David, some of your 'libertarian' ideas are the most radical in the Senate, but you have the right to express them.

Actually I agree with you that Direct Action is a waste of taxpayer dollars and so is Tony's paid parental leave scheme. I also agree that proposing a medical research levy is a crazy waste of money.

But you advocate taking more from the poor / middle classes and giving it to the top top 5% (e.g. GP visit levy and deregulating Uni fees).

Meanwhile you criticize the sensible things they have done:
- Reinstating indexation of fuel tax, which is long overdue. Australia's fuel taxes are the 4th lowest of 30-odd OEDC countries. The current rate does not come close to covering the the road costs plus the currently externalized costs of carbon, traffic congestion accident and pollution trauma and deaths. It should be doubled to nearer the $1/litre that European nations pay.
- Raising the top income tax rate, which is sensible as it's still below that of many European nations, which also have higher VAT taxes than us. (and if you think a 1.5 c tax rise will make them walk into equally high paid jobs in low tax places like Russia or Kazakhstan or NZ then you must be joking)

Do you think governments can provide the services demanded by modern societies and at the same time reduce taxation?

If you think government workers are overpaid and underproductive try working as a schoolteacher or contract professional as (both jobs I have done).

True libertarians should advocate 'user pays' and 'polluter pays'; for example carbon pricing.

What about the current situation of giving a 15% marginal tax break to the wealthy who want to put up to $50,000 a year into superannuation; is that fair?

Or allowing negative gearing on established homes for speculator investors, pushing up house prices and rents?

Is libertarianism all about giving the wealthy more tax breaks, so they they pay less tax and screw the poor? If not then these are two areas you could work on.

Roses1

You've got it back the front in a number of ways.

A policy needs to be justified in its own terms. The fact someone else is doing it is no justification. According to your theory, if slavery was legal elsewhere, we should up the rate of slavery here. It's moral and intellectual nonsense.

There is no evidence for your assertion that societies "demand" services provided by taxation. If it was true, then obviously taxation wouldn't be necessary to pay for them, would it? People would pay for them voluntarily, just as they pay for other services that are genuinely in demand. You are only defending parasitic behaviour.

Also people are not chattels owned by you or the state. Other people are not your property. Okay? Got that?

You have consistently failed to establish that carbon or carbon dioxides are pollutants, or any justification for any policy whatsoever on carbon. You have been specifically asked to answer the questions which prove you wrong here:
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=16680&page=0
here:
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=16726
here:
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=16753&page=0
and here:
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=16757&page=0

This means you are saying things that you know to be untrue, which is commonly known as lying. You need to stop lying first and foremost before any talk of policy, because it invalidates your reasoning. All it means is you're hoping to get an advantage from people who are poorer than you by using force and threats, and your pretended moral superiority is false.

By the way, what are you using to power your computer?

A couple of things: Firstly we should reintroduce a carbon tax, but only if it's accompanied by a cap, which could be current emission, and then only tax that part above the cap, by say a million dollars a ton!
And then very slowly very progressively, lower the cap!

And genuine tax reform and vast simplification, will end all avoidance, say if an unavoidable expenditure tax replaces all the current complexity, and indeed, ends forever the need to shell out for tax compliance costs, which currently averages around 7%!

Meaning a tax rate set at 18% initially, will be an effective 11%, given just such a stand alone and entirely unavoidable system, would hand back former tax compliance costs!

Not only that but finally make all tax avoidance a thing of te past and in so doing massively swell government coffers and allow the final rate to be as low as 5% or 2% less than current tax compliance costs.

A broken system actually encourages that level of quite massive avoidance; it needs to be fixed!

And an expenditure tax can also be applied to all international remittance or exchanges, which would wipe out a black market!

A single stand alone tax means just that, with things like fuel tax, payroll tax and the ubiquitous and cascading GST, given the flick, and replaced by a direct funding model of all public health and equally autonomous education; thereby reducing the cost of those two to the long suffering taxpayer, by around 30%.

