YouGov’s tri-weekly federal poll shows no sign of movement one way or the other in the wake of the stage three tax cuts rearrangement, with two-party preferred unchanged at 52-48 from primary votes of Labor 32% (steady), Coalition 36% (down one), Greens 14% (up one) and One Nation 8% (up one). The poll also has a question on the tax cuts which finds a 69-31 break in favour of the changes over the tax cuts as originally proposed. Anthony Albanese’s lead on preferred premier has narrowed from 45-35 to 45-38 and his net approval rating is out from minus 13 to minus 16, with Peter Dutton in slightly from minus nine to minus eight. The poll was conducted Friday to Wednesday from a sample of 1502.
Some notable electoral happenings at state level:
• There is the possibility of an early election in Tasmania as Premier Jeremy Rockliff pursues a demand that John Tucker and Lara Alexander, Liberal-turned-independent members who hold the balance of power in the lower house, agree not to vote for non-government amendments and motions. Further clarity may be provided after a meeting between the three at 1:30pm today.
• March 23 has been confirmed as the date for the South Australian state by-election in Dunstan, the highly marginal seat being vacated with the resignation on Tuesday of former Premier Steven Marshall.
• I also have by-election guides up for the Queensland state seats of Inala and Ipswich West, which will go to the polls concurrently with the local government elections on March 16.
meher bebe,
So far we only know that 2 and a maximum of 4 (more likely 2) games to be played at the oval each year. Both the commission and channel 9 have come out publicly this week declaring they want the bears in the next expansion tranche.
Apart from that we only know the club’s ‘non negotiables’ will be honoured- that is a minimum of 2 games per year at North Sydney oval, Red and black retained as the team colours and of course the Bear to stay as the club emblem/mascot
I once thought that American institutions were strong enough to
withstand a concerted attack on them a person of the character of Trump. I’m not so sure now, particularly due to the stacking of the US Supreme Court, and his latest comment about NATO countries who fail to pay their dues. Never did I think that a contender for president would wax lyrical about the leader of Russia, China & North Korea. There’s now probably only one way out of this abyss.
Irene: “I had forgotten but who said that?”
I was one of them. I copped a lot of criticism on here during the lead-up to the election for arguing that the “big end of town” rhetoric and the neg gearing and franking credit policies were ok while Turnbull was leader but that they were likely to lead to a humiliating defeat against an ostensibly more plebeian leader in ScoMo.
I squibbed out on election day and, naively believing that Newspoll never got it wrong, I predicted a narrow victory for Labor. Ten minutes into the broadcast, the look on Penny Wong’s face told me that I had gotten it right the first time.
Meher Babah. Yes I’d agree. Doubtless the Treasury boffins are working on this right now. The challenge will be explaining this complex policy shift in simple terms.
In Melbourne there a lot of houses being built and they are selling for about seven times the average income. Instead of claiming negative gearing is the problem we need to look at the real reason. My thoughts are:
-Real cost of manufactured items have come down in cost. While the cost of building a house hasn’t.
-You get a lot more now, the building of the roads, sewage, under ground power, optical fiber.
-Parks etc are included in the design.
Rossmore: “Doubtless the Treasury boffins are working on this right now. ”
They’ve been working on it for years. And on tightening up family trusts (ie, restricting their use to families who run genuine businesses, rather than one or more shelf companies created solely for the purpose of tax minimisation). I understand that Treasury’s preferred changes to trusts were quixotically and unsuccessfully taken to Cabinet by Peter Costello during the Howard era, but I’m not aware of their being considered seriously at any other time.
The fact that most senior politicians on both sides have long made use of these tools for reducing their tax liabilities appears to have represented a genuine impediment to change. It was therefore encouraging to see today’s lead story in the Nine papers.
Mavissays:
Sunday, February 11, 2024 at 8:03 pm
“Sitting on 2.33 hectares, Joyce sold his home in Tamworth’s outskirts last week for $1.1m, making a tidy profit of around $400k. If it wasn’t mortgaged, he’d be flushed with funds to perhaps find a new occupation, as his political prospects must surely look bleak.”
Joyce is under no pressure to leave Parliament.
New England want him as their representative.
Where else will he get a job that pays so well and enables him to mostly do as he pleases and have a drink or two when the urge is irresistible.
No one in the National Party has the “gonads” to confront Joyce.
Joyce didn’t miss a beat when Turnbull attempted to publicaly admonish Joyce.
“Lay low”, say very little, look after the kids and the next elections is in the bag.
Even the next leader of the Nationals and DPM is still a possibility.
What planter box ? What footpath ? What walk home ?
Did anyone actually ask where Joyce was staying ?
Was the “stay” anywhere the planter box fell over !
