The only new federal poll this week, from Essential Research, hasn’t made the least bit of difference to the voting intention numbers on the BludgerTrack poll aggregate. However, Labor is up two seats, one in Victoria and one in Western Australia, exacerbating Labor’s hard-to-credit lead in the latter state. One possibly interesting point to emerge from the state breakdowns, which you can explore through the link below, is a spike to the Greens in Victoria – could be a Batman by-election effect, could be noise. Essential also produced its monthly leadership ratings, and they too have made little difference to the relevant trend measures.
Nice for Quiggin that reality has made it into his world 😉
(only joking, John seems a very thoughtful guy)
But as TPOF notes, thoughtful people who had swallowed the Kool Aid of the Greens and Trumble myths are starting to notice that the real world doesn’t match the reality. Same with all those who swallowed the Shorten smears.
This was a very very bad weekend for Trumble and Di Natale.
Ratsak on Wentworth
“If Reichstuber SS Kartoffelkopf managed a putsch and declared himself Fuhrer I’m not certain they’d be in a rush to shout Zeig Heil. Those sorts are happy enough to pander to the likes of Dutton for the votes they need to maintain power. I don’t know how keen they would be to submit to him being the boss though.”
Umm, the seat of Wentworth has the largest Jewish cohort of any electorate in Australia. A complex community, but if anything would peel them off the Liberals it would be someone like Dutton.
TPOF @ #2095 Sunday, March 18th, 2018 – 8:24 pm
I know John Quiggin and was disappointed when he drifted off to the Greens.
I don’t regard him in left-right terms, he is just grounded in reality.
The neo-Liberal economists are in fairy land.
And Greens believe in magic pixie dust.
WWP and C#t, I said the poorer not poor it is relative. I was pointing out the inequity of the policy. The rich won’t notice any difference. The poorer person will lose the credits.
That is not being selfish. It is pointing out the obvious, which you seem to be oblivious to. You then make the leap that I am unsympathetic to the pensioner with no nest egg at all – that is a false accusation.
lizzie @ #2025 Sunday, March 18th, 2018 – 2:37 pm
The Libs know how to pick ’em!
She hasn’t even been sworn in yet!!
They don’t give a flying f@#k about people, they just want to lay their moral baggage on others.
No consideration to the lives saved by these programs and they don’t give a sh!t about any of the relevant social considerations. 🙁
Where’s Puff when you need her?
Would have been great to see her breathing her fire here, rather than wasting her energy on Mr Nipple Ring!!! 🙂
sproket et al
have been saying this about wentworth for several years
tried to enlist good councillor for job
he said politics at local level better than contrivances of canberra
he has a point
greens would needs good leader – he was it – will try again
PeeBee @ #2104 Sunday, March 18th, 2018 – 8:38 pm
So you should be able to concede that the policy simply is a rebalancing of an all too obvious inequity introduced by Howard and Costello, and if these poor-ish , mainly Part Pensioners, but a very few Full Pensioners, need to scratch around to rearrange their share and investment portfolios, then that is the price, pretty literally, that they must pay for the greater good.
From the SA Election thread by Chinda… I reckon it is worth repeating here.
The ALP brand has taken a hammering (as has the Liberal brand). Whoever can sort out a solution to this problem gets a freddo frog.
There’ll be a riot.
I blame Rudd.
*Legs it*
“That is not being selfish. It is pointing out the obvious, which you seem to be oblivious to. You then make the leap that I am unsympathetic to the pensioner with no nest egg at all – that is a false accusation.”
Well no, you fight to keep ridiculous rorts in for relatively wealthy retirees and you ensure that pensioners are paid sub-poverty level pensions.
You talk about an inequity, I still don’t get this what do you mean?
Are you just referring to the fact that if the rule is that you pay tax once at the higher rate (of the company and the individual) rather than both paying tax, as should occur and is equitable with everyone else in the community, that where the investor has the lower rate (and always will have the lower rate) that the higher rate is the company’s rate, and that there are effectively unused credits because the company rate is the higher rate (I don’t know if these credits carry forward or not, probably they shouldn’t but I’m guessing they do).
