The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Labor and the Greens on the Carbon Tax debate > Comments

Labor and the Greens on the Carbon Tax debate : Comments

By Tristan Ewins, published 8/4/2011

Emitters, just like the miners, can afford to pay more tax, and we can use the proceeds for social equity.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. ...
  6. 8
  7. 9
  8. 10
  9. All
Tristan, have not read your aticle yet, but good to see you back at OLO.
Posted by Chris Lewis, Friday, 8 April 2011 9:29:51 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Tristan,

So you would like to tax as much as possible without getting labor thrown out on its ear. Buying the votes of the lowest 65% you reckon should do it?

This is of course assuming that the lowest 65% are too stupid to realise that it is not only basics that will increase in cost, but everything. Jobs will move overseas, and that the total global emissions will not change.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Friday, 8 April 2011 11:43:16 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Shadow Minister - do you view it the same way where past Conservative and Labor governments have restructured and cut tax to the benefit of the highest income earners - with the consequence that low and middle income groups pay more in the context of user pays; suffer inadequate infrastructure and social services; or just shoulder a greater proportion of the necessasry tax burden?

Also I wouldn't push up tax indefinitely. Preferably I'd like to expand tax and related social expenditure by as much as 1.5% of GDP per term over three terms of Labor government. That would have us still very significantly behind the Nordic welfare states, but could make a great difference to the vulnerable; while promoting efficient collective consumption for all Australians in areas like health.

But the reforms I allude to are necessary - both out of human decency and compassion - and practically because of an ageing poplation. Think aged care (big investment needed to provide dignity, care, quality of life), pensions (with a rising cost of living and to edge closer to the standards in other advanced capitalist countries), transport infrastructure (needed to make new and outer suburbs viable; low transport costs free up income for consumption elsewhere), social housing. (to increase supply and make housing affordable). Then there's the underpayment of women workers in the community services sector. All this costs money.

nb: I'm not saying welfare state expansion as a proportion of GDP go on forever. Obviously there needs to be a balance - so beyond the realm of necessity ordinary people have the opportunity to shape their own needs structures through consumption.

re: 'lost jobs' etc;compensation for exposted export and import-competing industries should prevent that; And the development of new low-emissions energy technology should drive down cost structures over the long term. See: http://www.greenlivingpedia.org/Solar_paint
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Friday, 8 April 2011 11:59:20 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Tristan,

While I sympathise with your myopic bleeding heart approach, the reality is that the incentives given to business and industry has lead to the longest sustained growth ever. While the rich have benefited the lowest paid have seen their real income increase way beyond any equivalent period of ALP socialism.

There is a maxim "by making the rich poorer, one very seldom makes the poor richer". The Nordic states are in a parlous financial situation, with massive unemployment and comparatively low disposable income. Their industries are outsourcing, and many of their high flyers have left.

Spending as much time as I do in Scandinavia, this is not a form of government I would wish inflicted on anyone.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Friday, 8 April 2011 12:18:58 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Tristan, this is a great answer. Just one small problem, can you tell us what the question was?

I think that when it comes to taxation there are a few minor issues such as key dependencies, economic assumptions, exchange rates, sovereign/private investments, international trade, deficits, national debt, state debt, public debt, interest rates, industrial and services sector performance, inflation, GDP and productivity, just to mention a few.

So, before we get down to the solution, perhaps you just let us know the relationships and potential cross correlation impacts of GST redistribution, mining tax, CO2 tax and the various options expected to be discussed at the Tax Summit planned for later this year? Then we can take a look at your economic assuptions.

Thanks.
Posted by spindoc, Friday, 8 April 2011 1:11:37 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Tristan,

I am a bit lost with this; i made have to read this several times to get the jist of what you are saying.

firstly, when i hear you talk of progressive policies, yet suggest that the carbon tax should be introduced earlier, I am a bit lost. We certainly do not need arrogant attitudes by Labor that propose policies without ever getting support from the people on such a vital issue. No wonder they are down in the polls, and I will be interested to see if they pull of another houdini through their so-called fight for progressive policies on behalf of Australians.

To be honest, I am so close to giving the ALP the flick long-term out of anger from their mediocrity and simplistic dribble. I think the first thing Labor needs to do is to admit their limitations. Now the ALP evens bags the Greens. what a joke.

Second, I do not really get any feel that this article is on top of the issues that may deliver better outcomes for battlers. A focus on redistributive tax policies, is, as usual, a focus on half the story.
Posted by Chris Lewis, Friday, 8 April 2011 3:54:12 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Chris; Ok what I'm trying to get at is this:

MRRT is the backdrop to Company Tax cuts, as is the drop of revenue from its dilution. Thus controversy between Labor and the Greens. Given a shared interest between Labor and the Greens on distributive justice (well you'd hope so anyway)the form Carbon Tax implementation takes could be crucial in narrowing differences over the Company Tax cut. But whatever Labor does must also be influenced by the need to maintain credibility as a partner for negotiations.

If the Company Tax cut goes ahead, but the Greens are upset that the loss of revenue will be a loss for the welfare state/social wage - further reform could address this. (the example I give is half dividend imputation) And it could also address Greens worries about a diminishing pool of money for social programs.

Spending on social programs is another side to the distributive justice debate. Other aspects include economic democracy and labour market law - But I'm not aiming to discuss everything in this article.

*Early implementation* is important because without certainty a largely negative debate will drag on which distracts from other issues. It's hard to move on to a broader agenda while this is the case. Uncertainty over the size and nature of the tax, and of compensation - is hurting the government. Debate and consultation are necessary if we're to avoid the situation that developed with the RSPT - but given this situation (discontent over uncertainty on the Carbon Tax) I'd be aiming for the end of the year rather than mid-next year.

Returning to the Carbon Tax - what is crucial is the manner of implementation. Achieving distributive justice, here, could be crucial in winning over a sufficiently large electoral bloc to maintain government.

BTW thanks for welcoming me back :) - I've mainly been focusing on my PhD lately - but it's good to address a current debate here for a change. I have my blog too - but it's good to reach so many more people here at OLO.
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Friday, 8 April 2011 4:52:19 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
AARRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!
Carbon tax, mining tax, rich tax.
Oh look we've got billions and billions of dollars to spend! Yippee!

Do you think this money just appears out of thin air?
Do you think these companies and individuals live in some sort of *cocoon* detached from the rest of society?

If you take, take, take from them, they have less to invest in expanding their businesses, employing more workers.

Do you not think that the increased cost of higher taxes and superannuation are not going to be passed onto the *consumer* (the battlers) through higher prices?

Soak the rich and the poor might get their schools and hospitals, but they also pay more for cornflakes and shoes and lipstick and everything else.

"As for right-wing commentators such as Miranda Devine: do they suppose the same is true in the case of most tax 'reforms' – including the gradual ‘flattening’ of income tax – which historically have redistributed wealth from low and middle income groups to the wealthy?"

The poor's taxes aren't paid to the rich.
What an absurd statement.
The poor's (and the rich's) taxes pay for services the rich don't even use!
But the rich's taxes pay more, even at a flat rate, simply because they have higher income in the first place.
Even with a flat tax, the rich would pay most of it and use less public services.

And carbon taxes will just lead to offshoring to countries that lack those taxes and environmental regulations.
Our economy suffers and the global environment still gets polluted anyway.
Posted by Shockadelic, Friday, 8 April 2011 5:34:42 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Tristan,

I feel the left, including yourself, has important things to say about the redistribution of wealth. Always will.

However, I do not think much will be achieved by what is going on, whether carbon tax and/or mining tax.

The world economy is now so competitive and interlinked that trends may even get worse from your perspective.

The other scenario is that more and more Westerners realise the limitations of freer trade and adjust their policies accordingly to find a better balance that does not destroy trade but gives greater attention to national needs.

I am hoping that the latter will prevail, although some pain will need to be accepted by society as whole.

I hope to elaborate upon this in my next piece about Australian liberalism.
Posted by Chris Lewis, Friday, 8 April 2011 6:44:39 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Chris; send me a message at facebook when your article is published and I'll take a look. It's a topic I'm interested in.