Get real, no one in the MSM, the Nationals, the Liberals or the Jesuits will ever mention the incident again.
Barnaby will be “getting the feeling” now!
Negative gearing is an easy target but if that was the problem only Australia would be seeing a housing problem but it isn’t.
The army’s $5.7bn Boxer armoured vehicle program has become the latest bargaining chip in Defence’s escalating war with Richard Marles, with the department warning the government’s demands for savings are threatening the long-awaited capability.
Multiple sources said the Defence Minister’s funding battle with the department could force renegotiation of the contract with Germany’s Rheinmetall for 211 Boxer vehicles, threatening jobs at the company’s Queensland plant and potential export orders.
The warnings came days after Mr Marles delivered a brutal assessment of his department’s performance, declaring it had “a long way to go” before it could claim to have a “culture of excellence”.
Mr Marles and Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy are looking for savings to pay for nuclear submarines, ships and missiles. Projects not aligned with last year’s Defence Strategic Review – which demanded a more lethal, agile force – are set to be scaled back, delayed or cancelled in a new 10-year capability plan. A Defence source said if new funding was not found, plans to produce 186 of 211 Boxer vehicles in Australia “may have to be cut”. The same source said the capability planning process was becoming increasingly chaotic, and the department was “burning out trying to keep up with the ministers’ offices”. “The schedule of government-defence decision-making has been completely disbanded,” the Defence insider said. “All interactions have been ad hoc, with very little lead time for preparation.”
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/defence/defence-in-boxer-war-with-marles-as-budget-fight-escalates/news-story/ff73305d33775b0334d9d94691743796?amp
Marles v Defence. Hmm Defence Ministers at “war” with the department tend to lose those fights imo.
Some people will hate this but we have to accept people don’t want to pay too much tax so we have to design a tax system that lets people keep more of their money.
Prabowo Subianto seems to be heading towards victory in Indonesia’s fair and square Presidential election.
Following on from Suharto’s U.S. backed genocidal murder of 500,000 thousand ‘communist’ peasants, who objected to their ingrained serfdom in a feudal system of peasants and landlords, and protested that they should be given the land rights promised by Sukarno (before Suharto’s military coup) who, OMG, was photographed smiling with Mao Zedong, and …
I digress.
Indonsesia has a transparent democratic political system and its elections are fair.
I saw Prabowo Subianto on the tv saying, ‘if you don’t like me, don’t vote for me’, and totally fair enough.
‘Prabowo spent much of his military career in Indonesia’s notorious Kopassus special forces, becoming its commander from 1995-1998… He had close ties to Suharto during the New Order…He received military training in the U.S. The Washington Post reported in 1998 that his “ties to the U.S. military are the closest of any among the U.S.-trained officer corps.” Former U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia Robert Gelbard described Prabowo as “somebody who is perhaps the greatest violator of human rights in contemporary times among the Indonesian military. His deeds in the late 1990s before democracy took hold, were shocking, even by TNI standards.
Prabowo served several tours in Timor-Leste, where he “developed his reputation as the military’s most ruthless field commander”
Source: etan.org
But fair enough, if they didn’t like him, they wouldn’t have voted for him.
Mb most tax experts in Australia say we tax income too heavily and capital too lightly. The real vested interests are those who hold the capital.
When you look at it that way you can see why it is skewed the way it is.
If you were a heir to say a company fortune in pre 1985 shares (exempt from CGT) would you be too fussed about the govt taking away $4500 from someone earning $190,000 p.a?
Re BW @8:05. We need to decide what Plan B is…
Lars Von Triersays:
Sunday, February 11, 2024 at 9:04 pm
Mb most tax experts in Australia say we tax income too heavily and capital too lightly. The real vested interests are those who hold the capital.
When you look at it that way you can see why it is skewed the way it is.
If you were a heir to say a company fortune in pre 1985 shares (exempt from CGT) would you be too fussed about the govt taking away $4500 from someone earning $190,000 p.a?
—————————
That’s the root of the problem and fixing that is the challenge and that person wont be too to fussed about the fiddling of income tax rates.
Rainman i’d like to be a fly on the wall hearing your thoughts about the recent election of Bongbong Marcos in the Philippines.
I’d strongly recommend you take 3 or 4 diazepam before even contemplating the subject.
My second proposition Mb is the 1901 constitutional settlement is no longer capable of systemic change like real tax reform hence we see increasing levels of disatisfaction with the two party system.
Barnaby’s late night escapade is commemorated by the locals:
Harold Mitchell made it to 81. Impressive given how fat he was for most of his life (reputedly 165kg in 2014).
You rarely see a fat senior citizen like Harold.
