As we wait for the 2019 polling machine to get cranking, a review of recent happenings:
• Indigenous leader Warren Mundine is to be installed as the new Liberal candidate for the marginal seat of Gilmore in southern New South Wales, supplanting the existing candidate, Grant Schultz, by decree of the party’s state executive acting at the behest of the Prime Minister. Schultz promptly quit the Liberal Party when the news broke yesterday and announced he would run as an independent. Schultz’s dumping was also blasted by Shelley Hancock, member for the corresponding state seat of South Coast, who spoke of “one of the darkest days of the Liberal Party”. A local real estate agent and son of the late Alby Schultz, former member for Hume, Schultz was preparing a challenge to the preselection of incumbent Ann Sudmalis last year, and was the only remaining nominee after she announced her retirement in September. Mundine was national president of the ALP in 2006 and 2007, but quit the party in 2012 and moved ever further into the conservative orbit thereafter. It is expected the seat will be contested for the Nationals by Katrina Hodgkinson, former state member for Burrinjuck and Cootamundra.
• Following Kelly O’Dwyer’s retirement announcement on the weekend, it appears accepted within the Liberal Party that it needs to pick a woman to succeed her. Katie Allen, a paediatrician and medical researcher who ran unsuccessfully in Prahran at the November state election, has confirmed she will nominate. Michael Koziol of The Age reports other names being discussed include Caroline Elliott, state party vice-president and daughter of businessman John Elliott, and Margaret Fitzherbert, who lost her upper house seat for Southern Metropolitan region at the state election. Senator Jane Hume has reportedly encouraged to put her name forward, but announced yesterday she would not do so.
• Anne Webster, founder of young mother support organisation Zoe Support, was chosen as the Nationals candidate for Mallee at a local preselection vote on Saturday. Webster will succeed one-term member Andrew Broad, who announced his impending retirement last month after he became embroiled in the “sugar baby” affair. Rachel Baxendale of The Australian reports Webster won in the second round of voting over Birchip accountant and farmer Bernadette Hogan and Mildura police domestic violence taskforce head Paul Matheson, with three other candidates excluded in the first round.
• Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie has announced she will not contest the lower house seat of Indi, contrary to expectations she would do so if independent incumbent Cathy McGowan announced her retirement, which she did last weekend.
• Two notable independents have emerged to challenge Tony Abbott in Warringah: Alice Thompson, a KPMG manager who worked in the Prime Minister’s Office under Malcolm Turnbull, and Susan Moylan-Coombs, founder and director of indigenous advocacy organisation the Gaimaragal Group.
Mavis Smith @ #1598 Friday, January 25th, 2019 – 12:07 pm
Also that the Repugs are trying to play the biggest game of bluff going around, that the Mid Terms never happened and THEY are still in charge and in control.
Just a little bit of anecdotal data.
My parents will have their retirement income affected by the tax changes.
My father was a CFMEU union rep.
I don’t really know what to tell them other than the current system is a rort (and even then I can’t go into details, because despite reading about it, I still don’t understand it).
I doubt they’re going to vote LNP over the issue, but it’s something Labor needs a better answer to. Saying that it only affects 8% is not a reason to get rid of it.
Rex Douglas:
[‘I’m sure Chris Bowen is looking forward to the new senate straightening out his hotch potch of franking credit policy.’]
There nothing hotchpotch about reforming a tax lurk mostly affecting the big end of town, most of the recipients of which would vote for your party (Tory) in any event.
C@tmomma:
[‘…that the Mid Terms never happened and THEY are still in charge and in control.’]
Trump his motley crew are slow learners. Thank doG for the results of the mid-terms
briefly @ #1585 Friday, January 25th, 2019 – 8:03 am
This goes to a strong perception of the infallibility of the President.
I remember back in ’04 travelling around the UK I came across some American Uni students doing some summer study at a UK uni.
The conversation came around to Bush and also the Iraq War.
I asked them if they agreed with the war.
Without thinking they replied, yes!
When I pushed and asked why.
Because Bush said that it was right.
Their response stunned me. I pushed a little further.
But couldn’t he be wrong?
{Blank eyed stares} No!
Why?
Because he’s the President.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-jeremy-corbyn-labour-mps-second-referendum-latest-eu-a8745231.html
The UK gets closer to a No-Deal Brexit by the hour.
Gareth,
If your parents are Part Pensioners they have nothing to worry about.
If they are fully-funded superannuants, have they really put all their eggs in this one basket? If not, then it shouldn’t make much of a difference all things considered.