If that is what you are referring too, then what you are really arguing for is that rather than the income be taxed at both stages, as should be the case for equality with other kinds of investments and flows of money, rather than it being taxed once at the higher rate, you really want it taxed just once, at the lower of the two rates, including not taxing it at all.
You do realise how very very absurd that argument is?
Simon Katich @ #2108 Sunday, March 18th, 2018 – 4:43 pm
Who is her?
SK:
Who is Chinda referring to please?
C#t, ‘So you should be able to concede that the policy simply is a rebalancing of an all too obvious inequity introduced by Howard and Costello, and if these poor-ish , mainly Part Pensioners, but a very few Full Pensioners, need to scratch around to rearrange their share and investment portfolios, then that is the price, pretty literally, that they must pay for the greater good.’
I tell you what I am able to concede: I am sick of making the poor(er) take the pain for this rebalancing.
It is these same pensioners who, on their exciting outing for the week, going down to the cafe for a coffee and a free read of the paper, are paying more tax in GST on that coffee than the top 500-600 companies, operating in this country, pay in company tax for a year.
Simon Katich @ #2108 Sunday, March 18th, 2018 – 8:43 pm
Would be nice to know who it refers to.
bemused,
I’ve just caught up having come home for a break.
My last lesson included pronouns in which I stressed how great they were, but only after you had made it clear who or what they were referring to!!!! 🙂
WWP: Well no, you fight to keep ridiculous rorts in for relatively wealthy retirees and you ensure that pensioners are paid sub-poverty’.
Nope. I want an equitable method of taxing to stop pensioners being paid sub-poverty pensions.
To do that, imputation credits should be denied to the wealthy investor TOO.
As the policy is now, they get a benefit, the poorer investors don’t.
You seem to think that is ok, and therefore are guilty of what you accuse me of.
Barney in Go Dau @ #2115 Sunday, March 18th, 2018 – 8:59 pm
Yes indeed. There are occasionally some deeply mysterious posts on PB. This is an example
“To do that, imputation credits should be denied to the wealthy investor TOO.
As the policy is now, they get a benefit, the poorer investors don’t.
You seem to think that is ok, and therefore are guilty of what you accuse me of.”
No this is false. Imputation credits work to ensure that the tax is paid once at the higher of the two rates, this doesn’t stop working once the company is the higher rate, it is just assuring the profit is taxed once at at least 30%. You want the profit to be taxed not at all. It is a ridiculous and false claim of inequality you start your argument with.
probably Frances Bedford, who won her seat,
Sorry, her is ex ALP now independent candidate for Florey(?) in SA election.
** Incumbent Frances Bedford resigned from Labor and became an independent on 28 March 2017 after Labor’s Jack Snelling won Florey pre-selection partly as a result of the major electoral redistribution which moved two-thirds of Playford voters in to Florey ahead of the 2018 election.**
I also don’t think (ii) has any chance of success. But, if it does, it will involve a lot of the kind of grubby compromises that are inevitably entailed in an attempt to put together an electoral majority.
And in two sentences Quiggin blows the delusions of Greens apart.
The Greens are perfectly entitled to have a crack at knocking Labor off. But it will be almost impossible and if they did manage it they’d just end up being Labor with all the same compromises and impurities just with a different name.
Either that or they will ensure the Right rules unchallenged.
Which all seems a bit pointless really doesn’t it. You can have your niche sanctimony and impotent purity Greenies, or you can be Labor (real or ersatz) and get shit done.
The Tiser is reporting that Malinauskas will take over with Kouts a late trier but M has the numbers.
WWP, ‘You want the profit to be taxed not at all. It is a ridiculous and false claim of inequality you start your argument with.’
Not at all.
If the wealthier can offset a tax liability with the credit, it is effectively not bringing in any additional revenue. It can be argued the company profit is not being taxed as it is displacing a tax somewhere else.
The poorer people cannot do this so the company profit is taxed.
I tell you what I am able to concede: I am sick of making the poor(er) take the pain for this rebalancing.
Maate, the rebalancing isn’t finished.
This is (part of) the revenue side.
It is yet to be revealed how the money not reimbursed will be spent, but I think you can safely assume it won’t be going towards the upper-middle class and above.
