and Maher Baba popping up out of the blue to make a distraction
Thanks again AR.
Do you know Musrum?
Might be worth joining forces with him to see what ideas you can come up with jointly.
Please tell me this woman doesn’t vote:
Sydney based medium claims to communicate with aliens
Tony Abbott says, “I think nothing better symbolises the best in our humanity than the things we do for love.”
And just exactly what has Tony done for love? Turned his back on a child. Hey, that sounds like love.
No amount of self-flagellation on a bike will ever make up for that.
grimace,
Typically these people don’t invest money they personally hold into new ventures. They own an entity, or series of entities which hold the assets they use for venture capital purposes and if/when one of those entitles makes a significant loss, that loss is written off against other ventures which are profitable, or the loss is carried forward until such time it is fully applied against future profits.
I think that’s what Chris Bowen was saying. If you chill the Venture Capitalists with a Buffett Tax then they won’t put their money into the associated entity which funds the start-ups. Even IF they are able to write off their losses against other profits. They’ll take their bat and ball and go home. 🙂
Thus the nett gain to the country from, say, another Atlassian, is better than the nett loss of Revenue from not having the Buffett Tax.
His argument also seemed to centre around the social good of having our citizens educated well-enough, and harvesting the human capital as a result, which would see the next Atlassian germinate in Australia.
And just exactly what has Tony done for love? Turned his back on a child.
And maybe more than one.
The politics of Bowen publicly ruling out a ‘Buffet rule’ tax, with the backing of Bill Shorten, at this early stage of policy formation is very interesting.
It’s clearly a provocative strike from a desperate right against the strengthening left.
kezza2,
What an obsequious sycophant, you are, bereft of an argument to back up your assessment
Lol 😆
Dan Gulberry
I relaxed muchly when I got to that part. Rupert’s bread and butter pudding he has served up for decades over in Pomgolia. It is why i LOL over “Russian fake news” shock horror by the MSM . MSM like Rupert have been dishing it out for decades, ’tis SOP
The money they put into the associated entity was never in their own personal hands to begin with. It would be in Venture Capital Fund Pty Ltd waiting for an opportunity to invest. When said opporunity came up, funds would be transferred, and if/when a loss was incurred the shares purchased would be revalued to zero and a loss realised, to be written off against other revenue of Venture Capital Fund Pty Ltd.
A Buffett Tax applies only to the personal income tax affairs of said taxpayer, not to companies they own.
Saint Justin of Trudeau hasn’t even introduced a Buffett Tax. No one has!
Might be early for you sunshine but I would bet Bowen and others have been working on tax policy on an ongoing basis for years.
Saint Justin was born and bred in a 0.1-0.01% environment. So a bit like our Truffles. Great hopes but when push comes to shove class solidarity strikes.
In other times and other places, it would be the Jesus, the Virgin Mary or other saints (Catholic countries), the Voice of God, ancestors, gods, demons, ghosts, spirits, angels. Aliens are the 20th/21st century interpretations.
C@tmomma
So what’s the difference between that and Twiggy and Gina saying they’ll invest in Africa if we make them pay for our resources?
People make investment decisions based on the potential return, not on how much tax they’ll pay if if is successful.
There’s no difference between the “venture capitalist” argument and giving corporates a tax cut will lead to more investment.
No-one had ever introduced a “carbon tax” before either. Yet somehow it actually achieved the purpose it was intended to have.
Use the argument that it will be hard to implement a Buffet tax, or even that those that’ll be hit with it will find ways to reduce their income, but don’t use the venture capitalist argument. It doesn’t hold water.
Yes but the point is, if they have to pay the Buffett Tax on their Income, then they may not want to put into Venture Capital Inc.
http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com/2017/04/legislative-council-2017-rumney.html
Legislative Council 2017: Rumney
My candidate guide for the most critical of the three Tasmanian Legislative Council seats up for voting in May.
His son in law has been dubbed the secretary for everything. Just like it’s be in any throw-back banana republic.
“So what’s the difference between that and Twiggy and Gina saying they’ll invest in Africa if we make them pay for our resources?”
So long and Gina and Twiggy f off to Africa with their money Australia is way ahead of the worst of these most parasitic of all the ‘leaners’.
[ The pollie pedal is on, raising money for carers. Tony Abbott says, ]
TRAVEL ALLOWANCE TROUGH !!!!…….Snort……..Snuffllle…. 🙂
DanG,
You initially tried to make the argument that if someone earns $1 Million, then a Buffett Tax would leave them with $650000 to invest anyway. However, that’s not the point. I think the point is that, if a person making a Million has to pay the Buffett Tax then they may just move to a jurisdiction which does not have one. Or alienate their money from the tax man in some other way. Such as the Rolling Stones did when England introduced a sky high rate of Income Tax.
So I don’t think you are taking into account the way these people think about their money.
So what’s the difference between that and Twiggy and Gina saying they’ll invest in Africa if we make them pay for our resources?
They are just making empty threats because their businesses are already in Australia and if they abandon them then others will take their place readily, due to the quality of the resource they would be abandoning. Plus they are already in Africa too.
As opposed to Venture Capitalists who are funding ideas. Of which there are plenty all over the world. Thus it is a lot easier for them to go off in search of more favourable environments.
A rather different sort of article from Peter Hartcher.
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/how-china-bought-its-dominance-over-the-west-factory-by-factory-20170403-gvcm0y.html
—
Surely Australia wouldn’t be so foolish? We wouldn’t allow a cutting-edge, taxpayer-subsidised manufacturing plant to be sold and shipped off, bolt by bolt, to China?
Oh yes we would.
Rio Tinto spent 20 years and a billion dollars developing a revolutionary iron ore smelting technique, HIsmelt.
Australian taxpayers contributed $125 million to help Rio build its pioneering demonstration plant at Kwinana, south of Perth. The WA government gave an additional $30 million. The new technology was exciting – it offered commercial and environmental advantages over the traditional smelting process.
“But when the financial crisis hit in 2008, the company decided to abandon the development of HIsmelt,” writes Komesaroff in his report. The plant was sold to a Chinese firm for an undisclosed sum, dismantled and shipped off to Shandong.
It’s been reassembled by Molong Petroleum Machinery Co Ltd, which is doubling its size. It’s going to use it to make high-quality, specialised pipe to sell to the global oil and gas industry.
This deal didn’t get a lot of attention in Australia. “Rio didn’t put out a press release saying ‘We had millions of dollars from the Australian taxpayer, we’re now selling to the Chinese’,” explains Komesaroff. “People don’t like to advertise their failures.”
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Well, I installed the plugin. Just signed via Chrome on a PC (Windows 10). Bemused has his ‘Thinker’ back, Kevin his shell, C@t her cats, I have my Eastern Water Dragon. I also have comment id but the relative time stamp has gone.