Moreover, a stand alone direct tax as outlined, would end forever the destiny of demography; and enable the tax rate to be marginally varied as and where necessary; up or down, to alone control all inflation or stagnation, and much more effectively and rapidly, than current interest rate regimes!

Of course those currently avoiding a fair share, and those who help them do it, are going to scream like stuck pigs; and obtusely, obdurately, obfuscate or try and make a case for their obscene profits/economic survival, as the virtual unproductive parasites they clearly are?
Rhrosty.

Jardine, people with no money can still demand things.

And isn't ocean acidification proof that carbon dioxide is a pollutant?

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Rhosty, why should incumbent polluters get such a big advantage over startups?

And as I've said before, an expenditure tax is a very bad idea, firstly because, at least in this economic climate, expenditure is a good thing, and secondly because such a tax would be relatively easy to dodge. Most banks would dodge it by offshoring most of their operations.

Aidan

No-one's talking about "people with no money".

Bank robbers can "demand things". So what?

"And isn't ocean acidification proof that carbon dioxide is a pollutant?"
I don't know. Can you prove it?

Aidan: Because start ups start with a huge advantage and a choice of technologies, like say Apple, who are building a new H.Q, powered by solar panels and biogas coupled to ceramic fuel cells; meaning, their operations will be carbon negative or carbon neutral and still under a cap, when it finally descends to zero, say fifty years from now!

An expenditure tax won't work?
Man will never learn to fly, let alone break the sound barrier, or put a man on the moon; all far more impossible than a government deciding to reform the tax act, so as to impose a stand alone, unavoidable expenditure tax, with the stroke of a pen!

Banks can offshore their operations all they like; but particularly if they take their foreign debt burdens with them!
Sure and I can fly to the Canary or Virgin Islands to organize a business loan to minimize my tax, and be spoiled for choice!

And if only they would head out, we the people could create a brand new one of our own, and keep all the profits right here, and continually reinvested into our own economy.

One cannot simply leave with a bundle of cash, which could be seized at the border; but need to use a local bank in order to transfer much more than a thousand bucks?

And people journeying with large sums of money about their person risk being beaten and robbed, as the least serious consequence!

Incidentally, a friend went to the canary Islands recently and was disappointed at not being able to see even one canary!
Guess where he's going for his next holiday?
Rhrosty.

unless you are advcocating cuts in education and health you are just acting as an economic vandal David. Personally I think adults should pay for their own education and contribute towards health. Maybe all schools should be privatised as they get much better results with much less money. You seem to be inadvertley protecting the unions that turn the neck of Labour. I am very pleased you intend blocking the atrocious parental scheme. Mothers should be encouraged to stay at home and look after their kids for a few years. Have a look at New Zealand and you might learn a few things about turning Labours mess around.

Aidan ocean acidification is the biggest con yet. There are a dozen reasons why it just can't happen if global warming is happening.

Warming causes outgassing of CO2 from the ocean, just as it does with your can of coke. Anyone with even a smattering of science knows both simultaneously warming & acidification is impossible. Anyone who claims to be a scientist & claims ocean acidification is nothing but a self incriminated con man.

The oceans also sit in huge limestone basins. This huge bulk of limestone prevents the oceans ever moving anywhere near acid.

If you want to discuss things scientific, I suggest you get your information from somewhere other than a global warming propaganda site like the ABC, or the IPCC. Claiming the impossible as proof of damage caused by CO2 just makes you look an idiot.

Jardine, ignoring the needs of those without money is the problem.
So even the bank robbers prove that demand is not the same as willingness to pay.

What would I need to do to prove it to your satisfaction?

_______________________________________________________________________

Rhosty, why should the incumbent get advantages denied to superior startups?

All taxes can be varied.

I'm guessing your friend's going to Turkey, or perhaps Macau.

_______________________________________________________________________

Hasbeen, you claim an observed phenomonon to be impossible and say it makes ME look like an idiot?!?!?!