Pensioners who don’t own shares don’t get the frank rebate thingy. Those with a couple of hundred thousand dollars worth of shares and a low taxable income, including those with Superannuation pensions equal to the average wage (not taxable) and those who have organised their tax affairs to hide most of their income, do.
The way to help pensioners with little or no other income is to increase the rate of the pension and/or adjust the income and asset tests that determine eligibility, not give a refund of tax not paid.
Thanks William.
So a noob like me who didn’t work long in workforce (7 months) how does one get $12K rebates ? Lol
Simon Katich @ #2119 Sunday, March 18th, 2018 – 6:04 pm
Okay, thanks.
LU, ‘It is yet to be revealed how the money not reimbursed will be spent, but I think you can safely assume it won’t be going towards the upper-middle class and above.’
I don’t think you can safely assume anything based on a vague promise. I am sure Labor will spend any revenue wisely (no wars, RC into kill Bill, useless mixed technology etc).
But what I can’t understand is they let the wealthier investors the benefit of the credits and deny it to the poorer pensioner/investor. They may as well leave the poorer pensioner/investor alone and slug the wealthier investor.
Taking money away from them only to give it back to them seems a pointless exercise.
The fire situation at Tathra on the NSW South Coast doesn’t look good: https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/nsw-residents-told-it-s-too-late-to-leave-as-fire-destroys-properties-20180318-p4z4z7.html
The name of the candidate isnt really important. The reluctance of people to vote for the ALP brand is Chinda’s point. This weeks homework is not if that be true, but what to do about it.
And dont go giving me the usual blah about battling the MSM, or Royal Commissions yadda yadda. I want outside the box stuff.
How about the ALP stop running slackarse charisma bypass candidates in unwinnable seats but make loose or informal affiliations with independents and even small third parties like SABest if those candidates obviously have values the ALP can work with. Reopen or better fund Country Labor only dont call them ‘Labor’. Dress up in donkey costumes. Bring in a second tier ALP candidate that is of the party but unrestrained by voting on party lines. That sort of thing.
PeeBee @ #2129 Sunday, March 18th, 2018 – 9:14 pm
You seem to be deliberately misunderstanding or misinterpreting this policy.
And you have become obsessive.
“If the wealthier can offset a tax liability with the credit, it is effectively not bringing in any additional revenue. It can be argued the company profit is not being taxed as it is displacing a tax somewhere else.
The poorer people cannot do this so the company profit is taxed.”
Firstly you are confusing low income with poorer, a lot of your poor people are quite wealthy and with deliberately low income but that is a whole other ball game.
It is really quite simple.
You have two lots of income. They should both be taxed. The first is company profit that should be taxed at 30%. The portions of that profit distributed to shareholders should then be taxed at the marginal rate of the shareholder.
Now I don’t buy this no double taxation malarkey for a moment, it was just a selling slogan for Paul Keating because selling an investment incentive that would predominantly benefit the wealthy would have always been problematic. But that is what it was.
It is of itself unfair, and I would argue entirely unnecessary in the current capital environment. But greater minds than mine, say Keating, disagree.
It benefits shareholders over those who do not hold shares. Perhaps inadvertent but Pee Bee you make the case for its removal.
What you do not make is the case for the not taxing the income of a company at all by your construed inequity between one class of shareholders and another.
Just watered my fruit trees.
It’s still 32C outside.
#weatheronPB
Kat,
I reckon the best thing Labor can do is simply be true to itself in all the wonderfully convoluted and imperfect ways that entails…
and not give a flying fuck about dropkicks that vote against their own interests simply because of the Labor label.
There are more than enough votes out there to capture. And plenty that will cost you more to get than you will gain.
Bemused, ‘You seem to be deliberately misunderstanding or misinterpreting this policy. And you have become obsessive.’
Ok, Over to you to explain how the wealthier do not get the benefit of the credits or how the poorer pensioner/investor do get a benefit.
“Ok, Over to you to explain how the wealthier get the benefit of the credits or how the poorer pensioner/investor do get a benefit.”
