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The Forum > Article Comments > Labor misses the point and the Liberals just don’t get it > Comments

Labor misses the point and the Liberals just don’t get it : Comments

By John Tomlinson, published 4/5/2006

A Basic Income would be a smart economic move, but you won’t see it in the Budget.

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Please excuse my ignorance as I'm not an economist, but wouldn't the proposal made by John have a very adverse effect on our economy? If we start paying everyone $500 a year above the single age pension rate with no questions asked then what motivation will people have to work? I would seriously reconsider whether it would be worth doing the 9-6 grind each day if I was guaranteed that kind of income and I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking that.

We already here about people complaining about the lack of skilled workers, and I can only see this proposal making the situation worse. To attract people to work, you would have to pay them significant amounts of money just to get them in - and that's just the menial work! Why take on a job you hate if you are being looked after so well by the government? Business costs would increase significantly which would surely damage our international competitiveness?

If a significant portion of the population decides not too work, then where will all the tax come from to pay for these payments? I believe the Australian companies and the rich would flee the country as they would be taxed to the hilt. Then our economy would be totally destroyed.

Maybe I am seeing this proposal from the wrong angle, but I see this proposal as being very bad for our economy. Don't get me wrong, I would love to receive $500++ from the government, but it just doesn't seem sustainable.
Posted by BIC, Thursday, 4 May 2006 2:30:11 PM
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BIC: Yeah, it sounds lovely doesn't it, but your objections are pretty glaring oversights by the author. I have to wonder how many academics out there still can't admit that they were wrong about Communism and want to keep redressing it up. The phrase "flogging a dead horse" comes to mind...

Yet they wonder why most people take them with a grain of salt.
Posted by shorbe, Thursday, 4 May 2006 3:11:56 PM
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The Howard IR laws will go to the high court today. The most important legal case in 50-100yrs and you selfish Howard voters only care about dancing with the stars. your kids will thankyou.
Posted by Sly, Thursday, 4 May 2006 3:13:42 PM
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Standing on this BI level playing field it all looks very good but in reality the civil, political and economic rights of the most disadvantaged - all who live and travel on a road full of very deep potholes - would confound the idealistic intention of the BI proponents. Utopian ideals are one thing, facing the actual realities of the everyday for the most disadvantaged is quite another.

I see no evidence of support for a BI from these people.

And who and what determines what a “livable wage” should be - and for whom and where?

Yes means testing is dysfunctional but so too is an egalitarian system of wealth distribution that is blind to the large holes that the existing system has already created.
Posted by Rainier, Thursday, 4 May 2006 3:14:33 PM
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I think it's offensive to call someone a "selfish Howard voter" simply for questioning the authors proposal. First of all I'm not a Howard voter and secondly I do care about these IR laws and how they will affect my job. I don't see the relevance of either of these things to my original post.

Communism seems like a more sustainable system than the one proposed by the author. At least people would have to do some form of work which would support the economy thereby generating more money for the state to collect and redistribute.

I'd be interested to know how the author of this article would:
a) Fund the system without affecting the economy. After all it is only the result of a successful economy that we can afford decent education, welfare and health.
b) How to keep people motivated enough to want to contribute to the economy.

I do agree with the author that we need fundamental change to the tax system and a better way of distributing the wealth, but I'm not sure this proposal is the best option.
Posted by BIC, Thursday, 4 May 2006 4:11:54 PM
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I for one don't feel that calling someone a selfish Howard voter offensive. If the shoe fits.
Posted by Rainier, Thursday, 4 May 2006 4:52:12 PM
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Very close to being an excellent idea. Rather than be set to a little higher than the pension and funded by income tax, the basic income should be a citizen's share of heavy taxes levied on natural resources, with land being the obvious prime example.
The basic income the citizen receives represents his fair share of natural resources and does not come out of the labour of any other citizen. i.e. it is a fair share of natural occuring wealth, not wealth that someone else made that was redistributed by govt.
What this would mean, if we use land, fish and oil as three typical natural resources, is that every citizen would be paid enough basic income to buy a fair share of land, fish and oil. (Ignore the labour component in extracting the oil and catching the fish).

This way an average citizen would still have plenty of incentive to work. He would have a fair share of naturally occuring land, but no man-made house, a fair share of naturally occuring oil, but no man-made car to use it in, etc. Any normal citizen would still work and live a life similar to what we do today, only they would be better off. Land-hogging elites would be the one's worse off.
It would be possible for a lazy or sick person to move into substandard land, and use less than a fair share of natural resources and hence pocket the difference, buy food and live without working. This avenue would be there for sick, disabled, disadvantaged people and would replace all targetted welfare payments.