Shockadelic - Wait until you're on a public hospital waiting list for a couple of years in pure agony - to provide the slack for the wealthy to engage in conspicuous consumption; Wait until you're in your mid-late 80s and spend the last few years of your life in an understaffed facility, living in conditions of pure indignity, without enough nurses to turn you or take you to the toilet, with rotten food - and no variability in terms of your diet or your environment (not even a garden) - and all to pay for tax cuts for that top strata that is supposed to 'create wealth' - after you've been working all your life... (and now society 'cannot afford' your human dignity)
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Friday, 8 April 2011 7:18:27 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Tristan Ewins - WOW! What a Labor, Socialist spin-doctor. Love the way you're using OLO to give advice to our Fed government. Hope Julia's listening.

'Shadow Minister' and Chris Lewis have put it nicely, and 'Shockadelic' hit a home run. They have answered your proposition far more succinctly and gently than I ever could.

It is all very well to have ideals of using taxation more effectively to serve the best interests of the nation and its populace, but it is essential to get it right, and to be fair. For, fairness and equity are foundations of our democracy, and, industry is the engine of wealth enabling Oz to enjoy enviable freedoms and security for all.

Your psychedelic meanderings through how to distribute the nation's wealth presuppose that all will be business as usual, in spite of your proposed draconian tax-hikes, and that business, self-funded retirees and working contributors to Super Funds (who all stand to lose greatly from your propositions) are going to sit back and cop it. Increase super contributions, but remove ethically correct imputation. One negates the other. Hit all shareholders, because they must be wealthy. No, they couldn't be working Super contributors could they? Rubbish.

The sole objective of your piece is your idea of a road-map for Labor to succeed and improve its position at the next Fed election - with a subtext to squash Tony Abbott and the Coalition's chances of taking over. And I really hope Labor might take some notice, for that would almost certainly ensure that Labor will get its just desserts and be soundly turfed out on its ear.

Carbon tax - just a tax grab. I knew that. Pity the poor deluded who think it may have something to do with reducing emissions.

Mining tax - milk the cash cow while you can. Pity about West Africa digging a big hole in our exports, taking our jobs, losing all that Super, decimating our equities and Super Funds. Too bad, eh?

Get a life, Tristan.
Posted by Saltpetre, Friday, 8 April 2011 8:02:23 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Tristan
I was interested to see you criticise the injustice caused to the poor under so-called "progressive" taxation, because this confirms the theory of the libertarian Austrian school of economics, that government's economic interventions produce unintended negative outcomes that are worse from the standpoint of the interventionists themselves.

Tell me, do you think the result you criticise is worse than it would be in the absence of such progressivity, that is, if you actually respected the principle of equality under law?
Posted by Peter Hume, Friday, 8 April 2011 8:07:37 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Say, Tristan, I forgot about The Greens.

Sorry about The Greens not really embracing your kind of socialist agenda. Don't want to let the cat out of the bag and remind you that they're really all about saving the environment, as well as a small matter of marriage freedoms. I've no problem with their agenda, until it starts getting corrupted by Labor's bribery.

NSW has put some writing on the wall, for those who would see. The Greens have got so carried away with holding the balance of power, and, with a few of the independents, are rapidly moving to oblivion.

I could give some advice to The Greens, but I'll resist.
Posted by Saltpetre, Friday, 8 April 2011 8:19:23 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Saltpetre; I’m no spin-doctor – I always call things as I see them. I’ve never had a ‘political career’ – and I dare say I never will. I’m a grassroots activist trying to make a difference from the relative margins.

Also: We had an exchange about small investors at my blog ‘Left Focus’ as well – where I also published this article. In addition to aged pension reforms I’d already suggested, I responded there that I believe small investors could be bypassed via a means test – and I think that would be fair enough too. If it could work with welfare, why not re: dividend imputation? (for $10 billion it would be a worthwhile investment; and I regret not mentioning that idea in the original article)

Pls note also that there are countries with higher levels of Company Tax than Australia do not have dividend imputation at all. What you call ‘draconian tax hikes’ refers to $10 billion in the context of an economy worth over $1 Trillion. In other words *less than one per cent.* And then I’m also suggesting some of the money taken be reinvested locally via a public pension fund. But the kind of scenario for aged care I related is only too real for a great number of people and will not change without money

What you say about “industry being the engine” is fair enough – but it's an engine driven by the efforts of workers - while our most wealthy people can make do delegating to their financial advisers and living a life of excess; And this is not an excuse to forget the marginalised and vulnerable who Abbott would punish as a wedge against Labor.
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Friday, 8 April 2011 8:35:31 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Tristan,

We have Industry Super Funds, and they do quite well maximising workers' contributions (a large portion of which comes from the industries they support). I can't believe you would think that some government-run Super fund would be competitive, particularly if it is under Labor management - given the fantabulous efforts with the Education Revulsion and the Pink Batts fiasco.

Industry is the engine, and workers are the cogs that drive it. Yes. When you threaten industry, you directly threaten those and many more jobs. The only solution for Labor, or any other government, is compromise for the common good. We are all in the some basket - industry needs workers, and workers need jobs. Don't bite the hand that feeds. Don't kill the golden goose by trying to remove all the feathers.

Fairness and equity. We are in a global market, and there are plenty of hungry hounds out there. Sure, there is room for improvement in wages and conditions, and in productivity. You just have to maintain a reasonable balance, and provide the right commercial environment. Better jobs, greater innovation and enterprise can only be achieved if we pull together. Improvement provides increased tax revenues, which then provide for improved services and support. If you want to point a finger at deteriorating services, you need look no further than a procession of state Labor governments - NSW included.

Methinks you rush too hard towards a socialist nirvana, while I'm quite satisfied that the majority of thinking Australians would reckon that, if only we could have a sensible government, we aren't doing too bad, not too bad at all.

Always room for improvement, but there are many worse off than us - no welfare, no aged care, low wages, no health care, no home, no job. Be careful lest we be seen as gluttons.
Posted by Saltpetre, Friday, 8 April 2011 10:14:27 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Well, its like this, Tristan.

Australians really do believe that we are taxed too much already. Has that sunk through your overly thick cranium?

The last thing that Australians want to hear about is some idiot blathering about how we should be taxed more to pay for "social equality". Australians consider that this term "social equality" means that the productive, the intelligent and the thrifty have got to put their hands in their pockets once again to subsidise the counter productive, the stupid and the profligate.

The Sydney suburb of Auburn, which is almost entirely Muslim, has (according to the Sydney Morning Herald) the highest rate of long term unemployed in Australia. If you think that I am overjoyed at being taxed more to pay for the "social equality" of imported foreigners, who seem to be very crime prone and work shy, then Tristan old mate, you need to have your head examined.

If you want to do a story, Tristan, how about one which asks why Australia is importing poverty and endemic social problems instead of trying to solve the problems we already have?

This is a rich country, Tristan, and I would like to see the deserving poor paid a higher pension. But unfortuantely, the cry has gone up all over the world that Australia is a soft touch, and that the Australian welfare system is easy to cheat. I have personally seen a Muslim woman in a full burqua telling a social worker that she just can't seem to get a job as a receptionist, and the social worker nodding his stupid head sympathetically.

So, for a left wing journo like yourself, who probably led a sheltered life, and who can not understand why working people vote Liberal, the reason is because we do not want to be taxed, and taxed, and taxed, in order to prop up a very expensive left wing multicultural fantasy, where "social equality" exists for all.
Posted by LEGO, Saturday, 9 April 2011 6:28:57 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Tristan, Your response to Shockadelic, (Posted by Tristan Ewins, Friday, 8 April 2011 7:18:27 PM) is an absolute shocker. Rather than respond to the issues you went on an utterly dismissive rant of fear, uncertainty and doubt with:

<< Shockadelic - Wait until you're on a public hospital waiting list for a couple of years in pure agony - to provide the slack for the wealthy to engage in conspicuous consumption; Wait until you're in your mid-late 80s and spend the last few years of your life in an understaffed facility, living in conditions of pure indignity, without enough nurses to turn you or take you to the toilet, with rotten food - and no variability in terms of your diet or your environment (not even a garden) - and all to pay for tax cuts for that top strata that is supposed to 'create wealth' - after you've been working all your life... (and now society 'cannot afford' your human dignity) >>

Please promise us two things. One, that when you have finished your PhD you will come back and answer some of the questions asked of you and two, please stay away from Australian industry.
Posted by spindoc, Saturday, 9 April 2011 9:14:40 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
re: the Austrian School; I seem to remember Hayek describing the economy as an 'organism' that met all challenges if left to its own; That meant no unions, no tax apart from to fund the police, army, courts etc, no welfare state or social wage, no labour market regulation, rejection of a mixed economy etc, etc. Again - the idea was that the 'organism' would respond appropriately to every situation if only left to its own natural 'equilibrium'. About the only form of social solidarity Hayek recognised was the family. 'lest we be crushed'.