They both get the same benefit of the income being taxed once at the higher of the corporate rate and the marginal rate, when it should be taxed twice.
Ratsak
” I also don’t think (ii) has any chance of success. But, if it does, it will involve a lot of the kind of grubby compromises that are inevitably entailed in an attempt to put together an electoral majority.”
And in two sentences Quiggin blows the delusions of Greens apart.
_____________________________________
Yep, I thought they were the key sentences. Whether you want to label it ‘grubby compromises’ or fair deals in a pluralistic society, the fact is that all policy in a democracy (and many less than democratic governments) is a process of compromise and deal-making. In those countries with multi-party legislatures the deals are made after the election as coalition governments are put together. In two-party systems, the deals are made before the election and incorporated into broad-ranging election platforms. But deals are made. Only totalitarians and very, very narrow political parties can afford to be purely consistent.
The real question is not whether compromises are made – they are – but whether the results favour the personal interests of the dealmakers and their hidden backers, or are in the national interest (even if not the ideal or most effective path).
Simon Katich @ #2131 Sunday, March 18th, 2018 – 9:15 pm
Dyed in the wool Libs are like that.
I have talked politics with them while handing out htvs and quite a few basically accept almost all Labor policies and positions. But its the bogey man unions you see! I had one woman lecturing me on the evils of privatisation – and she was a Lib party member!
PeeBee do you actually understand the policy?
The other thing with PeeBee’s responses is that they are completely in isolation with no thought for what other policies Labor have in the wings.
Labor may and probably do have measures that address many of your concerns.
This will not be Labor’s only policy before the next election. 🙂
PeeBee @ #2136 Sunday, March 18th, 2018 – 9:21 pm
Anyone, rich or poor, who is paying income tax, will get the benefit.
End of story.
Taking money away from them only to give it back to them seems a pointless exercise.
The imputed tax credit system wasn’t put in place as a redistributive mechanism. If it has gained that stature, its because capital owners like to hold on to their capital, not eat it, right down to the lowest income level.
jenauthor @ #2140 Sunday, March 18th, 2018 – 9:25 pm
Clearly not, despite many patient explanations.
**and not give a flying fuck about dropkicks that vote against their own interests simply because of the Labor label.**
You can be true to your values AND look for better ways to sell your ideas.
I am still the same person now I drive around in a Honda Jazz as I was 10 years ago driving a Kombi. The Jazz gets me from A to B every time. The Kombi….. didnt. And I couldnt get the mould smell out.
There’s a lot to worry about Dutton. Ex. Cop, street cred, dog whistler.
Fortunately the grat Australian public have more sense.
He doesnt stand a snowflakes, but if the Tories are stupid enough to think he does then bring it on I say.
Rossmore @ #2146 Sunday, March 18th, 2018 – 5:30 pm
I hope you’re right but wasn’t that the rational consensus about Abbott!
I’ve been involved in campaigns when Labor was at a really low ebb – with predictions, quite believable ones, that the next ALP Premier/Prime Minister had not been born, that Labor was out for a generation, etc etc.
We didn’t get back so quickly because we pretended to be something we weren’t, or changed our labels, or ran candidates who pretended not be Labor or who swapped badges under cover of darkness.
We got back when we stuck to our values and weren’t afraid to say who we were or what we stood for.
I’ve always made a point, in this fiercely conservative electorate, of wearing the Labor badge proudly, of identifying myself as Labor in situations where it wasn’t a plus for me (such as council elections).
Sure, sometimes it isn’t ‘cool’ to wear the badge. But it’s never cool to do impersonations of something you’re not for short term gain.
If Labor is to get back in SA – or anywhere else – it needs to show it’s proud of who it is and what it stands for. If the brand needs to be rebuilt, rebuild it.
Any Victorian can attest that, by doing so, Labor will be in Opposition for a shorter time than anyone expects and stay in power longer than anyone predicts.
Bemused, ‘Anyone, rich or poor, who is paying income tax, will get the benefit. End of story.’
That is not the end of the story.
The end of the story is the pensioner who has no taxable income doesn’t get any benefit from the credits for a small investment they may have. That is the part you missed out.
Jenauthor, what do you mean? Please elaborate.