I think you may misunderstand what ocean acidification is. It DOESN'T mean the ocean won't continue to be less acidic tthan pure water; it means the ocean is more acidic than it was, which is a problem because it increases the solubility of the calcium carbonate shells of many marine creatures.

CO2 concentration in the air is more important than temperature in determining its solubility, at least over the concentration and temperature ranges we've experienced. And IIRC a higher pH decreases temperature sensitivity.

As I read angels and demons in David Leyonjhelm's article my mind could not help thinking what an abomination a bull without the testicular appendages is if one is trying to create a better world. Such an animal is called a bullock, and the only future it has in life is to be a hamburger. I have been at a meeting where the Senator spoke and he is impressive. However the institution of which he is a member is impotent because it is dominated by the legal profession and while he never as far as I can find aspired to be a lawyer he holds an LLB the degree that is a prerequisite for entry to the most destructive and parasitic profession in the world, and has been for around 2000 years if the words of Jesus Christ are any guide.

Two of the eight Demons, plaguing the Abbott Government hold LLB's but there are about 50 members of the Liberal Labor Coalition who also hold them, and for 62 years have used them in State and Federal Parliaments to make their services more valuable. There are six other Independent non LIB-LAB Senators and if these Senators could come together they could just become the Angels of Change, to deliver long lasting and enduring respect for the Institution that is the Parliament of the Commonwealth. In the Senators home State in 1970 the Australian Constitution, was repealed by lawyers in the New South Wales Parliament by s 6 Supreme Court Act 1970 ( New South Wales ) where lawyers in an unelected committee of nine, were given power to make Rules of Court to overrule any prior inconsistent Act, including the Australian Constitution. This was to protect Premier Robin Askin and Commissioner Allen who, if the Village Rumor Mill and Abe Saffron's son can be believed were in 1970 receiving $5000 a week each in cash to turn a blind eye on illegal grog, prostitution and gambling. Since then Sydney has been corruption central.
These eight Demons have the potential to be the Angels of Change by asking why?

There is a law in Tasmania called the Contravention of Statutes Act 1889 and if S 118 Constitution was effective then instead of being a cut cat, the Parliament of the Commonwealth should adopt this as law, update the penalty for a contravention from the Fifty Pounds it was in 1889 to $50,000 today, and specifically give half of that penalty to anyone who would sue for it as they could in 1889. A copy can be accessed here: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/tas/num_act/tcosa188953vn3402/

The purpose and object of this Act was to maintain respect for the deliberations of the then highest Court in Tasmania its Parliament. S 15AA of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 ( Cth) directs the reader to put his mind to that purpose. Justice McHugh of the High Court in 1996 in Kable said the High Court of Parliament deserves respect, and has powers to punish for contempt. Today it enjoys none. The Real Demons in Australia are the people who are diverting revenue that used to go to the Crown, to enhance their private personal clients and themselves, and have used their positions of influence in the Parliament of the Commonwealth to ensure no one competes with them.

The greatest cartel still allowed to act as such, is the Legal Cartel, and despite the best intentions of the whole Parliament of the Commonwealth in a whole raft of legislation, they give the Parliament the Big Finger. It is fully integrated from the Police who act as scouts to drum up business through the solicitors Magistrates insist represent people if they want to object, through Magistrates and Judges right up to the High Court. If a person chooses to represent himself, the Magistrate usually just adds what the solicitor would have got to the fine.

S 118 Constitution should be invoked and the above law updated to reflect today's values, to restore respect and give the people value for money for the salaries paid to our Federal Members and Senators. Let our eight none aligned Senators become Angels of Freedom, and insist on this update to Commonwealth laws.