I response I look to those countries with threadbare public sectors and welfare states, and deregulated labour markets. There's the US situation where people go bankrupt if they get ill and could not afford health insurance. And people working in fast food and retail on about $6/hour. Fully deregulated labour markets can provide full employment - but at a *terrible* cost. To see this as desirable can only be in an abstract sense - which obscures the position of those who 'pay the price'.

Then I look back to the 19th Century and wonder - What if there'd never been an 8 hour day? What if there were no OH&S standards, and kids were still working in mines and cleaning chimmneys? What if there was no social housing an tens of thousands more were living on the street in Australia alone?

I know a bit about Hayek - But I'm far from convinced. For those who are interested, I recommend 'Hayek versus Marx - and today's challenges' by Eric Aarons. I wrote an 8,000 word critique (or thereabouts) a couple of years back - but couldn't get it published. Honestly I don't know why. But's it's a really good read from an original thinker with a life-time involvement in Left politics. Have a look if you want to be challenged.
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Saturday, 9 April 2011 12:48:59 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
ok a few issues;

To begin with the idea of a public pension fund.

Saltpetre says they "would not be very competitive". But why not? Such funds exist all over the developed world. But insofar as they did not adhere purely to the profit motive - perhaps there's a sensible rationale for that? For instance - internet access for the bush might not be very profitable. But they pay their taxes - surely their needs should be provided for.

There's a related issue also with tendencies toward monopoly, wealth concentration and collective capital formation. Most politicians these days imagine incentive after incentive must be given to the very rich to spur investment. But this creates a self-fulfilling scenario of wealth concentration that is very bad for democracy.

Superannuation and public pension funds are potential responses - so as ordinary citizens we are less dependent on the very rich - and can afford to tax them at a fair rate. But also to extend the principle of economic democracy by spreading economic power more evenly. In this spirit there should be less 'incentives' for the very wealthy to invest in their super (at our cost - ie: most of us); but more public and civil 'collective capital formation' to compensate. A public pension fund could be part of this.

more coming...
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Saturday, 9 April 2011 5:52:14 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
'LEGO' has a real go at the very idea of the welfare state, social services, the social wage. But let's be clear: we're talking about basic human rights - to health care, to quality aged care, for shelter and food on the table, equal educational opportunity, social participation without which 'dropping out' of economy and society becomes a vicious circle.

In response:

Firstly - a civilised and decent society will provide for the vulnerable and marginal.

Secondly - welfare already involves punitive active labour market provisions, and yet fails to provide enough for necessity

Thirdly - collective 'social' consumption actually provides better value for EVERYONE - including Medicare, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, public transport and roads, communications infrastructure - the list goes on. Without 'collective consumption' most people will have to pay *more* as *individual* consumers. So while we have a 'low tax culture' in Australia, and people don't like tax - Ultimately we're better off for collective consumption.

The Swedes realise this; as to a significant extent do the Dutch, the Danes etc. There's not 'one' monolithic, exclusive model for the economy. A social democratic mixed economy can work and provide high material living standards, social security, a good life...</
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Saturday, 9 April 2011 8:06:53 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Tristan Ewins "Shockadelic - Wait until you're on a public hospital waiting list for a couple of years"

That's the problem. Public provision of basic services means no private companies will bother trying to serve that market.

Who's going to try and offer *low-cost* schools, housing or hospitals when the government is already offering free or cheap services to the low end of the market?
AND if you did try, you'd get walloped with a 30% company tax on your meager profits!

Private services are expensive only because the high end of the market is the *only* market available.

Where governments *don't* provide a service, you readily find private operators selling cheap goods and services, as well as upmarket versions. Low, middle and high end.

Even if you felt the government should assist in enabling access to essential services, that doesn't mean the government has to provide it *directly*, owned and operated.

You could simply pay people an allowance.
They then have a *choice* whether to buy a service and who from.

As for aged care, whatever happened to FAMILIES?
Once upon a time, nobody expected this 'essential' service.
Your folks took care of you.
Posted by Shockadelic, Saturday, 9 April 2011 9:48:20 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Responding to Shockadelic re: Aged Care

You obviously don't know the level of intensive and specialised care that is needed for many elderly citizens in the context of longer age expectancy.

Some people require this level of care only for a month or two and then pass away. But others may require care for several years. As I tried to say before: this might involve regular turning, showering, assistance going to the toilet, assistance with eating. This level of care also requires nurses with the appropriate training. I am not exaggerating.

At the moment many facilities are understaffed. There are difficulties in providing the kind of care I describe above with consequences that can be humiliating and uncomfortable for residents.

Understaffing can also mean staff do no make sure residents eat: with extreme loss of weight. Dental care is also a huge issue in this context.

To say that family should take care of it is the betray a lack of understanding re: the intensity of care required, and the necessary qualification of staff.

That these people - the most vulnerable of all - do not receive equal and high quality care is a disgrace. You obviously have no idea what spending several years in these conditions could be like. To turn away from it betrays a lack of humanity.

Air-conditioning, good quality food, dental care, gardens and television - these things should be able to be taken for granted. As should appropriate nursing care. There are a variety of levels of need - and such care should be provided as to minimise suffering and maximise *OPPORTUNITIES FOR LIVING* for those elderly in care.

Quality of aged care, health care, education - should not depend on the size of your bank account... And families with their own work and kids don't have the time or training to commit to *full time care*.

But for everyone to receive the care they need requires resources, and this necessarily means a portion of tax receipts.
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Saturday, 9 April 2011 10:05:59 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I do not have a problem with the welfare state, Tristan, I have a problem with the sustainability if the welfare state, when it is being looted by ever increasing numbers of people, many of whom have been imported from overseas and who have not contributed a penny to the "welfare states" upkeep.

With 800,000 people on "disability pensions, out of a population of 21 million, you don't have to be a Mensa to figure out that something is fishy. Even a Densa like you should be able to figure it out.

My advantage over you, is that I was born in the lowest socio economic class where cheating the welfare state was the primary pastime, after drinking, smoking, gambling, taking drugs, and driving like an idiot. I can only shake my head in pitying wonder that a person such as yourself can get in so wrong.

If you support the welfare state like I do, then there are only two ways it can survive, the first is to keep taxing, and taxing, and taxing all of those intelligent and productive people that every society needs, or to do the Abbot thing and prevent the ever increasing numbers of welfare cheats from looting the system.

As an Australian, I am very angry about the fact that our governments keep importing poverty into Australia with their flaccid border protection policies so that our welfare bill never stops climbing, and our commitment to haelping those Australians who are genuinely poor through ill health or misfortune therefore keep decreasing.

Screaming "tax the rich" to pay for an unsustainable, rort ridden, and ever expanding welfare state full of foreigners is not going to ganrner any popular support, tristan. because ordinary, working class taxpayers like myself know that we are "the rich" which the bleeding hearts are going to rob.
Posted by LEGO, Sunday, 10 April 2011 5:21:27 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
agreed LEGO, Tristan's "rich folk" are not at the top of the pile alone any longer, they stretch all the way down.

It's the same old class warfare to demonise the "rich" as if they are getting something for nothing, they are not, they getting the results of hard work and sacrifice.

So the more the government finds it is unable to manage it's finances, the more it sees the same old ever popular class solution, tax the rich. Except now the rich are not that far above the poor, you're not taxing abstract "rich folk" anymore, it's trades peeople and small business.

Why not get the government to live within its means, to manage on what it gets now, and forgo the temptation to solve everyone's problems, to build school halls as a solution to the GFC, when roads and infrastructure is what we needed.

So rather than live within their means and to cover up the complete lack of responsibility and accountability, the solution is once again, more taxes.

Governments for years have frittered away the wealth of the country instead of investing in infrastructure and services, it is not the fault of the "rich" it is the fault of ALP governments for years all over Australia.

Yes, we need to look after people, but there has to be a balance and incentives for people to continue to employ and be creative, or they will leave, then you will have no one to tax, the proverbial hospital with no patients.

The miners are the only ones who will not run out of money, since they can dig up more, the rest of us are slowly being bled dry as the ever increasing numbers of hands are stretched out for more and more, and Tristan, you can only see that side of it.

When you run out of other peoples money, your society will collapse, is that the plan?
Posted by rpg, Sunday, 10 April 2011 8:32:24 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Tristan
Thanks for that irrelevant rant based on the assumption that we can create wealth out of nothing by passing laws.

