Australia has become a fools' paradise, with the biggest fools mis-managing it.

ttbn. We agree on something. Also note that business cannot flourish without an adequately trained work force, large numbers of whom need to come from overseas.
David

Treasury Secretary, Stephen Kennedy, has said that, while the budget is affordable, the government's spending splurge must end.

We face an economic ruin because energy prices are often higher than the wages bill!

This means some drongos who just accept this horse manure of an energy policy and try to offset it with cheap imported labour! Instead of training the highly unemployed young folk right here. Even as we face a future that includes carbon tariffs and Australia shunned across the world because of our moronic reliance on coal and gas!

As ttbn the intellectually challenged morons at the helm! One of who nailed his colours to the wall by bringing a lump of coal into the federal parliament as a prop and extolling the virtues of coal!

And now proposes without the peoples' mandate to build a taxpayer-funded gas-fired power plant in the Hunter. To replace aging infrastructure due to be decommissioned 2023! Or 2 years from now.

Claiming, it is hydrogen ready technology? Maybe. But if that hydrogen is to be extracted from coal and the resultant carbon buried? It will be the most expensive hydrogen in the world and reliant on carbon geo-sequestration, abandoned by the rest of the world due to prohibitive costs.

The smart money has abandoned coal as has the insurance companies of the world. With the exception of the fools (tools) on the hill. TBC.
Alan B.

Most of what this visionless government has done is done to improve its election prospects and appeal to a shrinking base?

The elephant in the room is the cost of energy! And there's not a single service, amenity or process or manufacturing endeavour that exists independent of some, (price gouged) [Politicians ATM,] energy input. And that input like our dog's breakfast of a tax policy cascades upward until it hits the final consumer!

Even as this government saddles us with the biggest debt in our history! Even as interest rates in the US urge above 4%! And we will surely follow? What then of an over-leveraged mortgage market? As a new cohort of homeowners seek shelter in bankruptcy! And the housing sector floods the market with unaffordable housing stocks.
Alan B.

I agree with ttbn, the fools (tools, puppets) on the hill, are as useful as a hip pocket in a singlet!

Bury their heads somewhere warm and comfortable and create massive record debt to support consumption and their base and vested interest, cronies?

If there is a more coherent explanation? Then it escapes me!

A good businessman knows when to cut their losses and get out, and what we needed o do with coal and gas at this time. and then given it's now very doable, transition to thorium, cooperative capitalism and power prices that could be as low as 1 cent PKWH.

And accompanied by tax reform that has to be, a flat and unavoidable tax of 15% on all income and or profit earned here!

A lot of folks will scream that's far more tax relief than is envisioned! NO, IT'S NOT MORON! IF IT REPRESENTS ACTUAL DOLLARS THAT ARE TRANSFERRED TO THE ATO!

In 2017 the top tax paid in actual dollars to the ATO by any Australian operator, was just 13%! With some paying as little as 4% and up to 40% paying nothing.

Meaning this in real terms is more tax that hits the ATO. And given there were no exclusions, no need for tax compliance and reconciliation! The cost of the latter could be returned to the bottom line as an average of 7%.

Meaning, in adjusted terms, total tax and compliance costs would be just 8%. And ensure the total tax paid in actual dollars to the ATO, more than double what they get now.

And if we rationalise government via a referendum, we could also liberate a further 70+ billion for nation-building (rapid rail) or debt reduction or both!TBC.
Alan B.