A problem with this scheme would be the heavy tax levied on land that people have already "paid" for. A person who has paid a King's ransom for Sydney land would be quite upset if the govt then taxed it so heavily that it's sale value fell close to zero. There is no easy way around this. For this reason such a scheme could be phased in over a very long period.
Posted by The Claw, Thursday, 4 May 2006 6:59:25 PM
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As a member of that large hidden class of adult Australians who are unemployed, single and unable to receive social security I thank the author for sharing his ideas in this forum.

Our welfare system gives to the "deserving" poor and I have watched an ex-barmaid working cash jobs stoke the sympathy of social security to collect a carers pension while her mousy, suffering from nervous breakdown sister ended up breached and homeless. Neither sister was the carer.

The welfare regime that will be implemented in July promises to brutish and mean and will adversely affect many voiceless Australians. Most of my aquaintances have university degrees, technical work experience and are competing for jobs that simply don't exist for mature workers.

Many people find that work provides a focus or reason to get up in the morning, valuable social interaction as well as money to eat, provide shelter and entertain oneself. Most people would prefer to have a job [and self esteem] rather than debase oneself to the small minded bureaucrats in social security.
Posted by billie, Thursday, 4 May 2006 7:20:50 PM
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Not just a bad idea , but a bloody dreadful idea. One of the major problems of many areas of high unemployment, & some aboriginal settlements, is boredom. People, young & not so young, with enough income to get by, & nothing that they "have to do", tend to get into trouble.
At first it may be minor, but after a couple of problems with the law, a resentment builds up, in some, & we have the makings of another criminal. I have seen this happen to more than a few kids in our area.
We live in a rural residential area, 20 Km from anywhere.
There is plenty of work, within a 25 Km radius, but we have no public transport. For the kids, no car means no job, & no job means no car.
Give them sit down money? no way. Pay for transport to & from work for 3 months? now your talking. If you want to spend "PUBLIC" money, use it to start a work ethic.
It costs my neighbors 1St year apprentice son, his total net income to run his car 55Km each way to & from work, & pay the fixed cost of ownership. Subsidising this cost would be a better use of public money.
Posted by Hasbeen, Thursday, 4 May 2006 10:56:57 PM
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It is difficult to define our system of government and financial management.

Our Federal government provides welfare subsidies for people on incomes exceeding $100,000 but does it's absolute best to take those benefits away from those at the bottom of the income ladder. In doing this they essentially admit it costs way more than the minimum wage to survive. If the current welfare payments stopped our economy would collapse and so would our social structure.

On one hand Howard has created welfare recipients of people well above the average income. Yet he puts the unemployed and people with disabilities to the test every day as they struggle to get through another day.

To me Howard, and I must add all current State governments too regardless of the difference in party lines, use only politics. They care not about our future, rather what even happens in 3 years. All their decisions are based on getting themselves reelected rather than provide or upgrade basic services. They are selling everything the public owns to private enterprise, bit by bit, on the basis of providing "competition" It does for a time until the winner of the competition crushes the opposition providers leaving us with a monopoly that can charge what it likes.

To expect any sanity or foresight from these governments is a major mistake so expecting Costelloe to take a long view when he can see the throne ahead is like hoping it'll snbow in Darwin.

These governments seek to divide, not unite so we are seeing the well off naturally wanting to protect their position and those at the lower ends become more desperate as their funds no longer meet their needs. There can be only one result if this continues into the future. Instead of people finding governments and their decisions revolting they will revolt themselves.

What we need is not a new way of taxing or dividing up the tax take, we need governments that encourage us to work together and share, just like mum does with her little kids.

Naughty Johnny, give that back to Peter, or else!
Posted by RobbyH, Friday, 5 May 2006 4:29:15 PM
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I fail to see how all how all Howard voters are selfish when under his rule with the GST,middle Australia is paying more tax than ever,most of which goes towards social security.While I think that the Multi-Nationals and higher income groups should share the burden more,the total tax grab as a percentage of GDP should not be increased.