But would you please answer the question I asked you: "Do you think the result [of tax policy that] you criticise is worse than it would be in the absence of such progressivity, that is, if you actually respected the principle of equality under law?

Also, if government is able to bring about optimal conditions by forced redistributions, what is the limiting factor, if any, to this wondrous ability? What objections do you have to full socialism, by which I mean state ownership of the means of production? What justification could there ever be for any private property?
Posted by Peter Hume, Sunday, 10 April 2011 10:07:15 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I think this whole debate needs to be seen in a wider context - the shift of wealth to the owners of capital over the last 30 years as a response to declining or stagnating profit rates.

The carbon tax fits into that - it is a GST on carbon whose main effect is precisely to cut the consumption of working class people. Talk of compensation is a furphy - the compensation won't cover fully the cost of the tax on average workers.

A tax on the profits of the polluters, and strict price controls preventing them passing on the impact, and a concerted spending program on renewable energy and retraining at full wages, would be a start.

Taxing economic rents - 'super profits' - would provide the revenue base for doing that. It would make no adverse impact on investment and jobs since all you are taxing is returns over and above that necessary to get capital to invest.

Between 2006 and 2008 40% of big business paid no income tax and that figure looks like it has increased since then, with the Commissioner of Taxation expressing real concern about the business tax gap - the difference between the economic returns to capital and the tax they are contributing. While profits are going up tax paid is going down.

The pathetic little MRRT, like the slightly less pathetic RSPT, was an attempt to distribute value (value that workers create) from a super profitable section of capital to those less profitable through tax cuts. The super co-contributions - about 3% of the proposed revenue - was a sop to give the impression of benefiting workers while really hiding the reality that the rent taxes the Labor governments were proposing were specifically designed to benefit capital as a whole.

This is part of Labor's traditional role of ruling for all capital, not sectional interests.

Tax the rich. No to a carbon tax. Yes to a tax on the profits of the polluters and all of big business. Real programs to develop renewable energy. Green jobs now.
Posted by Passy, Sunday, 10 April 2011 12:21:21 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
passy "Between 2006 and 2008 40% of big business paid no income tax"

What world do you inhabit where they swap fairy stories like this? Is this some inner city leftists myth we're getting repeated here?

So our tax department did not collect corporate tax from 40% of "big" businesses? What utter rubbish.

You want: "A tax on the yada yada, and strict price controls yada yada a concerted spending program on renewable energy and retraining yada yada."

Price controls, what, a government department to control the price of everything? What a dreamworld, paid for by what, yet more taxes? So thousands of public servants controlling the price of everything? Seriously do you think that's possible when we can't even manage GST on imports under $1K?

If businesses do not make a reasonable profit, people will withdraw their capitol (investors), like your super fund will. Will you instruct your super fund to invest for no profit for your retirement?

Concerted spending on renewables which is picking winners, what if you pick the wrong ones? Who pays, well not you obviously, it's the "rich taxpayers and the polluters" who will pay, correct?

You want to retrain people on full salaries, to do what exactly? Thousands of people being managed by government to be retrained for thousands of new careers, what careers? Created by whom, the ALP?

The reality is most companies run on narrow margins, if you tax them that margin, they shut down, sack everyone.

Business is not a bottomless pit of available funds to be taxed.

The mythical Big Polluters, a green/ALP tool to demonize industry, who will pass on costs, or go under, you decide.

If you don't pay the additional price, you can't expect business to operate for less than they can charge.

This is naive, you can't have governments bigger than industry and survive, you reach as stage where your costs outweigh industry and people's capability to fund with more tax.
Posted by rpg, Sunday, 10 April 2011 1:15:56 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Passy,

I think Tristan may have taken a break from this debate. Understandable, given the bashing we've given him - and rightly so.

You've made some good points, but I have a few differences.

I believe what we need more than anything else is jobs. So many are going overseas - call centres, IT, manufacturing, value-adding. That, and foreign ownership of more and more of Oz industry and production - including farming - means something is out of kilter.

A number of our OLO commentators mentioned the growing number of "imported" welfare recipients - boat people, family-reunion immigrants etc - but we also have quite a few locals who can't get a job. Why can this be, if we have a skills shortage, and keep importing overseas-trained workers?

Hence, anything which threatens jobs is bad, and anything which builds jobs is good. (Can we all agree that having a job is a good thing, even if you'd rather be on welfare?) (Single parents with babies aside - though day-care beckons.)

Problems then. Deficiencies in our education system, lack of industry competitiveness, lack of innovation, of R&D, of incentives. Do we have the subsidies used overseas (US,EU)? The grants or tax-breaks to build new industry? The forward vision?

To Tors. Carbon tax won't create jobs (except in bureaucracy), investment in new technology will - now, and into the future. Mining Super Tax won't create jobs - will make big miners less competitive, or direct them to invest overseas.

Solutions. Standardise mining royalties (all sectors), and make it Federal, rather than State, revenue - as part of the overall tax bag to be redistributed at COAG. Standardise all tax streams to remove anomalies - land tax etc. Develop a national infrastructure and services plan with the States/Territories - and ensure it is implemented. Develop a forward development plan with industry leaders, for national R&D and Innovation, and use the Infrastructure Fund to implement it. Standardise the education system nationwide, pay teachers more, make standards high. Standardise the health services sector and aged-care.

Make Oz more competitive, more lean, and more hungry.
Posted by Saltpetre, Sunday, 10 April 2011 2:07:38 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
LEGO refers to an:

"ever expanding welfare state full of foreigners [which] is not going to ganrner any popular support...because ordinary, working class taxpayers like myself know that we are "the rich" which the bleeding hearts are going to rob."

Appealing to racism and fear has alway been the device of the far right to divide the working class against itself; and as a distraction against the injustices the Right inflicts on ordinary people. But despite fear-mongering, only about 3,000 refugees arrive by boat in Australia every year. But formal immigration - under the Conservatives too - has been over 100,000/year.

Also I see no proof of his (and 'rpg's') claim 'the rich' are 'ordinary workers' with ordinary wealth and income.

Specifically I suggest heavier taxation of the top 30% or 35% income group. (ie: narrow enough to be fair and politically sustainable, broad enough to net enough money for critical gaps in services (health/aged care, education roads & public transport etc) and welfare. There are more and more millionaires in Australia (who LEGO&rpg think are 'ordinary' - yet provide no proof.) But ACOSS estimated recently "2.2 million people in Australia were living in poverty and 105,000 were homeless". See:
http://www.acoss.org.au/media/release/Inequality_is_growing_in_Australia_ACOSS

The millionaires are not 'ordinary people'; many (not all) would be able to delegate to financial advisors without needing to work at all; but hundreds of thousands of Australians do work hard - in return for poverty wages.

ALSO CRUCIALLY - there has been no response to my point that collective consumption of health, aged care, education - and social housing - actually helps ordinary Australian workers. Collective consumption simply being more efficient, partly because of the consequent market power (eg: PBS); partly more competitive government borrowing rates re: infrastucture; public housing effects on supply and hence affordability in the broader sector- and so on... If these are not provided socially then they need to be consumed privately - but if the consequence is that people pay MORE via private consumption, then what is gained by cutting taxes and social expenditure?
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Sunday, 10 April 2011 5:13:46 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Ok - first just a correction - the points I raise at the of my last relate not just to collective consumption - but also public provision of infrastructure. (hence a lower cost of borrowing)

but re: 'state ownership of the means of production' - there are a number of points.

The first point is that there are benefits as well as drawbacks to markets and competition, and competition necessarily means a role for private ownership. (except theoretically in international trade -eg: the USSR competed in global markets)

The benefits of competition include innovation, efficiency and responsiveness to market signals. Competition also drives national economies & enterprises to focus on their natural strengths - driving efficiency in the *global* economy.

The drawbacks can include focus only on share value maximisation translating into discrimination against less profitable markets which nonetheless are marked by a legitimate need. (eg: broadband for the bush, liberal education for everyone etc)

Other possible issues are

*escalating rates of exploitation especially where there is a lack of labour market regulation; 'letting labour markets clear' may sound good in theory, but try living on $6/hour

*market force can also drive monopolisation and hence abuse of market power

* the public sector has certain advantages - again including cheaper borrowing rates, and the potential to provide natural monpolies (eg: infrastructre) without abuse of market power.