Hasbeen. One third of all carbon dioxide emitted by humanity has been absorbed by the world’s oceans. This is making them more acidic than they have been for tens of millions of years.
• One of the greatest impacts that Ocean Acidification is having is on reef building corals, which are known as a ‘framework species’. Without corals, reefs cannot exist. Ocean Acidification is already slowing their growth rates. Left unchecked they will soon stop growing and erode away.
• Direct effects on some important species of plankton and the sensitive larval stages of many marine organisms are now being reported in globally respected scientific literature.
• Ocean plankton provide 50% of the oxygen that we breathe. Due to Global Warming, that capacity to provide oxygen and support the fundamental food chains of the ocean has decreased by 6% over the last three decades.
• As oceans have warmed, oceanic nutrient deserts have expanded by 6.6 million square km’s over the past two decades.
• There are approximately 10,000 Coral Reefs and we are destroying one every other day.
• Coral Reefs are being lost more than twice as fast as the rainforests. Current estimates reveal that we will lose the other 50% over the next 40 years.
• The Great Barrier Reef generates over 6.5 billion dollars in tourism revenue and 63,000 jobs.
• Left unchecked Ocean Acidification could trigger a Great Mass Extinction Event. Growing evidence suggests that four of the five Great Mass Extinctions have been associated with rapidly acidifying oceans – due to spikes in the concentration of atmospheric CO2.
• The huge amounts of atmospheric CO2 being absorbed by the world’s oceans is making them more acidic than they have been for tens of millions of years.
• Coral Reefs provide habitat for at least a quarter of all marine species. Many of these face extinction if reefs disappear.

• Coral Reefs are being lost more than twice as fast as the rainforests. Current estimates reveal that we will lose the other 50% over the next 40 years.
• The Great Barrier Reef generates over 6.5 billion dollars in tourism revenue and 63,000 jobs.
• Left unchecked Ocean Acidification could trigger a Great Mass Extinction Event. Growing evidence suggests that four of the five Great Mass Extinctions have been associated with rapidly acidifying oceans – due to spikes in the concentration of atmospheric CO2.
• The huge amounts of atmospheric CO2 being absorbed by the world’s oceans is making them more acidic than they have been for tens of millions of years.
• Coral Reefs provide habitat for at least a quarter of all marine species. Many of these face extinction if reefs disappear.
• The biodiversity and splendour of coral reefs are at risk of disappearing for thousands of years. This places in jeopardy an estimated 500 million people who depend on coral reefs for their daily food and income.
• The Great Barrier Reef generates over 6.5 billion dollars in tourism revenue and 63,000 jobs.
• If atmospheric CO2 can be stabilised at 450 ppm, (one possible target that has been discussed by politicians) only 8% of existing tropical and subtropical coral reefs will still be in waters of the right pH level to support their growth.
• Within decades, Ocean Acidification will also start to have major impacts on temperate and polar water ecosystems. In fact, colder water absorbs higher levels of CO2 than warmer water. Our polar seas are already so acidic that they are starting to dissolve some shells.
•

With Sodium chloride also known as Sea Salt with a PH of about 8 and the seas still very salty, I think that claims of CO2 acidifying the sea are Scientific fiction. Organisms in the sea need co2 as a food just as plants do. If the Scientists want to create a Demon it should at least be Credible. Ph 7 is neutral so sea water is strongly basic, not even remotely acidic. Bah Humbug.Why didn't everyone do basic Chemistry and they would see the waste products of the bull, for what it is.

1. Introduction
[2] About one third of the anthropogenic carbon dioxide
(CO2) released since the start of the Industrial Revolution in
the 1800s has been taken up by the oceans [Sabine et al.,
2004]. This excess CO2 is altering the basic ocean chemistry,
specifically the marine carbonate system [Feely et al.,
2008]. Carbon dioxide that dissolves in the surface water
forms carbonic acid. The increased concentrations of CO2 in
the atmosphere and surface ocean have led to a decrease in
ocean pH by 0.1 units over the past 200 years [Caldeira and
Wickett, 2003]. Observational studies over the last two
decades in the subtropical gyre in the North Atlantic have
shown a decrease in pH that can be correlated to the increased
dissolved inorganic carbon concentrations in the surface
water [Bates, 2007]. Caldeira and Wickett [2003, 2005] used
an ocean climate model to simulate the 21st century response
of the ocean carbon system to the A1B, A2, B1, and B2
emission scenarios published by the IPCC [2000]. Their
results project pH decreases by 2100 of 0.3–0.5.
[3] The most direct impact of a lower pH on the biota
arises from lowered carbonate ion concentration in seawater.
This affects organisms that form calcium carbonate (CaCO3)
shells and skeletons. Recent efforts to understand the
impacts of ocean acidification on marine organisms have
revealed diverse and complex responses [e.g., Fabry, 2008;
Fabry et al., 2008]. Further research on the responses of
individual organisms and ecosystems is needed before the
effects of ocean acidification can be reliably predicted.

