And what will the Carbon Tax cost you.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12790#220852

579, thank you for making my point so perfectly, we dont know how much it will cost yet, because it goes up each year, more importantly 3 years out, 1 year after the next election is due it changes from tax to ETS, "no cost limit". $56 billion to wall street for carbon dioxide derivatives trading.

What was it they said about Howard being tricky, mean & deceitful for taking a GST to an election?

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2001/s383819.htm a label used by labour, labouriously on Howard.

not all of the sheeple have a short memory.

The author's penultimate paragraph sums up what needs to be done.

If only the unions and the party faithful would wake up to the fact that their Labor Parties have abandoned the old Labor values and replaced them with the destructive progressive ideology of Lefties who reside in inner-capital-city suburbs

Methinks Formersnag & Hasbeen have both whacked the proverbial nail on the noggin. We could try sending 4000 Town Planners to Burma in exchange for 8000 refugees, but the High Court would probably find that an impermissible impost on Malaysia.

It passes understanding why Australia seems fixated on growing megacities ... there’s so much work that could be moved to small towns. I’m not fond of the NBN as designed, but better access to the internet in regional areas will certainly facilitate moving much business outside the Big Smoke. Land is NOT scarce on this continent, and the infrastructure required to live less densely is cheap as chips when compared to the cost of building a six-lane freeway, or expanding an existing one.

Freestanding houses on a quarter-acre block are ALWAYS preferred to a couple rooms in a tenement. Knock off the stamp duty, red tape, and inflated land prices owing to scarcity, and a nice house-and-land package for a family of four could come in at 50% of what it costs to buy a run-down terrace house in a dismal Sydney suburb. Given that Australia is 200,000 houses short of demand, is it really necessary to charge 10% GST on NEW housing?

And wouldn’t it be nice to have neighbourhoods again? Local schools, with only a couple hundred students in ‘em? Our population would be shrinking but for immigration; we needn’t worry about paving over the bush — there’s more than enough room for sustainable development and a comfortable lifestyle. Problem is ... the votes are in the capital cities. They’ll pay $10,000,000 for a new park, but not $100 for a hospital in the country. The US is luckier; most people live in small towns, so resources are more evenly distributed.

All that being said, I doubt industrial strife is the result of housing stress per se. Customs agents, smelter employees and aircraft engineers aren’t struggling to pay the mortgage. Unions see a good opportunity to make hay while the sun of a compliant government shines: Labor needs their donations and organisation.

Negative gearing privileges for owner/occupants would make it easier to escape the rent trap and own a home. A re-constituting of the Reserve Bank to the likeness of the original Commonwealth Bank to provide low/no interest loans for what used to be called essential services, water, electricity, communication etc, to be repaid via rates over the life of the service instead of up front, would make a massive reduction in cost of living pressures. Commercial interest rates on lifes essentials is very wicked

The average price of homes in Australia today is $435,000 (seven times the annual workers wage of $65,000) and yet in 1977 the average price was $31,000 (twice the average annual workers wage of $15,000). They were relatively cheaper in the 1950-1970 era. It is hoped that the next government will get intelligent and reverse that trend and bring decency back to the working community.
The top tax now is 45%, in 1977 it was approximately 65% and in 1950-1970 it was 66.6%. A low top tax is actually detrimental to the economy, when the tax is low, CEO’s and others increase their salaries, causing higher prices and with the Governments increasing the salaries of their heads of the various departments, the cost of services increase along with the costs of food, clothing, housing and transport. The consecutive Governments have encouraged the export of our resources to the extent that the reciprocal imports are destroying our own manufacturing industries.

The strikes of airline staff, SES, and railway staff and others is totally caused by the low top tax which has allowed CEO's etc to take unjustified excessive salaries, and caused costs for families far in access of decency. There will be no exit from this stupidity until we get parties who demand that all members sign that they will honour and obey the party's constitution, and that would have to before the party changed their constitution from its decency, and we get intelligent people with integrity into our government - for a change.