* control over markets translates into economic AND political power, so there develops an alliance between monopoly capital and national state powers - which turns war into an economic/political tool, and precludes real - democratic and popular - national sovereignty.

Want to say more but have run out of room again...
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Sunday, 10 April 2011 6:11:11 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Tristan Ewins: "You obviously don't know the level of intensive and specialised care that is needed for many elderly citizens in the context of longer age expectancy."

Then you need specialised care, which means there's a market demand (which means incentive for workers to train, and employers to hire) which mean incentive to offer training (private education).
You expect all this to be provided by the state? Why?

"At the moment many facilities are understaffed."
Why? If there's such a demand, wages should be high enough to give incentive to workers.
If this is not happening, it is BECAUSE of public provision, not in spite of it.
Demand = High Pay = Incentive to Train = No lack of skilled workers.

"Quality of aged care, health care, education - should not depend on the size of your bank account..."

Did you even read my comments?
I said you could provide state financial assistance for access to essential services, rather than providing the services directly.
Then YOU have a choice. Will I use this service at all? Will I pay for the cheap, mid-range or luxury model?

"And families with their own work and kids don't have the time or training to commit to *full time care*."

That is a choice they make.
You live with the consequences of your choices (and pay for them).
If your career as a smarmy marketing executive is more important than your own parents (who you offload) and children (who you never see), then I don't really care about you.

LEGO: "I am very angry about the fact that our governments keep importing poverty into Australia"

Only 60% the immigrants from the last decade were "skilled".
(05-Mar-2001 to 04-Mar-2011)
http://www.immi.gov.au/settlement/

456,826 "family" and 126,227 "humanitarian".
Half a million people of no possible use.

rpg: "Why not get the government to live within its means, to manage on what it gets now"
For starters they could cut all those touchy-feely grants (you know the type: $53,000 for the Left-handed Lithuanian Lesbian Association).
Posted by Shockadelic, Monday, 11 April 2011 3:35:37 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Passy: "Between 2006 and 2008 40% of big business paid no income tax"

If that is true (?!), the solution isn't to increase taxes, but to stop allowing deductions.
Tax the gross, not net income. This would have the added benefit of making managers more mindful of their spending decisions.
The easiest way to do this, in fact to do any taxation, is a bank account transaction tax.

Tristan Ewins "Appealing to racism and fear"?

No, questioning the importation of foreigners with no skills isn't "racism", it's common sense.

"collective consumption of health, aged care, education - and social housing - actually helps ordinary Australian workers. Collective consumption simply being more efficient"

Perhaps, but at the expense of innovation and choice, which a private market has an incentive to provide.
State industries have the speed of a slug and the adaptability of a rock.

"partly because of the consequent market power (eg: PBS);"

i.e. virtual monopolies?
Since when do monopolies benefit the consumer?

"partly more competitive government borrowing rates re: infrastucture;"

If the state wasn't providing the service, it wouldn't need to borrow funds for it.

"public housing effects on supply and hence affordability in the broader sector"

Yes, it makes private housing more expensive, as the lower market is catered to by the state.

"If these are not provided socially then they need to be consumed privately - but if the consequence is that people pay MORE via private consumption, then what is gained by cutting taxes and social expenditure?"

People won't pay "more".
A truly competitive market would offer numerous options.
You pay for what you *want* to pay for.
Cutting taxes means you either have more to spend, or more to pay workers.
Employers might be willing to offer more than $6/hour if you weren't taxing the hell out of them, and supplying them with a virtually infinite supply of cheap labour through immigration.
Posted by Shockadelic, Monday, 11 April 2011 3:36:10 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
While totally ignoring the serious social consequences of a non discriminatory immigration policy, Tristan, has always been the device of social utopians who dream the impossible dream of a perfect society.

Look mate, I know that you are claiming that you only want to “tax the rich”, but you see us ordinary working class taxpayers have heard it all before and we know that what your INTENT may be, the EFFECT is going to be that ordinary taxpayers are going to get slugged yet again.

We see it every day in our rising petrol prices, the outrageous price increases for essential services like electricity, phone, rates and water, the parking meters that grow like mushrooms, and the speed cameras which multiply faster than a welfare family on the dole. We know that the reason is because the administrators of our country can never find enough money to balance the budget. We also know that the welfare budget is the single biggest economic black hole sinking our economy.

Most Australians do not have a problem with the genuine unemployed, who because of circumstance or through ill health, are not able to work. But we have a very big problem with the large numbers of dole bludgers who have no intention working if they can get away with it, and too many of them today are foreigners who have not contributed a penny to our very expensive social security systems upkeep. And if you can “see no evidence of this”, then you are not looking very hard.

If you are really interested in helping the genuine long term unemployed, you would be going after the dole bludgers with a vengeance for looting a social security system which is now struggling to meet its commitments. And you would also ruefully admit that some ethnic groups are noted for their high rates of welfare dependency and for their proneness to serious criminal behaviour, and we would be much better off not importing any more of them. But no, admitting that some people are just parasites is something which no social utopian could ever contemplate.
Posted by LEGO, Monday, 11 April 2011 7:41:28 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
LEGO; You talk of: "rising petrol prices, the outrageous price increases for essential services like electricity, phone, rates and water, the parking meters that grow like mushrooms"

Yet increasing energy and water costs, as well as higher communications cost from would otherwise have been the case - have occurred in the context of privatisation - of which both the Liberals and Labor are responsible. And privatisation of infrastructure finance and ownership - for which both the Liberals and Labor are responsible - also drives up costs. Ordinary motorists pay the price every day as a consequence of private toll-roads.

Finally - privatisations of government business enterprises such as the old Commonwealth Bank, the Government Insurance Office etc - pushed up costs as cross-subsidies are eliminated, profit margins are accounted for, and boosts to competition in the context of oligopoly are eliminated.

Now a clarification re: natural public monopoly and collective consumption.

Collective consumption via the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme costs consumers LESS because medicines etc are bought in bulk - and the scale of government purchasing power drives costs down. And Medicare provides a fairer *and* more efficient health system than in the United States for instance.

Meanwhile - *natural public monopoly* can mean lower cost structures because of a lack of duplication. And opposed to private monopoly, though, there is no profit motive. So there is not the same kind of *motivation* to abuse market power. The way energy costs have gone up AFTER privatisation, and the breaking up of old public monopolies - demonstrates this.
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Monday, 11 April 2011 11:33:07 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Shockadelic:

re: Aged Care I actually don't mind the concept of community provision - and that's basically what we have now. But in the context of community care - these organisations still need funding. I am not asking for straight-forward government provision. I am asking for better regulation and higher government funding for the *community sector*. This is necessary to provide better nurse:resident ratios, fair wages and conditions for staff; better standards including food, heating, air conditioning, a better living environment and so on. With government support, this can be provided in the community sector. BTW - You can talk about laws of demand and supply, here - but that would just mean an awful lot of people would be excluded - as they are by such market mechanisms in other contexts. But where there's a case of basic human dignity and human rights that's not good enough.

re: arguments that public housing 'distorts the market'; the alternative would be people being priced out of the market and left on the street. I hope you don't think that's acceptable. There is anyway a chronic under-supply of social housing. Prices are so high because of the Howard-govt inspired speculative 'bubble' (deliberately encourged) with a growing population and lack of supply. To boost supply effectively, though, we need to invest in infrastructure - esp transport - at the urban fringes. And puruse urban conditions, regional hubs etc. This means public money. And massive investment in social housing *would* increase supply and hence bring down prices.

Finally all this talk of 'dole bludgers' is anecdotal. No doubt there are some - but for the most part 'work for the dole' is just a way of punishing the victim without taking responsibility for creating *real* jobs - and in that context, training. And as I've argued - onerous active labour markets programs are already in place.

BTW-I don't imagine a 'perfect' society is possible. I *do* think we can do better than we are now. I think Sweden, Denmark, Holland - show that a different model can work - and be fairer as well.
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Monday, 11 April 2011 11:54:16 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Tristan,

It is you and your ilk that have led the Labor Party to the position it finds itself in in NSW and soon Federally.

It is a dead carcass being picked clean by the vulture Greens.

You and your communist ideas had no relevance whatsoever to todays working people.

Your airy fairy idealogy didn't do anything for them ... it is the sort of irrelevance that has torn their party asunder and allowed the middleclass uni educated pseudo intellectual dregs, with their nepotism to wreck their party.