The more handouts we give,the more dependant beings we create who cry out for more.Kill the engine room of private productivity and we will all starve.That is the reality.
Posted by Arjay, Sunday, 7 May 2006 2:03:19 AM
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RobbyH: Personally, I don't think it's the lower class that gets shafted, it's the middle class and the upper class. I know it's not fashionable to stick up for the upper class (even though they pay way more tax and get less back), but there must be a lot of sympathy for the middle class out there. What happened to the lucky country? What happened to the Australian dream? Why do both parents have to run faster and faster on the treadmill? Okay, some of that is to do with personal mismanagement of finances (eg. credit cards), but a lot is something else entirely. The world I grew up with as a kid (in the 80s) and the world I will grow old in will be leagues apart. The middle class will be anything but comfortable.

What upsets me, more than any political stance, is the fact that politicians feather their own nests no matter who else is getting hit for it. That's the bottom line. The so-called left are just as hypocritical as the Libs. They all have their snouts in the trough, and when they retire, they'll still have their snouts in the trough. I can't buy the line that the political left are the good guys when they're getting travel junkets and big pay cheques now and they'll be getting big, fat parliamentary pensions well into the future regardless of whether Australia is doing well or has become a third world country.

There's no accountability. By the time the current crop of politicians (at any level or in any party) actually have to bear responsibility for the long term effects of their plans, they will, of course, not be responsible.

Then again, people get the governments they deserve. If Australians get irresponsible, self-serving ego-maniacs ruling them, then maybe that's just a deeper reflection of Australian culture.
Posted by shorbe, Monday, 8 May 2006 11:16:34 AM
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Hey Shorbe,

We're both probably right mate, we all get shafted while the pollies look after themselves and their financial supporters, whoever they may be.

The common thing with that is that to me, and you by the sound of your post, the enemy is pollies regardless of colour or policy. These people put on a public show of disagreement and oppose each other on every issue, publicly. The reality is they are brothers and sisters and look after each other at the expense of the public and any new challengers to the two party duopoly we call democracy.

Accountability today means finding someone else to blame. It's sickening mate. Sir Humprhey stuff, direct from those scripts.

How long is it since we saw an MP resign on a matter of principle rather than being told privately to bugger off. Even the UK has had such resignations in recent years re Iraq but here it's all kudos and no responsibility.

At the State level it's just as bad with Beattie in QLD claiming to continually have fixed a health system he presided over for a decade while it disintegrated. Now it'a a daily announcemnet that all is well. It's just disgusting but what is even more difficult to take is the governments we have are probably far better than the alternatives. I mean, Federally Howard is a nightmnare but Beazley seems blind to what everyone else knows. He can't win, he has to go.
Posted by RobbyH, Tuesday, 9 May 2006 10:33:00 AM
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This is an excellent idea. It does not destroy "the will to work" because the amount of money is not sufficient for most people. Those for whom this applies do not work now and never will. It will work best if it is combined with a change in the tax laws where everyone pays the same tax on all their income (excluding the basic income) and if it is extended to children at a reduced rate it will remove the need for family bonuses, child care assistance, student assistance etc. 60% of our current taxes are transfer taxes. This just makes the whole process more efficient as we now spend at least 10% of the money on the adminstration and distribution of transfer payments. Reducing this cost by 50% will pay for quite a few benefits.

Add in the idea of an income bank account where all income is deposited for each individual and taxed immediately and we will have a streamlined efficient tax and welfare system

Finally make it an "optional" system where people can choose to join or stay with the current system and we will soon see those who get the most benefit from the existing system and it is my guess it will those who complain the most and currently pay the least amount of tax.
Posted by Fickle Pickle, Tuesday, 9 May 2006 10:34:48 AM
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RobbyH: These days I'm so disinfranchised with everything and everyone. I don't know who or what to believe anymore. I'm opposed to big government (and actually think a lot of people succeed despite government, not because of it), yet I also lack faith in free market alternatives for a whole lot of reasons.

It seems to me that people are sick of the big two power brokers, yet they're also quite wary of any party based on an ideology (from the Greens to Family First). Maybe we need a Common Sense Party, although of course, not only would people disagree on what common sense was, in the great Aussie tradition they'd find a reason to knock it without being prepared to take any responsibility themselves and have a go themselves. I think it's human nature to like a bit of a whinge.

I read a book a few years ago called "The Dispossessed" by Ursula LeGuin that kind of made me realise that politics really is a mug's game and you just have to try to live your life despite it all. I'm a fan of the Roman philosopher Lucretius too. Aside from a bit of online commenting, I am less and less political these days and I'm inclined to think that the only way to go is to buy a rural property, be somewhat self-sufficient and just try to avoid (or endure) the bs the rest of the time, which is what I'm planning on doing in the next few years.