As a former union rep, shouldn’t your father agree that corporations should not be allowed to favour their shareholders over those not fortunate enough to benefit from this distortion of Keating’s original policy?
Mavis Smith @ #1596 Friday, January 25th, 2019 – 12:14 pm
I agree in theory. Just needs the senate to iron out all the wrinkles.
poroti @ #1582 Friday, January 25th, 2019 – 10:56 am
Ah, such a good argument for why my gardener/housekeeper/au-pair should not owe any income tax on payments that I give them. “This prevents double taxation – that is, the taxation of income earned by a person, and again when a subsequent recipient receives a portion”. Works for the GST, too. 🙂
Frednk
The point i said is that the changeover yesterday didnt work as smoothly as expected. This caused an extra dimensional
problem for an already stressed grid because the change did not go smoothly. That is a fact.
My response last night was to someone trying to beat up the coal argument and that’s why some problems occurred.
There exists now so many variables within the electrical system across Australia, that at any one time the system will have setbacks.
I understand exactly how the system works from small systems like farms to the amalgamation of interconnected supply points and the conflated distribution menagerie.
Reopening old coal powered stations, building new ones is not the way forward.
Regards
Or WWP does AOC but without the dancing ability or any shred of her political genius.
This is a pillar. Good tax policy treats WWP and Nath the same if economically WWP and Nath are in the same position. It is a good pillar. If WWP lives close to his work and has no travel expenses and Nath lives a long way from work and has lots of travel expenses to earn his income then this pillar would recognise that.
If WWP and Nath got exactly the same wage then WWP would pay more tax because she wouldn’t have that expense. This pillar also suggests that if WWP and Nath earn the same net money, but say WWP is earning a salary and Nath is self employed they would pay the same tax. Of course the rules do not support this pillar. Nath can’t deduct the travel expense if he is a wage and salary earner and can deduct it if he is self employed. If Nath is self employed he is going to pay a lot less tax for a whole lot of reasons (0nly one being the black economy which if used is an illegitimate means to that end).
So it is a good pillar, just don’t expect it to work for you. If you are a wage and salary earner it is almost never ever going to work for you. A suit you wear to work every day of the year and once to a funeral, is going to be treated as if you only wore it to the funeral. If you live far from work that is you cost, you obviously should have lived close to work, and if your work moves you bear the cost of moving to follow it. Great pillar just don’t expect it to work for you if you are a wage and salary earner or someone of very low net wealth.
It also is part of and disguises the biggest con. And that is almost all the rules are written to protect wealth. They all focus on the trickle of income and ignore if it is flowing into an already full body of water like the Sydney harbor or if Nath is drinking every single drop before it goes anywhere.
There are some steps to recognise the pool in superannuation, but even retirement policy implemented through super tends to look at the trickle not the pool, eg div 293. There are very few justifications for being so hard on income and so soft on capital, in an ability to contribute to society frame.
So even a good pillar is very poorly implemented. And when most of us can’t rely on that pillar then it is a bit precious using it to protect a perk that is clearly more part of the inequity than than the solution. But that is the key to the tropes of trickle down, they take a principle and selectively apply it to protect wealth.
Now some well meaning beloved fellow travelers in PB are going to point out we all have some skin in the game in superfunds. And it is true. And I while I still think super is a good thing, notwithstanding there are some economists now standing up and saying it isn’t great for a whole lot of use, I’m certain the super system isn’t well tuned as part of a comprehensive cradle to grave retirement policy. In fact I’d argue the superannuation system in Australia has been tuned to function more like a trickle down / flood up machine than a sensible element of a holistic cradle to grade retirement system.
But long argument short, super acts as the perfect ‘skin in the game’ where you give a whole lot of people very little skin in the game and then tell them they need to act to protect that very little skin in the game (and even better for the peasants it is a lot of skin) thereby protecting your massive wealth. For middle income earners and lower superannuation is far far too linked to the idiocy of wall street to be left the way it is.
So that is the first pillar, excellent pillar, terrible and inconsistent implementation.
The second great pillar:
This is a terrible pillar, it should not be a pillar at all, for most of us it isn’t a thing at all. Obviously the impact of any change should be weighed against its impact on people and their planning, and good policy isn’t going to smash, particularly poor, people around. The WWP philosophy is for gentle and gradual movement towards a well defined and understood policy goal.
Obviously generally in Australia since the late 90’s we’ve had very little by way of well defined and understood policy goals and what we have had has mostly been trickle down / flood up policy goals.
But I said this pillar, which I’ll call the ‘certainty’ pillar is not a thing. Let me demonstrate. Nath is a Director at a big four accounting firm offering R&D consultancy services to tech startups on the path to partnership.