You middleclass university educated mindless pseudo-'intellectuals' should have just voted for them and p'ssed off and left them alone.

Now all they have got is 'hopefully' a benevolent Liberal Party And still you carry on with your rubbish ideas thinking the carcass you invaded is still alive.

If you are from a Labor background ... you parents and grandparents have failled or more probably you've failled them by staying in the rut they tried to extract themselves, their children and grandchildren from.

Their legacy is the likes of you and their once great and principled party's dead and you helped kill it ... you utter goose.
Posted by keith, Monday, 11 April 2011 5:15:04 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Keith;

So - a democratic mixed economy,social wage,progressive tax system and regulated labour market now = 'communism' (!)

Then what do you think social democracy is?

Do you think people like me are to blame for the NSW electricy privatisation fiasco? (something the vast majority of the grassroots were against); But then Keating basically got up and said the other day that their opinions don't count; that the parliamentary party shouldn't be accountable in any meaningful sense to the organisation. Why then shouldn't the *parliamentary party* in NSW be blamed? That is: for prolonging the conflict to the point of disintegration when they KNEW the party grassroots, organisation, affiliated unions - were opposed to it? And now the people responsible are trying to rewrite history; and people wonder why the party organisation is dying!

And if we exclude social democracy (in any real and meaningful sense - which is what you seem to be doing) and democratic socialism as well - What 'principles' are left anyway?

Many party figures could not even claim to be social liberals anymore.

BTW - I'm not a communist. I don't think communism as envisaged by Marx can work for a number of reasons - including:

a) the impossibility of abolishing the division of labour - and the persistence of politics-ie: politics will not be reduced to 'the adminstration of things' as Marx thought it would

b) the imperfectibility of humanity, and hence the impossibility of developing beyond need for the state

c) That there will always be a role for markets as well as planning at different levels in the economy - even though markets fail; an important role for social democracy being to intervene to correct these failures

That said I consider myself a 'liberal democratic socialist'. I
identify with aspects of Marxist traditions. But I also identify with political and social liberalism, including pluralism. I'm not a pure materialist; I think Marx's dialectical materialism driven by class struggle is too simple a conception of history. I tend to be a voluntarist; and I believe socialism needs an ethical foundation.
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Monday, 11 April 2011 5:47:37 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Really Keith I'd like a response - what *are* these Labor principles you allude to; How are they at odds with what I'm arguing for?

Does high quality aged care have "no relevance whatsoever to today's working people"? Perhaps lack of care will become an issue for a growing 'underclass' - and that won't concern the 'mainstream'? And what of our failure to implement 'no disadvantage' with modernised Awards? Do declining wages & conditions have "no relevance"? Does a rising cost of living flowing from energy and water privatisation have 'no relevance'?

Even Gillard - from the Left - doesn't affirm the principle of equality in any sense other than some narrow 'equal opportunity'. And even that is hollow because of inequality of funding and resources between public and private schools. And furthermore betrays a lack of respect for the worth and dignity of all labour - where only a professional career is considered 'successful' and deserving of 'reward'.

That said - what's left? Multiculturalism and 'a republic' 'sometime' in the distant future? But no difference with the Libs on the economy?

To the extent that there IS hope for the future - it's the extent to which we HAVE been rediscovering our traditions of social democracy, democratic socialism, social liberalism. As evident in arguments for a public NBN, Keynesian demand management with infrastructure investment, Carbon Tax as an opportunity for redistribution etc.

But there are still those who want to disrupt this process. Perhaps with cynical intent. The natural disasters suffered this year if anything will have a deflationary effect on the economy. The need for mental health funding - which GetUp is focusing on - is real and dire. That is - it concerns *real people* NOW - not the economy in some abstract sense.

I've been considering this issue and what I wrote in the article attached to this thread. And on Company Tax for that reason I think Bob Brown may actually be right.

But I guess the mentally ill, the unemployed, the disabled more generally - are just 'irrelevant' for you as well?
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Monday, 11 April 2011 8:35:29 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I've got news for you Tristan, the whole Communist world was once full of "government businesses" and even the stupid commos finally woke up that they were the worst thing that could happen to an economy. It is amazing how somew people are uanble to learn from hiostory and just keep insisting that yesterdays dismal failures are today's bright idea.

For your information, I used to work as a private contractor to the Electricity Commision, and I saw with my own eyes the blatent featherbedding and overmanning of that particular "government business". No wonder that even the Labor party is now endorsing privatisation. Just like the Chinese and the Russians, even the Labor Party stalwards could not keep thinking up excuses for socialist stupidity and inefficientcy.

As for your precious "Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, the last I heard was that it was being looted by doctor shopping Asian "Australians" who were getting as many expensive drugs as they could carry and shipping them home to their relos to be sold on the black market.
Posted by LEGO, Tuesday, 12 April 2011 4:05:49 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Tristan,

Here is a link to a transcript of British historian, Tony Judt's landmark lecture on social democracy - a good read.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/dec/17/what-is-living-and-what-is-dead-in-social-democrac/
Posted by Poirot, Tuesday, 12 April 2011 4:45:21 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Tristan,

Lets see. How much in common have you with someone who lines up for a casual job with so many others and is picked on the whim of an employers agent, is given work without any security of tenure and can be dissmissed on a whim, who doesn't know how long the employment will last, whether the tasks they've been employed for are the only tasks they're expected to perform. Now let's assume they work only part of a week and are expected to survive on less than the basic wage. Someone who is faced with difficulty in providing sufficient nutricious food for family, who watchs their children go without a decent education, adequate clothing, an adequate health service, who sees the government introducing more and more taxes and charges, who sees the banks charging exhorbrant interest and fees, who faces unscrupulus landlords, who has little chance of home ownership, who watchs others who with great privilage indulge themselves, but most of all someone who watches their spouse succumbing to the trials inherent in such a deprived life all the time watching the self-indulgent selfish ignorant and suposedly well educated and liberal minded acting on their behalf in ways abhorent to their basic beliefs in family, egalitarianism and government.

Sounds familiar doesn't it?

One such was my fathers father? You'd not know anything of people such as he and they were the people who understood, formed and maintained the great traditions of labor and the labor party.

That you ask me 'what are these Labor principles you allude to; How are they at odds with what I'm arguing for?' shows you don't know labor nor labor people all you know is the mindless well-meaning views of middleclass dregs and an idealogy that doesn't put food on a plate ... nor creates a bright future for their descendants.
Posted by keith, Tuesday, 12 April 2011 8:12:49 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Keith and Tristan,

I don't think much is achieved by insults, especially when both of you have your hearts in the right place.

I do not think we can go back to a time when the answer was to tax or regulate as much as possible.

But we can work to achieve a better society, even if the answer may suit the liberal approach that seeks to reduce costs.

While i am still thinking about it, i think that a compassionate Liberal Party may hold the trump cards in coming years, assuming their leadership is up to it. however, I certainly do not believe in tactics to simply smash unions, or play the asylum seeker card to win support.

There is indeed a role for the left, if that means ensuring that social welfare assistance is fair and well-targeted, but the present demands (and coming turmoil) of the international economy will probably mean that cuts will have to be in terms of public expenditure.

I would forget about analysis that simply supports one party over another, as if one is the good guy and the other stupid. For too long, Aust's universities have been dominated by such rubbish, and I hope you will not simply become another one.
Posted by Chris Lewis, Tuesday, 12 April 2011 10:48:37 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Tristan,

Having studied public economics, there are two criteria for natural monopolies where state ownership / control has obvious benefits over private ownership

1 - Where the economies of scale continue to grow to the maximum capacity of the state/nation/city.
2 - Where the intangible benefits to the population of the service are so significant that even when the enterprise makes a loss, the value of the benefits vastly outweigh the losses.

Given the size of most economies, the first factor seldom applies. The old monopolies such as power generation generally cannot compete with privately owned enterprises. State enforced monopolies seldom deliver value to its customers, which is why the proposed NBN is such a travesty.

The second factor is generally applied to services such as police, public schooling, public transport, public hospitals etc. But even these can be contracted out to the private sector who can deliver the same public value for a huge cost saving.

The huge state owned enterprises of yesteryear are as relevant today as sail powered cargo ships.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Wednesday, 13 April 2011 3:01:56 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
hi Chris

I have to disagree with your assessment that both Tristan and I have 'our hearts in the right place'.

My heart is placed to ensure, in order, my own, my familys, my close friends and my employees welfares comes first. I believe individuals are best placed to determine their own needs and will prioritise as they see fit and so determine their needs, regardless of circumstance.

