Tristan

You don't get it do you? Can't you see what 80% of Australians see?

Labor is introducing a tax on everybody, including those people it once represented and who it once took notice off as members. Labor is then redistributing that tax money to only some in the community. Labor is ignoring the neglible reduction effect on carbon dioxide emmissions.

Tristan all 77% of us (According to last polls) see the navel gazing introverted and now yuppie exclusive Labor Party is taxing us simply to redistribute wealth with no great change in carbon dioxide emissions.

It's as simple as that. You and your unrepresentative mates in the Labor party are now an irrelevance in Australia. Things won't change with the introduction of this tax. Seventy seven percent think Gillard and Labor are liars and no amount of money thrown at that 77% is going to make them listen.

Why don't we just get on with it, have an election and put Gillard and you Labor Party fools out of your misery, cognitive dissonance and existance.

"As this author has argued elsewhere, Newstart recipients are 'doing it tough,' to put it mildly. Indeed, Newstart was $237/week as of April 2011, and has not kept up with a rising basic cost of living."

The point is you're not supposed to be able to live on Newstart. If you could why would anyone work? This concept regularly escapes those in the "social justice" and the "society owes me a free lunch crowd", of which the author is clearly a card carrying member.

"In light of existing punitive active labour market policies, there are no decent or valid arguments not to reform Newstart."

Huh? When will you learn that society owes you precisely nothing? You need to go out and make your own way. There is exactly zero excuse to have been long term unemployed over the last decade. ZERO!

"Real increases to Austudy are also crucial to provide conditions where students can apply themselves fully to study, rather than risk failure or underperformance as a consequence of the pressures of part-time work."

Nope, failed again. Most of us get a part time job you lazy sod, instead of believing that society must provide for you.
If you fail it's your own fault. Not a result of receiving too small of a handout.

When Tristan, will you realise that life is not the way you think it is? Surviving in this world requires hard work, and guts. Two things you clearly know little about.

Cont'd...

cont'd...

Have a look at Europe right now.
The P.I.G.S are fine examples of your social justice crap at work.
The bottom line is someone has to pay for all your little giveaways to the so called hard done by.
The only people deserving of welfare are the genuinely physically or mentally disabled, although in your defence I reckon most hardcore lefties fit into the latter category.

My brother and I were both kicked out of home at 16 years of age through no fault of our own. Neither of us went looking for a handout. We got jobs instead.

From there I have acheived a Masters degree in a real discipline, which I paid for out of my own pocket, and we have both worked our way up through financial services to become the type of people you seek to tax into oblivion.

Grow up and get a job mate. Only then can you appreciate just how inequitable socialism really is.

Tristan,

Labor's answer to everything is to increase taxes. By over compensating lower incomes and reducing tax incentives for higher incomes, this is effectively income redistribution, for which labor is suffering at the polls. Another major reason is that Julia Gillard lied, and trust, which is thrown away is not easily regained.

The carbon tax is very unpopular, and has been so since the vast majority of the world walked away from similar obligations.

The refugee policy is a complete disaster, and the Malaysian solution is worse than anything under the Pacific solution.

Until labor resolves these issues, trivial issues such as disability insurance is not going to register to most voters.

Rechts;

a) re: Newstart the point is that active labour market policies (that some may even call punitive) already exist.You say 'why then would they try and find work?' But if the unemployed have to continually 'jump hoops' to prove they are genuine; and those labour market tests are rigorous, then why not pay the unemployed the same as other pensioners?; And if we're going to promote 'labour conscription' (which really is like something out of 1930s fascist Germany) the least we can do is provide *something* in return.

b) re: Austudy - Again the point is that part-time work can detract from studies - which students and the public are paying for; You may well say "I had to do it, so everyone else should too"; But pushing students into that situation risks the not insignificant investment in their education. Besides which which they graduate they will be paying taxes themselves like everyone else; so why not provide enough for them to get by in the here and now?

Shadow Minister;

The point of the carbon tax is to create market signals to change patterns of investment and consumption.

But if there is some modest redistribution to low and middle income groups along the way is it really such a bad thing?

For decades there HAS ALREADY been redistribution - from low and middle income groups to the upper middle class and the outright wealthy.

This had occurred with a falling wage share of the economy; incentives for wealthy private investors - esp re: superannuation; structural changes in the tax mix that have made it flatter and more regressive; introduction of user pays mecahnisms that operate like 'flat taxes' anyway, discriminating against the poor; constriction of welfare and especially Newstart - with unemployment benefits plummeting are a proportion of the minimum wage.
(see: http://inside.org.au/why-unemployment-benefits-need-to-be-increased/ )

So after all these years of redistribution from low and middle income groups TO the wealthy and the upper middle class (the top 20%), a modest degree of redistribution, here, should be seen as a tentative move towards some kind of 'correction'.

And the redistribution against low and middle income groups all these years means any modest moves in favour of low-middle income groups ought only be the beginning; to be complemented by other policies - progressive restructure of the tax mix; curtailing the 'user pays' principle (for instance: stop the privatisation of roads and other infrastructure); an increased minimum wage etc.