Nath, our hypothetical Nath in a hypothetical world, just with Australian tax settings, buys a house on the Swan River (or the harbor for you losers in the other (lesser penal) original colony on the bad side of the country) and is very happy. Nath’s accounting firm gets hit with an ATO review, threats are made about applying the promoter penalties and Nath’s firm tosses out a number of partners in the dark of night to assuage the ATO and hopefully keep it all out of the papers to save from suffering reputation damage. Remember just hypothetical Nath isn’t real. Nath thinks it is a great opportunity with those pesky partners clearing off, and finances a new Tesla to really look the part. But rumors spread around the tech startups, Nath’s firm is suffering some reputational damage, and Nath is given a performance target that is impossible to meet, given two months to meet it and then sacked for cause with 4 weeks notice.
Nath is going to struggle. Because life. This second pillar, if Nath could apply it, would say he financed a car and a home, on the expectation he’d have a job and a fantastic income, both on an up curve. You try telling the bank they can’t reposs your car or your house after a while if you can’t pay because the certainty principle says you should be able to rely on the past.
This pillar is a really really bad pillar, it is used as a tool of trickle down / flood up and almost nowhere else. Everywhere else life is uncertain, risks have to be considered and decisions made. Only the really wealthy get to apply this ‘certainty principle’.
We saw over Christmas how those on Government benefits got certainty over the holiday period (hint they didn’t get certainty they got their payments cut because the LNP are scum.
So long boring story, I don’t expect anyone else to read, Chris Bowen and Bill Shorten need to get the f*ck off the trickle down / flood up bus and tell people about it pretty soon.
Cool change has reached the southcoast of Victoria.
Lovely cool breeze.
#weatheronpb
Headline from Brisbane! (not really) 🙂
BiGD…the office of POTUS has a great deal of prestige. Successive presidents have done their utmost to accentuate and advance the symbolic and actual powers of their position. It would be unusual if most did not exhibit a sense of deference to such power. Trump is doing his best to exploit the mystique of the office while also destroying it.
ar
I have never accepted the argument used to justify the dividend ‘rort’ , not even for the original ‘Bobawk’ and Keating version.
Also the cost of these credits are predicted to skyrocket in future years.It would have already past the education budget by now. The current system is unsustainable.
C@tmomma@12:25 pm
They are fully funded and I believe it makes up a small portion of their income stream. So it is no big deal, but they have not heard the ‘why’ from Labor.
I brought up his former union status to demonstrate his demographic.
Someone mentioned that we are paying out the same amount on this tax as we are on public schools. This will help put things in perspective for them.
A no-deal Brexit would be a “betrayal” of what was promised by Leave campaigners during the EU referendum campaign, the chancellor has said.
Philip Hammond told UK business leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos that such an outcome – which Theresa May has refused to rule out – would “undermine prosperity and equally undermine the referendum”.
The intervention comes just weeks after Mr Hammond told another group of business leaders in a conference call that a no deal should be taken off the table by the government – as Labour has suggested.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-no-deal-philip-hammond-referendum-chancellor-davos-wef-theresa-may-a8744621.html
Barney in Go Dau:
[‘…but an undeclared Democratic opponent still leads by 10 points nationally.’]
Which will I think hold until the next election, it being crucial that the Dems pick someone who has the mongrel in him/her. At this early stage, I think Biden’s the one, though his age is against him.
I must say the last 90 minutes has shown PBers at their best.Good comments and good debate.
One of the really big problems with the trickle down / flood up world we have being trapped in for 40 years is the pension system, the payments are massively (perhaps less than half) what they need to be across the board, and the system treats those on them as criminals, and it is so complex and so hard to interact with it makes multinational tax planning look really really easy (feature not bug from the LNP worldview).
Stand by for Murdoch to attack the Pope yet again:
briefly @ #1609 Friday, January 25th, 2019 – 8:32 am
And there lies one of my greatest gripes.
Respect should be earned through your words and deeds and not given with a title.
Airbus employs 14,000 people in Britain, including 6,000 jobs at its main wings factory at Broughton, in North Wales, and 3,000 at Filton, near Bristol, where wings are designed and supported.
With around 110,000 more jobs in connected supply chains, the aerospace group is among the UK’s key employers – and among the most vulnerable to the loss of ‘just-in-time’ manufacturing across the EU.
Mr Enders said Britain’s multibillion-pound aerospace sector, a world-leader for a century, is “standing at a precipice”, with only nine weeks until the intended departure date from the EU.