My fathers father was of a similar opinion. It's called being true to oneself and because I don't suffer the deprivation, of he in his time nor of many others today, I cannot decide nor direct them towards their priorities. I'd be arrogrant if I thought I could.

Now get Tristan to enunciate that he shares the deprivation of my fathers father or of some people today.

He cannot, therefore he isn't being true to himself and will not eventually, because it is his displayed behaviour, be true to the people he proports his idealogies will do good for. He cannot understand their priorities but because he has greater education he can dominate them and relegate their unspoken needs and aspirations.

That's labors mode of operating today and it is their undoing and causes them to prioritise things that are not the deprived priorities. Really how many in deprived backgrounds today prioritise gay marriage, electricity privatisation, give a hoot about the defiate antic's of the military or want a carbon tax?Those things don't put food on their plates nor provide a better future for their kids.

For a long time now labor's millionaire and uni educated classes haven't been true to themselves and they've betrayed those they proport to represent. The gooses.

Before you think about joining or supporting the Liberals it is important to understand they generally adopt my attitudes towards personal responsibility. And that's a huge divide from Tristan's attitudes and indeed of many who may see the liberals as at all 'benevolent'.

Regards keith
Posted by keith, Wednesday, 13 April 2011 4:55:52 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Keith,

I do not believe that any thing is achieved by political commentary tied to the bias of one party. We have enough sectional interest groups for that given their historical preferences towards certain parties.

In terms of affinity with liberal politics, i no longer see Labor as 'the' only option.

What matters to me, as you suggest, is policies that encourage greater individual responsibility (mutual obligation) for a variety of reasons, efficiency of resources, and positive outcomes in terms of balancing wealth creation and helping those in need of assistance. In the case of the latter, some people need to be assisted through decent education opportunities, while people need resources to meet their living costs. I never want to see many pensioners turning off heating given they cannot pay bills.

I feel my own life experience, a beneficiary of state (Liberal) help as a ward of state (4 to 17), it would have been unlikely (although not impossible) that I ever moved from labouring to academia without state help. Further, my perspective, shaped by experience and learning, still leads me to believe in the important role of govt.

And the more i think about it, even when voting Labor, the more i feel John Howard was the best PM in my adult lifetime. (I can only go back to Fraser to make my judgment).

A lot of the differences between the major parties is rhetorical, with Labor the biggest fibber trying to woo everyone with greater populism. They are still at it in 2011, yet a carbon tax will probably lead to resources being shifted from other important policy areas (although we must wait to see what happens).

I think tough reform is ahead; I just hope the reform is done in a smart way that balances wealth creation and compassion in the best possible way. Sounds like rhetoric, but such a simple statement should always determine what good policy is, especially looking back as an academic.
Posted by Chris Lewis, Thursday, 14 April 2011 7:56:57 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Shadow Minister;

re: Natural monpolies - I think to that you could add to scenarios where avoidance of cost structure duplication provides a greater benefit than product differentiation in the market; and I think that applies to water and communications infrastructure. (but not retail service) I also think product differentiation in energy is so minimal that it doesn't justify the added costs to consumers with payment of dividends to private stakeholders.

More broadly I think the public sector is NOT 'essentially' inefficient or inferior. And if you take public transport, for instance, it's possible to capture private sector innovation by investing in rolling stock from a variety of sources, while still having public infrastructure. Private management is possible in the context of public ownership, but full privatisation would see deterioation of services on unprofitable routes. There are similar complexities in other instances.

And again - if you add up the cumulative effects of privatisations, internalisation of the costs of providing dividends to investors really adds up - In the end it costs consumers an awful lot. So where the public sector *can* do just as good a job then we need the abandon ideology and work in the public interest.

Other instances - such as the Commonwealth Bank privatisation - now see the public losing out on over $6 billion in dividends - and reinforcement of collusive oligopoly - where a public bank could have actually enhanced competition.

Though of course there are huge swathes of the market where competition between private enterprises (or conceiveably non-public democratic enterprises) drives innovation. I don't dispute this.
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Thursday, 14 April 2011 10:58:48 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Keith: You do not know my personal financial circumstances, so don't make any assumptions. It's really no-one's business, but I've never been so well off that anyone could reasonably say I've been part of the 'middle class'. I sympathise with the disadvantaged because I've been there myself.

What I can't get over is this idea that quality public health and aged care, and investment in transport in new suburbs where working class families are settlig is 'irrelevant' to workers.

I understand arguments that some people want to consume in a private context; thinking this provides 'choice'. The Budapest school made similar arguments in their criticism of the command economies before the collapse of the (Communist) Eastern Bloc. Where 'command' structures go too far this makes perfect sense. But again I point to the added market power of consumers with collective consumption. And the likelihood of market failure where markets go *too* far. (ie: infringing upon the terrain of the legitimate mixed economy)
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Thursday, 14 April 2011 11:00:47 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Tristan,

The reason the ACCC and its equivalents around the world are set up are because monopolies are almost without exception less efficient than multiple entities competing in delivering value to the public. This is because competition forces companies to be cost effective and to deliver the service the company wants, or the customers simply move elsewhere (This has little or nothing to do with product differentiation.) Public companies on top of this have the added handicap that the objective of efficiency is often surpassed by political considerations.

So ideology aside, there are very few examples where public institutions can compete. The sale of the CBA did not deprive the public of $6bn of dividends, simply because a public company would not have made the dividends in the first place.

If you have any evidence that the banks are colluding perhaps you should provide it to the ACCC, because as of yet there has been no evidence of this whatsoever. Because banks offer similar products at similar prices might simply be because any higher would lose customers, and any lower would lose money.

To be perfectly honest, you reply above would indicate that you have no background in economics whatsoever. I would conclude that this deficiency is the reason you can continue to believe in your socialist agenda.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Thursday, 14 April 2011 12:26:20 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Shadow Minister:

Part of the problem we face today is the assumption in neo-liberal and classical liberal economic discourse that only these positions comprise true "economic science" to the exclusion of all other perspectives. And having established this as the "common sense" of the era, to label all others 'ignorant' in order to exclude further debate, and also to exclude an approach to economics based on values.

You argue there's no proof of the banks colluding; and yet both the ALP and the Liberals supported credit unions on the basis of countering just such tendencies. (specifically, price signalling by the major banks) Because it cannot be proven categorically (the banks being careful) does not mean it does not happen.

For decades after WWI the mixed economy was "common sense". It marked the policies of Menzies, Holt, Gorton, Fraser and others. Were all the conservative PMs simply 'economically ignorant'?

And you do not prove at all that a semi-corporatised public bank could not compete, while at the same time subsidising services to the poor, to regional and remote Australia - on the basis of need. You simply *assert* that such an enterprise could not compete, falling back - again - upon the assumption you have the 'upper hand' as your ideology comprises 'the common sense of the age.'

Your comments re: monopolies make sense as applied to private markets; But again I argue that natural public monopolies do not have the same incentive to abuse their market power. And product differentiation does matter when it come to the energy market; Because there is little basis to competition, and yet consumers must pay for profit margins and duplicated administration.

This can be perceived without being an 'expert'.
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Thursday, 14 April 2011 2:13:03 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
My god Tristan, trying to paint economics as a neo liberal conspiracy and thus can be substituted for Values, sounds a bit desperate.

The reason that Economics is called a science is that it attempts to model economic behaviour on established principles and mathematical models, and as with any other science improves as better methods help to make it more accurate. It attempts to determine that if one does X then Y will occur within certain margins of error. It has no values, morals or prejudices. It is a science. What values would you like to substitute for physics perhaps?

The "common sense of the age" is based on the difference between the primitive economics of the early 20th century compared to today. The fact that the modelling is almost always correct would tend to indicate that the models are robust. Societies basing their economies on old theories lost competitiveness and standard of living.

As for the banks, that the market share of the credit unions fell considerably would indicate that the banks offer better value for money, and are competing well.

Likewise the overwhelming litany of thriving companies that were nationalised and then needed to be propped up by the taxpayer, and those denationalised that thrived compared to the almost non existent examples of the opposite is the reason for the common "sense" you decry.

Public companies should be able to compete, unfortunately the overwhelming preponderance of evidence is that they don't.

I am getting the idea that you have no concept of the meaning of natural monopoly. Perhaps you could give a few examples and why they meet the criteria. The reality is that they are few and far between.