Entropy says:
Sunday, February 11, 2024 at 7:27 pm
“So are you suggesting that dodgy Bruce has an unfair dismissal case against Linda Reynolds. As what did he get sacked for again?”
He was sacked because the after hours access was treated as a security breach.
That’s why Higgins thought she was in trouble. Strange that she was treated differently.
goll:
Sunday, February 11, 2024 at 8:54 pm
The latest incident makes Joyce the subject of ridicule – no-no for a pollie. The pic of him is doing the rounds everywhere, even outside a French cafe. We’ll see, but politically I think he’s damaged goods.
LVT: “Mb most tax experts in Australia say we tax income too heavily and capital too lightly. The real vested interests are those who hold the capital.
When you look at it that way you can see why it is skewed the way it is.”
At the risk of going against the prevailing view on PB and thereby being attacked, I think we should also tax expenditure more heavily. Leaving aside its overall rate (which I also think should be raised a little bit), GST’s coverage should be expanded at least to private school fees, private hospital treatment (including large outlays on vanity plastic surgery) and (thanks to Dandy Murray for reminding me of this) the fees charged to overseas students. Contrary to the nonsense you read on here, welfare recipients and other lower income people were more than adequately compensated when GST was introduced back in 2000, and can easily be compensated again for any changes.
In terms of taxation on capital, the most important priority is to get CGT right. The worst thing about the current rules IMO is that they relate the rate of tax charged on a capital gain to the other income a person earns in the year that they realise the gain, which has all sorts of perverse consequences. It would be far better IMO to have a standalone tax on all capital gains at a lower rate: somewhere between 15 and 20 per cent would probably be about right. Apart from anything else, it would provide a disincentive to those people who accumulate large numbers of negatively-geared rental properties (or other equities for that matter) partly with the aim of minimising any CGT they might pay on any they sell.
So the puffed-up potentates in the Defence department are attempting to launch a rearguard action to protect their little fiefdoms within the department from a Minister who can clearly see what they are doing? Hence the leaking to the media. I do think that their gambit of saying that the Labor government are coming to take yer jerbs! Is just a tad too obvious and has probably already been foreseen by the Ministers. And to complain about the cracking pace the Minister’s office is setting? Poor petals! I have zero concern for their well-being as it’s probably the first time in a decade that they have had to do any real work. Maybe they should stop plotting against the Ministers and just get on with the jobs they are supposed to be doing.
What we need with the Constitution is a greater degree of flexibility in changing it. A supermajority of a joint sitting of the two Houses would be a reasonable way to accomplish this, say two thirds, or maybe three quarters. It could deal with technical tidy-ups of parts of the Constitution no longer fit for purpose. Examples might include revising or dropping Section 44. Clearing up ambiguities in taxing powers might be another.
A supermajority would require wide support, nearly always bipartisan with regards to the two main parties. It recognises the States by including the Senate. It can’t be derailed by a small group of extremists or obstructionists.
We can keep referendums as well. In fact we’d need a referendum to introduce this change. If successful, it might be the last for a long time.
LVT: “Harold Mitchell made it to 81. Impressive given how fat he was for most of his life (reputedly 165kg in 2014). You rarely see a fat senior citizen like Harold.”
He did struggle with his weight, which is presumably the cause of the knee problems for which he was having surgery.
I had a few dealings with him back in the day, and found him to be a really nice bloke and genuinely quite humble, which is a rarity among the very wealthy. He was also a tremendously generous donor to the arts.
leftieBrawler says:
Sunday, February 11, 2024 at 9:10 pm
———————————————————————
I am prepared to consider that your attempts to engage with me are in good faith.
A most moving obituary, Lars.
Two compelling interview on Jan 6th- 11 days old
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-ZaD2JBcAE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5KvDldgv70
To meher baba et al,
Read the smoke signals coming from the Treasurer and Treasury better. He’s not coming after NG, the focus is on fixing up Trusts. He’s preparing a Budget and the only thing he hasn’t ruled out is whether he is targeting Trusts.
Yes Meher they seem sensible ideas.
It may be these things can only happen when a party acts against the sectional interests of its base. See Turnbull with the $1.8m super cap.
Maybe given the decline in primary vote – it’s easier for a party to maintain its sectional base than act in the national interest.
Keep up. It was the pills!! For the Medical Condition!!
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/not-normal-behaviour-joyce-to-miss-party-meeting-as-medication-mix-emerges-as-factor-in-video-20240211-p5f3yc.html
c@tmomma: “I have zero concern for their well-being as it’s probably the first time in a decade that they have had to do any real work.”
In my observations, some of which were made from a close vantage point, Defence bureaucrats work just as hard if not harder than most. But they have to move through treacle: the complexity of the internal processes that entangle both both the department and the services is such that it is rather amazing that they get anything done at all IMO. Thank goodness that all the red tape largely gets thrown out the window whenever the armed forces are deployed to a combat situation.