“In a global economy, the UK no longer has the capability to go it alone. Major aerospace projects are multinational affairs,” Mr Enders said in a video message.
He added: “Brexit is threatening to destroy a century of development based on education, research and human capital.
“If there’s a no-deal Brexit, we at Airbus will have to make potentially very harmful decisions for the UK.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-latest-airbus-uk-jobs-close-plants-disgrace-theresa-may-no-deal-a8743811.html
Corbyn and May will get what they have always wanted – a No-Deal Brexit. Chaos will certainly ensue.
Mavis Smith says:
Friday, January 25, 2019 at 12:37 pm
Barney in Go Dau:
[‘…but an undeclared Democratic opponent still leads by 10 points nationally.’]
Which will I think hold until the next election, it being crucial that the Dems pick someone who has the mongrel in him/her. At this early stage, I think Biden’s the one, though his age is against him.
The generic advantage is 10% now. By the time of the next election, if Trump is the Nominee, the advantage will be 20% or more. I doubt that Trump will make it that far. The Republicans will scurry around, looking for a non-Trump. They will be obliterated in any case.
Trump is driving voters into the arms of the Democratic Party by the million. This will become an absolute stampede.
Another example WWP and Nath are both retired. Neither are eligible for any pension.
WWP write content in his spare time and earns income, he got away with claiming it was a hobby for a couple of years before his accountant said ‘look this is income dude you are going to have to declare it’.. Let’s say 1 dollar less than the tax free threshold.
Nath watches cricket Nath hates the Marsh brothers and they are having a bad trot Nath loves that. Nath has shares and gets 1 dollar less income than the tax free threshold.
Nath and WWP live in the same suburb in a house that they have paid off with the same net value. Nath gets a big fat imputation credit, WWP gets nothing. Where is that first pillar?
And us South Aussies welcome the Victorians’ thanks to the previous Jay Weatherill’s Labor gov’t for the electricity we are sending over the border to help youse during the heatwave.
I was thanking him yesterday when we were roasting in the same heat. We had no blackout s yesterday. If anyone should get an Aussie Knighthood it should be Jay.
<
beguiled
I’ve heard countless versions of the Pearlfishers duet since the early 1950’s. And I know arguments about “bests” can be a bit tedious. But none has come close to the first time I listened to Robert Merrill and Jussi Bjoerling in 1950. It still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zdb94HbyRko
_______________________________
I came to it much later, but ditto for me. Something about the tonal harmony of the two singers – and, of course their excellence as lyrical tenors.
briefly @ #1624 Friday, January 25th, 2019 – 8:44 am
Well they better change direction quickly because they are just about to cancel the Primaries and install Trump as their nomination for the next election. 😆
PuffyTMD @ #1626 Friday, January 25th, 2019 – 12:48 pm
The sooner Victoria’s old clapped-out coal-fired power generators are replaced the better. They’re an embarrassment.
From Gottleibsen’s reply to Bowen:
“Until now, both parties had an agreed policy whereby shareholders in a company would not be double taxed on company profits.”
__________________________________
This is totally wrong and therefore anything else that flows from this proposition is not worth reading.
First there was no complete agreement – otherwise Keating and Hawke would have introduced it in the first place. More importantly, to the extent there was agreement, it was that once a company had paid tax a dividend paid to a shareholder from income on which a company had already paid tax would not be taxed again to the extent of tax already paid.
There never was and never will be a view that the company is taxed as an agent of the shareholder and that the two identities therefore merge into one with the tax payable the lowest possible depending on who pays the lowest rate.
I’m not going to get into any details of the brexit farce, other than to observe two things. Firstly people who get to vote should take that opportunity and that obligation a lot more seriously than they do and they have to live with the outcomes. Like we have Malcolm’s NBN.
Secondly without endorsing in anyway Corbyn or any of his policies or political tactics, you’d have to ignore quite a big barrage of facts and put a lot of faith in your ability to discern ‘true intentions’ hidden by that bucket load of fact to be able to conclude that Corbyn wants a deal free brexit, you know one pesky one being that he refuses to negotiate a bipartisan outcome until that option is off the table.
On other matters where we cross swords in the past briefly The Intercept pod, Deconstructed with Mehdi Hasan had a brilliant nuanced and all too short discussion of Israel, boycotts and antisemitism that is well worth a listen. Titled ‘you can’t say that about Israel’
Powercor’s website is down not surprisingly.
At least 40,000+ customers statewide without power.
PuffyTMD
and for Jay supporting the return of the Polly Waffle as well.
One way to use an abandoned quarry – build a luxury hotel down one side.