The energy sector is actually extremely competitive, with the producers bidding continuously for supply and buyers bidding for consumption. Some of the most successful examples of denationalised companies exist in this sector.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Thursday, 14 April 2011 6:50:39 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Shadow Minister; Do you think it's a coincidence that electricity prices are set to go up 18% in NSW after partial privatisation?

Natural monopolies involve: economies of scale, and where there is greater overall efficiency with concentrated ownerhship; and it also refers to instances where the costs of investment in a competitive context are prohibitive. We could not, for instance, reasonably have two NBNs. To pass those cost structure unnecessarily on to consumers would be unfair and unwise.

Credit unions have failed to compete basically because they haven't tried. They haven't marketed themselves as such. But the example of Rabobank - based in the Netherlands - shows the co-operativist model can work VERY well.

The Mondragon co-operatives in Spain show such a model can succeed on a broader basis as well.

Mathematical economic models meanwhile assume certain givens about human behaviour. Sometimes this might apprximate reality; but at other times individual consumers are not perfect utility maximisers with perfect access to information.

Assumptions of modern economics also often fail to factor in quality of life issues and non-market 'social goods' - eg: social capital and social relationships including the worth of domestic labour, the influence of the natural environment, free time etc. Assumptions also include the desirability of infinite growth ('more' is always better).

Even where the mathemetical models hit the mar their assumptions as to what is desirable can be questioned.

I'm not saying there's one massive 'neo-liberal' conspiracy, hidden from view. But the neo-liberal ideology has provided a cover for and legitimisation of the increased rate of exploitation, attacks upon the welfare state, attacks upon labour - that have accompanied efforts to increase profitability since the 1970s.

Phenomena such as the Oil Shocks meant changes to underlying cost structures were unavoidable. A response was necessary. But our manner of response has hurt the most vulernable, undermined our liberties and our democracy. And relying on incentives for the wealthy to invest - rather than greater emphasis on collective capital formation - has worsened monopolism and concetration of economic ownership.
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Thursday, 14 April 2011 7:26:42 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/green-power-forcing-prices-up/story-fn59niix-1226039384491

The above is largely responsible for the power increases, federal renewable energy targets.

If the NBN is a natural monopoly, why does it need propping up by legislation to prevent others from building parallel networks, and legislation to prevent scrutiny from the ACCC? Why is the proposed base (25GB at 12Mb/s) price in 5 or so years more than I am paying presently for a similar speed with 200GB? The reason the NBN needs to be enforced is because it fibre to households is not economically viable without enforcing participation by everyone, so no it is nowhere near natural.

Rabobank does well in a niche market, and the Mondragon cooperatives sound like the kibbutzim which is great as a voluntary system.

Economics does not try or need to model individuals, for the same reason that the government doesn't try individual legislation. As for the assumption of infinite growth, it is certainly a phrase I never heard of in 4 years of economics. That people continually strive to improve their lot is given. In 2nd year economics, the competition for labour hours in quality of life issues was dealt with, and the requirement to provide more than simply cash as an incentive.

The welfare state collapsed under its own inefficiency. The standard of life of the lowest paid has increased more through liberal economics in the last couple of decades than it ever did under socialism.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Friday, 15 April 2011 6:02:03 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Shadow Minister,

You seem to have a real handle on both the political debate and the economics relating to this proposed Carbon Tax. Can you do me, and methinks a great many others, a great favour by giving us your thoughts on the proposed tax (being, on what we have been allowed to know of the proposition so far, and perhaps on what else it may entail), and on the alternatives - such as government grants/investment in sustainable energy development.

I don't like Garnaut's argument, and don't believe he has really looked at alternatives - not since he was originally commissioned to produce a report to support Rudd's CPRS. Also, I don't think he's nearly as smart as he thinks he is.

On TV recently I saw a piece showing Ms Gillard visiting an Oz solar plant, supposedly one of the biggest (factual or proposed) in the world, and heard Gillard say this was an example of private industry pressing forward with investment in alternatives BECAUSE OF the government's introduced Green Energy target. However, I also heard mention of the project being funded by a government grant. What was not mentioned was any ratio of private vs government investment in this project. I think Ms G was doing her usual thing and tailoring her statements to political interest, rather than the naked TRUTH!

Given the growing opposition to this tax, by industry, the workers and the unions - over potential job losses, industry moving offshore, and far greater cost of living increases than mooted (as well as the inbuilt complexity and uncertainty of the whole blessed thing) - Could you PLEASE give us your thoughts, on the economics and on alternatives.

Thanks also for the link to The Australian. You've already made my day.
I really hope you check back on this thread. Holding my breath.
Posted by Saltpetre, Friday, 15 April 2011 11:59:47 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Shadow Minister,

A Post Script: I'm a bit tired of the political debate which is clouding discussion on the REAL ISSUE - which is the carbon tax. I'm also tired of the skeptics and naysayers - BECAUSE I think what really matters is the efficacy and sincerity of this proposed tax. It is TIME we focused on what this tax may, or may not do, to OZ, to all of us. It is time we focused on the FACTS relating to the tax itself, and on whether it is really a responsible and effective mechanism.

I can't help feeling Ms G is only pushing this tax as a tax-grab on the one hand (because of as yet undeclared huge budget black holes, perhaps), and on the other hand as a last ditch attempt to lever Labor towards a slim hope of remaining in power after the next election. Neither of these potential motivations can justify this tax imposition (as an alternative to coming clean with the Oz public), nor do I believe that this tax has anything whatsoever to do with addressing climate change, and nor do I really believe that it is the most effective way for Oz to build a sustainable energy future.

Sorry for getting a bit ahead of myself. I am really interested in YOUR VIEWS on this matter, and should not be demonstrating a closed mind by railing on. My apologies.

Apologies also to Tristan for not being the least bit interested in Liberal-Socialism or Easter Bunnies. My head is sore enough already.

Also sorry to the climate skeptics who keep saying "convince me, convince me; give me the proof!" They unfortunately miss the point altogether, being that we are addressing a new tax scheme, not global warming - whether it exists or not is entirely irrelevant to the discussion. (As really are the underlying political motivations.)
Posted by Saltpetre, Friday, 15 April 2011 12:54:43 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
SP

The economics are simple, If you increase the cost of doing business in Australia only, Australian business becomes uncompetitive, and those that are marginally competitive go out of business or move overseas.

Only the big businesses that can hurt labor, and the mid to low income households are compensated, but not for job loss.

The change in GHG world wide is close to zero. The droughts and weather conditions continue regardless.

Julia Gillard (Juliar) has a habit of trying to tell anyone what they want to hear, and promising everyone everything as long as it gets her re elected.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Friday, 15 April 2011 1:08:57 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Shadow Minister,

Thanks for getting back. I get what you are saying, but do you not think Oz should be doing something more about exploring and developing avenues for effective alternative (non fossil) electricity and fuel production?

I guess I'm asking you to just don your economics and business hat, leaving global warming aside (whether real or imagined), and leaving politics aside, to consider whether a concerted push forward in Oz on alternative development could not provide opportunity for new industry, jobs and prosperity? Two aspects - fuel and electricity.

Rationale: Alternative energy development (setting nuclear aside, since Oz is not keen on it) appears to be a growth industry globally; Oil reserves are limited and it's going to get increasingly expensive; Oz is well placed geographically and geologically to take advantage of some alternatives - if cost constraints are not too prohibitive; we are sadly lacking in secondary industries to provide jobs to replace those lost offshore, let alone for projected population increase; we are also a bit backward in R&D avenues to keep and develop our scientific, technological, engineering and professional labour base, and possibly in the education streams available in Oz for generating high-value labour resources generally; and the Oz public appears fairly determined that we should do something (and hence if Tony Abbott was to propose to do nothing I think he and the Coalition would be lambasted and pilloried); and finally, if we did something constructive on alternatives development and utilisation Oz could feel a whole let better about all the coal we continue to use and export.

The nub: Could this be an opportunity? And how best to take advantage if it is? (I personally don't think a carbon tax is the key.)

I also admit a vested interest as, global warming issues aside, I'm a bit concerned about increased CO2 in the oceans, and the effect this is having on a wide range of crustaceans, corals, molluscs and zooplankton due to supposed measured increase in carbonic acid due to dissolved CO2.

Sorry for being a nuisance. I'm just quite concerned about this issue.
Posted by Saltpetre, Friday, 15 April 2011 5:12:47 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. ...
  6. 8
  7. 9
  8. 10
  9. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy