Shadow I do not get your point. Has not Labor promised to get the budget back to surplus. Would not any action they take now and in the coming budget be targeted at achieving a surplus. I, among many do not believe that getting to surplus is necessary but I also cannot see that harm would occur if they do, as long as they do not contract the economy too much. Taxes are not and should not be set in stone. They need to be adjusted as the world and local economy demands. Sometimes we receive, sometimes we give. with a bit of luck it will balance out.

Hi Flo,

Could Gina be worried that Squiggy might run out of marmalade?

Flo,

Taxes while not set in stone, should not undertaken lightly, and a new tax simply to help Labor get a surplus, that it was clearly not interested in previously seems extremely cynical.

The tax was actually not at evenly distributed, nearly 50% coming from those earning greater than $200 000 p.a. Labor might well think that this is not their supporter base, and so won't cost them votes, however, this particularly vocal section of the population has far more ability to make the government's life difficult. Just see what happened with the mining tax.

Given the size of the economy and existing tax revenues, and the record spending of the Labor government, taxpayers should expect that reaching surplus could still be easily achieved by cutting some of Labor's fat.

The money that was spent was essential. The Opposition has admitted they would have spent as well. Maybe they would not have spent as much or been as successful. The deficit was not cause alone by the money spent, reduced receipts played a role as well. We have come through a bad time with our economy intact.

The mining industry did not save us, as they were among the first to put off workers. Many experts, here and overseas give Labor a big tick for the actions taken during the worldwide downturn. The tax for a change is a very small impost on those who can afford to pay.

I do not see it justice that all should pay equally, if they the low paid worker does not have the ability to pay. You cannot tell me that those earning over 200.000 are going to have problems meeting the impost.

I supposed you could say that Mr. Howard made sure he gave the upper income earners the biggest cuts or increase government’s benefits because that was his base. My statement is just as meaningless as yours is.

2008 was the time to spend, now is the time to pullback. Labor has never tried to make out that anything but this is has to happen.

I suspect you will see a great many cuts in the next budget, which I imagine many will complain. I am still waiting to hear what Mr. Abbott would cut, except for the NBN and selling Medibank

"Could Gina be worried that Squiggy might run out of marmalade?"

Nah. she just want to keep everything. 9 billion or more in one year is not enought to keep her in? (God knows what)

If a particular tax does something to improve the economy or obtain extra wealth to overcome disasters, it should be done. There is enough wealth in the high incomes obtained by Gina, Clive palmer and others. Clive has said that he does not want that high salary, but wants the low tax on mining to remain or be lowered. It is unfortunate that these politicians were not born 70 or 80 years ago if at all, the 66.6% top tax caused recovery for our workers and the economy. It appears that our treasurers and Prime Ministers did not want to be shown up by someone who was not a lawyer, and then went on that path to prove their worth, well they proved it, they created a recession or three, and put the economy back almost to where it was in the 1930's during the depresion. It certainly shows up their value, zero.