As Nietzsche said, "the human situation is a bad situation, because the human situation is all too human."
Posted by shorbe, Tuesday, 9 May 2006 3:54:38 PM
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Shorbe,I don't mind snouts in the trough if they actually produce something that is positive for the the general populace.We have to make the both Public Servants and our Pollies more accountable.

Let's have real ramifications for pollies who make bad economic decisions and reward those who are good managers with dynamic ideas.
Posted by Arjay, Wednesday, 10 May 2006 9:39:18 PM
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Arjay: I'm not sure that having snouts in the trough can ever be a good thing, though it might be more tolerable if they actually produced something positive. The libs tout themselves as great economic managers, and whilst I believe the Labor Party would be far worse, I'm still waiting to see where all the taxes go.

I couldn't agree more with your second paragraph. How to do this though? Politics is a gravy train and what politician is going to get in and stop the gravy train?
Posted by shorbe, Thursday, 11 May 2006 8:10:03 AM
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Australia ‘the lucky country’ was an ironic phrase. The notion being that our natural resource enabled us to plunder and exploit without needing to invest in high value-adding. This promoted the propagation of lazy profiteering. Plundering the natural resources of a nation means whoopee until we face the consequence of depleted resources and a dearth of investment in knowledge rich value-added industry. Similarly an abundance of cheap labour can be exploited with less pressure for knowledge rich value-adding. Thus propagating lazy exploitative industries. A recipe for the classic race-to-the-bottom.

Its interesting to turn the rhetoric of choice around. There is much promotion of the ideal of providing people with choice for selecting a 4WD, a cigarette, a pokies venue, a hamburger franchise, a subliminal vector to insert our marketing message. However, this ideal seems easily set aside when it comes allowing people more choice about their employment.

People do not work only for money. Money is not the strongest motivation for my work. A huge proportion of Australians accept low salary as a payoff for the opportunity to do positive work in the Not-for-profit sector. There are complex psycho-social reason for what we currently call work. These change over time. (Historians may look back on today and find it interesting that we value the work of tobacco companies CEOs more than the work of mothers).

The provision of the Basic-Guaranteed-Income is the type of fundamental change that could completely upend the current models of economics. The BGI could provide the means for people to chose very different roles in society. It has the potential of producing great social and environmental change. There would be increased possibility for spending the time of ones life in preferred valuable ways. However, such change could see great reductions in the measures we currently use to describe the economy. However, it is possible to have a higher standard-of-living while scoring lower results in the KPIs through which we currently interpret ‘the economy’.

Isn’t it ironic we are working longer now than 20 years ago? When is enough?
http://www.auseinet.com/journal/vol1iss3/dollard.pdf

For a more detailed background-relating to-the-complex-issues-and-context-relating-to-the-situation-facing-Indigenous-Australians,see
http://www.healthsite.co.nz/hauora_maori/resources/feature/0001/002.htm
Posted by Realo, Friday, 12 May 2006 12:21:52 PM
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Hey Shorbe,

What's really empty and disheartening is to see comments like Arjay's who would be content with a full trough if we actually got some performance. No offence to Arjay as the majority seem willing to accept less than we deserve. Arjay too raises a good point about penalising bad performance. The only such penalty today is at the next election by which time both sides have infringed so much that neither deserve to govern.

Wouldn't it be good to have pollies sign a Workplace Agreement with the public, or perhaps their own electorates and be answerable to them?

It seems to me that too many of us have stood and watched when we should have been opposing the rubbish we accept as politics and government today.

If you read here and there on politics again you see people who are not thinking. One half support the Coalition regardless of what they do, what lies they tell, what lines they blur and so on while the other half simply dislike everything the Coalition do. And of course the second half supports Labor regardless of the same flaws.

It's as simple to me as people being used, as our major Parties know we have to vote for one of them essentially. Yes you can get a few extras up in the Senate but the facts are the big two take us for granted and know either one wins or the other. Like time share government. To us it makes little difference as both of them are so similar in their attitude to the public, contempt. Their reaction to One Nation told us who was working for whom. Politicians work for politicians, first and always.

Snouts in the trough and lies will never be acceptable regardless of what else such people may achieve. Simply by flouting the relevant laws and legislation they show they cannot be trusted and that's the opposite of what we need running our country.
Posted by RobbyH, Friday, 12 May 2006 1:40:00 PM
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IMPORTANT PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT





The Howard IR laws has gone to the high court. The most important legal case in 50-100yrs and a growing number of legal experts are worried if the laws are not stopped it will be the beginning of the States demise.