Peter Vexatious, your comprehension is pretty poor. Firstly it isn't sodium chloride that pushes seawater's pH up to about 8. Secondly I repeat what I said to Hasbeen:
I think you may misunderstand what ocean acidification is. It DOESN'T mean the ocean won't continue to be less acidic tthan pure water; it means the ocean is more acidic than it was, which is a problem because it increases the solubility of the calcium carbonate shells of many marine creatures.

It is true that algae need CO2, but there's plenty of dissolved carbonates so even at preindustrial levels of CO2 there wouldn't be a shortage.

Dear Peter,

<<The greatest cartel still allowed to act as such, is the Legal Cartel, and despite the best intentions of the whole Parliament of the Commonwealth in a whole raft of legislation, they give the Parliament the Big Finger.>>

With due respect, the greatest cartel in Australia is not the legal profession, but Medical Doctors, headed by the AMA Mafia.

Their exclusive control of substances otherwise unavailable to the public; their exclusive right to open up and modify the human body or otherwise to exercise numerous procedures on it; their power to declare who is alive and who is dead; who may and who may not drive or fly; who is sane and who must be locked up and be drugged against their will; who must work and who may receive a sick-leave or a disability pension; who is medically fit for trial and who isn't; etc. Now add to it the vast amounts of tax-payer dollars they receive - their powers far outweigh that of the legal profession!

Yuyutsu. I like your comment so I have a question. I believe it was less than a year ago some doctors had been caught 'ripping off' the medicare system and greatly benefiting themselves by making I think around up to sixty claims in one day. I never heard of any further investigations or if there were more cases.

The people who should be operating on Doctors are Lawyers. With our present system where lawyers are getting fat protecting Big Business including eight State and Territory Governnments from the beneficial effects of a whole list of Commonwealth Legislation, they are falling down on the job.

While our Politicians are disproportionately representing members of the Legal Profession ( about 50 or one quarter of them) the rest of them are simply led astray. The English got it right when they banned Lawyers from Parliament for 498 years only letting them back in after the Prince Consort to Queen Victoria died in 1970 and the Queen went into deep mourning.

A certain Jew who made a fortune after his carrier pigeons let him know that the English had won the Battle of Waterloo and he was able to buy on the London Stock Exchange, then used his cash to lobby for lawyers in Parliament. The lawyers are the Demons, and the lawyers destroyed the Victorian Government, will probably destroy the Abbott Government,and the NSW and Queensland Governments unless the eight Senators restore the Order of Nature and a Dominant Federal Parliament.

In an ideal world lawyers should be on the Outside of Parliament keeping to bastards inside honest instead of on the inside making ever more oppressive laws to make our lives miserable. The Textbook on Law that should be taught to all lawyers is The Judicial Process by Henry J Abraham published by the Oxford University, but it is not part of the curriculum anymore and as a consequence most Australian Lawyers are second rate. GIGO applies like in a computer: Garbage In Garbage Out.

In S 22 of the Australian Courts Act 1828 all laws had to be enrolled in a Supreme Court before they were proper laws. Everyone had the right to jury trial to question any law. All trials except by consent were jury trials except for convicts who were in fact slaves. To make us all slaves with the limited rights of convicts the lawyers in Parliament created “strict liability”. Not nice at all