Second most read for today, but no comments. :( I hope someone does have an opinion; and maybe even some supportive opinions too. :)

One thing I should have emphasised more: The superannuation decision is absolutely massive - it involves tens of billions - and there is no way Parliamentary Labor should have made that promise (for 5 years!) without consulting the National Conference.

So the question is: Where IS the money going to come for infrastructure? User Pays? Privatisation? GST? Regardless - none of those options are preferable. So why 'shut the gate' on Super Concessions, but not rule out a mix of privatisation/user pays/regressive tax? Revoking Superannuation Concessions could target the wealthy; Messing with the GST or pushing privatisation/user pays is likely to hurt the poor and average workers much more proportionately....

At the very least Concessions should be revokable for the top 5% income and wealth demographics. That on its own could save many billions according to Richard Denniss. This should be a critical issue at the next ALP National Conference...

Tristan
I agree with your sentiments. I do not know a great deal about policy around Superannuation, however can concur that Labor has long ceased to be a party of social democratic vision - other than being 'just better' than the LNP as you write. Although I could not see an LNP government introducing better supports for the disabled but certainly on econmic policy it is a race to the Right.

Politics has become a sport where winning at all costs overrides any ideological commitments. Leaving the Super tax break issues alone for the moment gives an electoral advantage and keeps a lid on dissent for a time. Strategy over ideology.

The shift to the Right in Australian politics is bound up in lots of factors such as globalisation and a declining working class. However I do think both parties underestimate the voters which is seen with responses to the changes to the MRRT. It was seen widely among Labor supporters (except the far Right of Labor) as running from the influence of big miners. If they had held their ground there may be more benefits of mining now being distributed to all Australians.

Modern Labor does not have the ticker of the Hawke era where Labor held out to the striking doctors groups protesting against the introduction of Medicare. Essentially Labor has been hijacked by the Right and now PM Rudd has ensured he cannot be kicked out of office after the election.

One Canberra Times article suggests Labor with have to learn to deal with Rudd all over again. I don't think Rudd is capable of starting with a clean slate, but that won't be known for some time. Things are already not looking like there is any change in the old dog yet.

Hi Tristan
Lack of comment often seems to mean that you've made your argument well, and as you didn't mention religion or asylum seekers you didn't press any of the usual buttons that attract a lot of attention.

I think you are raising issues that are starting to concern many of my contemporaries. We are old enough to have seen the widening of the gap between rich and poor in Australia and the switch from the economy serving society to the view of big business that we are all there to serve them. We have also seen the change from political parties that actually had different ideologies to the rush to the centre, and then the rush to the right. We now have the politics of contempt: you don't just disagree with your political opponents, you put them down. I happen to think that the well-off in Australia don't pay anywhere enough tax, because they have so many opportunities to minimise it that are not available to lower paid people. There will be people who would immediately say 'class warfare' and 'politics of envy' in relation to my previous sentence: Tony Abbot often says that sort of thing. It allows people to defend their selfishness with a slogan, to think of themselves as under attack and hard done by. We seem to have completely lost sight of the fact that if we want the government to provide a health system, a public education system etc everyone has to chip in.

There are several things that the author ignores in his attack on superannuation, which may explain Rudd's actions. These are:

1. Australia currently has a gross external debt of over 2.4 trillion dollars, and is largely at the mercy of foreign lenders. Admittedly most of this debt is private debt, and is earning an amount which partially services it, but it still could be called in at any time.

2. If we to avoid the debt abyss into which the countries of southern europe have fallen, we must increase our rate of SAVING, so that our foreign debt can be contained and eventually reduced.

3. This poses a major dilemma for a left wing government, as most saving is done by the rich, as they are the ones with the spare money, and they are not going to save unless it is worth their while. If you force them to save, this will just be regarded as another form of taxation.

4. For any person to save money outside superannuation is stupid, as they are taxed on nominal interest, not the real interest earned. For example investing at 4% when inflation is at 2.5% means a real return of 1.5% but tax on 4%, which means they would earn a negative real return. A ludicrous example of this is the calculation of the amount a person would have to amass in order to earn a real return equal to the age pension (which would be denied to him by the assets test). The answer is that there is no amount that would achieve this.

5. The unpalatable truth is that the people of Australia are going to have to live within their means, and that every dollar borrowed will have to be matched by a dollar saved.

6. 85% of superannuants receive part of the pension, which means that they are already taxed at 50% on their super earnings. If you tax them further they will quickly show you how fast they can blow their super money and go on the pension. Then the government will really be in trouble.

Well hello Tristran.

Since the Liberals are now more humane than Labor on asylum seekers, are not proposing the savage cuts to the public service (their's are focused on natural attricattion), are not attacking peoples jobs with introducing new taxes, haven't scrapped the carbon tax, are intent on taking is back to the Hawke/ Keating inducstrial relations policies, are matching Gonski funding snd haven't recently committed us to an unwinable war, haven't been found by our courts to have caused the death of our working youth (those who have work) and haven't and don't intend to run up massive debt that causes cost of living rises, and since Labor is a good government that had lost it's way I guess you will now be voting Liberal.

IJN: The bank tax makes sense as its an 'insurance policy' against a future GFC.

The tobacco tax will hit lower income people, and to be fair should be combined with tax cuts and pension increases elsewhere for low income people.

Plerdsus: Re: encouraging personal savings: I think if people understood that THEY were subsidising the very rich and their savings - and that the cost of this was run down services and welfare, and run down infrastructure - that they might support removing some concessions. And to the extent that this affected private savings - it could be rectified with public savings - for example in a public pension or sovereign wealth fund... Also - investment in infrastructure and to mitigate cost of living pressures would deliver productivity, and encourage private savings from the less-well-off.

The alternative - what you're arguing for - sounds an awful lot like Thatcher's 'trickle-down'. But maybe that's ok for you. Not for me. I don't think it works that way. :)