Intercontinental hotel on the outskirts of Shanghai.
Cool change has hit Geelong
43.1 to 35.8 in 8 minutes
C@t
Also that the Repugs are trying to play the biggest game of bluff going around, that the Mid Terms never happened and THEY are still in charge and in control.
______________________________
Which is what they did in 2013 when Obama commenced his second term. They relied on their 60 vote rule in the Senate and the gerrymandered majority in the reps to pretend that Obama had not won. And it is arguable that they were successful in doing so.
But they taught Pelosi and Schumer a very valuable lesson in dealing with a President with whom they don’t agree.
Sgh1969, I just checked the AMEO site and noticed the spot price for electricity has dropped from $14,000 a mwh to very little (it is a graph and can’t read the actual number).
This is the first time I have checked the site and therefore really know nothing about this, but I was wondering if the price drop and sheding have anything to do with each other.
It makes me wonder if the ‘brown outs’, (which I guess is a polite way of saying ‘blackouts’) is a cost saving mechanism rather than a capacity issue.
Going to go practice writing so I can make a little money from content generation in my retirement.
But before I go my roses just looked at me and said, “you know trickle down / flood up is a lot like LNP preselection if you have a go, you might even get a go, but then again you might get Morrisoned.”
😆
PeeBee
Not sure but The Age reports that load shedding has commenced from 1300 and will last until at least 1500 today.
A list of suburbs and towns has been supplied and include Epping, Mill Park, Lysterfield, Rowville, Clyde, Cranbourne East; Southbank, Armadale, Toorak, Camberwell, Fairfield, Northcote, Caulfield, Elwood, Beaumaris, Bulleen, Burwood, Riversdale, Bentleigh, Heathdale, Balaclava, Malvern, Balwyn, Surrey Hills, Essendon, Essendon North, Strathmore, Glenroy, Oak Park, Kalkallo, Broadmeadows, West Footscray, Fairfield, Ivanhoe, Alphington, Airport West, East Keilor, Niddrie, Ascot Vale, and Moonee Pond, Camperdown, Weerite, Yarrawonga, Bundalong, Castlemaine Muckleford, Lara, Corio, Norlan, Herne Hill, Hamplyn Heights, Balmoral, Haven, Woolsthorpe, Grassmere and Mailers Flat.
briefly:
[‘By the time of the next election, if Trump is the Nominee, the advantage will be 20% or more.’]
I hope you’re right, though Trump’s rusted-ons don’t seem to be abandoning ship.
Sgh1969, having the cool change hit Geelong should take the pressure off the grid. Just hope they all don’t turn on their washing machines, dishwashers and irons too soon.
1:06 pm: https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/melbourne-heatwave-extreme-heat-to-smash-records-across-victoria-cause-power-outages-20190125-p50tjj.html
Steve Davis
Also the cost of these credits are predicted to skyrocket in future years.It would have already past the education budget by now. The current system is unsustainable.
___________________________________________
That last sentence is at the heart of Labor policy now and into the future. Already younger people are failing to get the benefits that baby boomers have received and the longer those benefits stay in place, drawing down billions on the budget and increasing exponentially and more and more retiring people get in on the lurks, the bigger the cliff will be when the reckoning comes – probably when our children retire.
Now if we have enough assets (especially property) to leave to our children, they will be fine and dandy. But those young people now in the workforce who do not have an expectation of an inheritance at the retirement age (and there will be millions) will have to face a government with little money. If they have followed our generation and assigned their savings to the most ‘tax effective’ options (denying billions of dollars to revenue) something will have to give. But what is anyone’s guess. It won’t be pretty though.
steve davis @ #1623 Friday, January 25th, 2019 – 12:38 pm
Bliss without nath. 🙂
I think that the debate about Americans blind loyalty to the President overlooks that they didn’t pay that due respect to President Obama. Well, at least the ones like Donald Trump who led the charge to disrespect him.
C@tmomma @ #1646 Friday, January 25th, 2019 – 9:18 am
Maybe that blind loyalty has a partisan element to it as well? 🙂
Putin increases his hold on Mother Russia:
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/russia-to-ban-fake-news-and-indecent-state-criticism-20190125-p50tmn.html
Next, it will be a return to the gulags. Little wonder the Doomsday Clock is still on two minutes to midnight:
https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/nuclear-climate-threats-keep-doomsday-clock-close-to-apocalypse-20190125-p50tld.html
Mavis Smith @ #1648 Friday, January 25th, 2019 – 9:21 am
BBBBBbbbbbut he was democratically elected!!!!!!! 😆