Just catching up on nemesis part 1 which I hadn’t viewed as of yet.
It’s proving great viewing when paired with a couple of bottles of the cool-climate Tasmanian riesling procured from my January jaunt. I was tempted to open the Sullivans cove single malt but cooler heads prevailed.
Key take aways;
Boy Georgie Brandis looks to be enjoying his retirement- if it continues he’ll be henceforth known as Rudolph the red nosed reindeer.
Secondly it amuses me greatly to see the toddler Wyatt Roy to be framed as some sort of party elder dispatching his recollections on the era.
LVT: “It may be these things can only happen when a party acts against the sectional interests of its base. ”
Hawke and Keating got some stuff done.
C@tmomma @ #1379 Sunday, February 11th, 2024 – 9:29 pm
More horse’s mouth than smoke signals C@t. Bottom line must be looking promising.
yes Meher that was 27 years ago.
FUBARsays:
Sunday, February 11, 2024 at 9:20 pm
Entropy says:
Sunday, February 11, 2024 at 7:27 pm
“So are you suggesting that dodgy Bruce has an unfair dismissal case against Linda Reynolds. As what did he get sacked for again?”
He was sacked because the after hours access was treated as a security breach.
That’s why Higgins thought she was in trouble. Strange that she was treated differently.
=================================================
They both had the same boss, Linda Reynolds. What is your actual claim here against Linda Reynolds?. As i asked before, do you believe dodgy Bruce has an unfair dismissal claim against Linda Reynolds?. You didn’t answer it but then presented a new claim against Linda Reynolds, of workplace discrimination.
I seek to reconcile with all and sundry when within reasonable perimeters
I always reflect on the guy who invented jogging. Reed-thin. Fit. Died young.
That’s why I always appreciated the advice to keep a bit of condition on you for emergencies. 😉
for sure leftie – your peaceable nature is apparent to all.
You’ve made a refreshing difference on here.
The thing that gets my goat is how constantly the Canberra Press Gallery close ranks to defend such odious people, particularly National Party politicians.
To this day, none of them say a single word against obviously dodgy people like John Barilaro, who blatantly abused his powers to make the NSW police force try to silence an ordinary citizen who was criticizing him. In fact one of them said that that critic should be sent to prison, namely Janet Albrechtson saying that of Jordan Shanks.
Seeing them do this again, close ranks, defend Barnaby, gaslight anyone who says “I think there’s something wrong here.” with “No, shut up, Barnaby is perfect, you’re the one with the problem” is depressing.
Lars Von Triersays:
Sunday, February 11, 2024 at 9:19 pm
Harold Mitchell made it to 81. Impressive given how fat he was for most of his life (reputedly 165kg in 2014).
You rarely see a fat senior citizen like Harold.
hahahahah such elegance and mockery in the one sentiment
Well I owe it all to you Lars, if i’m honest
“When they go low, I go high”
LVT, 2024AD
“So where are the Supermarket staff, standing around and waving to these friendly thieves as they exit the Supermarket with all the meat – and waving at the security cameras”
Why would some poor supermarket worker give a single fuck about ‘thieves’ ripping off the billion dollar corporation that treats their workers like shit?
Itza,
Trusts are a rort and have been for decades. There are legitimate reasons for them,and plenty that are not. Trim the sails and no one has cause to complain. Though I imagine FUBAR might come up with an interesting spin for retaining them as they are.
Entropy
Yes Lehrmann was sacked because it was his second security breach. And reading between the lines of the evidence at his defamation action his bosses didn’t need much of an excuse to move him on at the first available opportunity.
And who needs the ABC when there are you-tubers in Indiana to keep you up to date, for free.
https://youtu.be/1OMWCmxnQWs?si=laZ-l5LFPPxdhNsQ
Lars Von Triersays:
Sunday, February 11, 2024 at 9:04 pm
Mb most tax experts in Australia say we tax income too heavily and capital too lightly. The real vested interests are those who hold the capital.
When you look at it that way you can see why it is skewed the way it is.
If you were a heir to say a company fortune in pre 1985 shares (exempt from CGT) would you be too fussed about the govt taking away $4500 from someone earning $190,000 p.a?
====================================================
So you are for removing negative gearing?. As an investment house is clearly capital. I hope you checked with @Irene before making that statement as she really loves negative gearing. Though i once thought you were the right wing one and her the left wing. I might have to revise that. As @Irene is now sounding far more right wing than you.
Maxwell & Joyce. Compare and contrast. Word limit 1500.
I’m chuffed to have helped you onto the right path leftie.