This government is destroying Australia on so many fronts. The most damaging and badly written IR legislation that was rushed through parliament by a puppet coalition senate. Save us High Court!



How can a so called legal expert like Kevin Andrews put his name on such a bill. At least one senator admitted to not reading the bill and I suspect most

senators didn't bother.



A government that illegally sells Telstra who turns a blind eye to corrupt payments by AWB not to mention the compulsory ID card. That is if you are not rich.



Then there lies on Iraq, GST and children overboard and what about forcing disabled to work.



Howard and Liberal voters, you made a bad choice with your last vote. This time don't fall for the interest rate rubbish (which they don't control) and baby bonus bribes or small tax cuts.



One day we will have a PM who doesn’t stab us in the back. Mr Howard, go and live in America. Oh that’s right your on holidays there right now
Posted by Sly, Saturday, 13 May 2006 8:42:29 PM
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RobbyH: A huge part of the problem I think is the preferential voting system. I also think a huge part of the problem is the compulsory voting system. Actually, I think voting is the problem -- two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner and all that tyranny of the masses stuff -- though most people probably consider that a bit extreme.

I, on the other hand, don't vote. I used to vote informally, but I thought even that encouraged the bastards too much. However, that's all well and good, but what point am I even making? I'm faced with supporting the lesser of two or more evils (who is still an evil) or with a completely pointless gesture. Fantastic.

You or I could probably both throw around a whole lot of "ideal" situations, but the reality is that someone will always have power and most people will be apathetic and let the powermongers get away with too much. Personally, I think it's just a matter of surviving despite the nonsense and not getting too frustrated by it otherwise you go insane or end up as one of the powermongers. It's all screwed I think.
Posted by shorbe, Sunday, 14 May 2006 4:59:29 PM
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Where to our Aussie Democracy? - partly from John M Legge

1. It was Florence Nightingale who regarded the practice of incarcerating the sick and infirm with those reluctant to take a job as immoral. Though the UK system was eventually adjusted under the British Health System, the consensus has now been broken in both Britain and America, Australia gradually moving the same way over the last 20 years.

3. David McKnight in the most important of three books reviewed here, traces the roots of the new misguided morality to Frederick Hayek. who asserted that the Nightingale morality was an evolutionary relic that should be expunged in modern times. Too much looking after the sick and infirm, according to Hayek, could help to put a populace on the road to serfdom.

4. Hayek published his major works in the 1940s, but only became a significant influence on public life with the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979. Ronald Reagan also is said to have copied Thatcher when he was elected as US president in the early 1980s.

5. Certainly these beliefs had been given thrust earlier in the late 19th century through Social Darwinism, Darwin himself protesting that the survival of the fittest concept only related to the animal world. Indeed, humans given the inherent capacity by God to improve their intellect and understanding through the powers of reason, had a more responsible and compassionate role to fill in life, besides achieving materialy.
Posted by bushbred, Tuesday, 23 May 2006 2:23:31 AM
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Part Two

1. McKnight explains why the Hayek apotheosis gained such influence a few years later in Australia. As in Britain and the USA, the intellectual collapse of the Left not only permitted it to gain power, but allowed it to purge out the "wet" centre without suffering an electoral backlash.

2. Somewhat surprisingly, it was a strong union leader, Bob Hawke, who took up the more Hayek-style format of economic rationalism in the early 1980s, going more right wing than the conservative opposition. Paul Keating used similar tactics, and looking back it seems that the conservatives eventually caught on and have been on top ever since, the former rather scared-looking John Howard, now as Aussie PM and free-marketeer, looking the essence of the top-rank colonial statesman, but working not so much for the UK, but for the US, at times more than for Australia.

3. And because Labor still tries to emulate the Hawke-Keating acceptance of economic rationalism, it is now stuck in a political bog, not having the courage to return to its Keynesian grass-roots.

4. Right now, without a strong opposition, even counting the rather airy-fairy Greens and Democrats, Australia could be faced with many more years of the Hayek doctrine. However, because it leans so much towards non-egalitarian capitalism, it could destroy itself through destroying the rights of its own people.

George C, WA - Bushbred
Posted by bushbred, Tuesday, 23 May 2006 3:10:48 AM
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