Nicholas
You are very true in your assessment, however not strong enough in laying out the realities of effects of the new IR Laws, Welfare on the working man and woman.
There will be a recession/depression in Australia.
With less $ in their pocket the working family will reduce their spending on 'extras', reduce their spending on 'essentials' and reduce their spending on extra superannuation payments. All these reductions will see consumer spending across the board dramatically fall affecting all business and industry levels, with this fall will see further reducation of the workforce and the spiral continues. With the new IR laws workers will be afraid to speak out against their employers, unions are forbidden and lower wages will result as companies stratch to maintain their unsustainable profit levels.

There will be an election, Labor will return to power and have to do the only sensible thing and scrap the IR laws but the battleship willtake a long time to turn and they will need to create foriegn debt to rebuild out nation. The conservatives will again blame labor for debt and social programs to support all the unemployed. There will be unrest, unhappiness and unfullfilled dreams.

Oh my,
I simply cannot believe people are still sprooking the outdated idea of a NIT. This is the biggest load of non-sense ever to spew from Milton Friedman's mouth.

A) It will cost far too much to implement.

B) It removes vital incentives for people to move from welfare to work.

C) In an economic down turn, many people would start demanding their tax credits as their incomes drop. The policy would send the government bankrupt.

D) It’s a subsidy!

E) Rather than these silly credits, why don't we simply raise the tax-free level? Hell it would be a good idea for depressions, every time the minium wage is lowered the government collects less tax to compensate. It would certainly curtail the Nostrums government usually resort to during times of depression.

One of the major problems is that the Coalition have brought in some good reforms i.e removing unfair dismissal yet the one sided nature of these individual contracts bothers me.When times get tough work conditions and pay can be really screwed down.

The Labor State Govts on the other hand are doing everything their power to destroy small business with over regulation and taxes.They think that they can compensate for the Federal IR reform by going overboard on their leftist stupidity.

Nicholas is right,the Coalition has dropped the ball on taxation and economic reform.John Howard admitted to Alan Jones lately that tax compliance by business was far more onerous now under his Govt and it affects less then 1% of our population.Well wrong again Mr Howard,there are over one million small business owners in Australia and we make up 10% of the working population.

We need to simplify the whole tax system and it does not have to be complicated to reflect complexities in society.The Coalition won't even explore the possibility of a 2% expenditure let alone admit it might have some merit.There are just too many interest groups such as accountants ,lawyers,and Public Servants who will become redundant.The Coalition lack vision and courage for real reform.

Imagine if rent on property was charged using the complexities of our present tax system?It would cost business twice as much!
Commercial rent is charged in accordance with the value of the property and the number of square metres available.What could be more simple?

Why not have a tax system that operates like paying rent and rid ourselves of this insane complex system that not even the bureaucrats understand?If you cannot understand your own tax system,how can it possibly work?

Having heard Taxation Commissioner Michael Carmody's address to the National Press Club you would have to agree that there are strong interrelations between tax, welfare and IR. It's a pity that the Federal Government seems hell bent on cheap electioneering like dropping highest tax rates and lowering capital gains taxes. If its important to increase workforce participation then you can't have workers on high effective marginal tax rates as they move from welfare to work.

Hi, I have studied work choices closely and if the High Court does not overturn these laws it will be the beginning of the dimise of all states.

Wages will fall and crime will increase and I'm very worried. This Government has lied to us and I feel like the Business Council of Australia is running this country.

Work choices is illegal.

The Coalition live off a simple but mean phillosophy: They give with one hand and thieve it back with the other. The political apathy of Australians is reflected in the fact that not many of us can see the apparent relationship between IR, tax cuts and the Liberal's cosy relationship with big business. Many Australians may think they are getting a decent tax break, but their haste to judgement will be realised when they discover all they have forfeited - especially in the sphere of work.

It's obvious that the Australian public don't care about values, but instead only of quick cash payments and amnesia in relation to all the Govts lies(eg: children overboard, the Kovco saga, AWB, Dept of Immigration and its recent bungling diplomatic episode with Indonesia ,along with the deportation of our own citizens, Tampa, Iraq, and interest rates).

No wonder Costello smirks, Howard talks of trust, inlight of the above mentioned and Kevin Andrews can fool the elcetorate into believing that he knows well the plight of Australia's working people.

THE MAJORITY OF THE AUSTRALIAN PUBLIC ARE THE BIGGEST FOOLS IN THE CONSERVATIVES GAME AND THEY (THE TORIES) KNOW IT.

This post is related to "miners put the spotlight on unions"

Tao, A week or so ago i sad is that you Barnaby and said go away.

I am sorry, I wrote the wrong name that message is for my mate

Dunart Joyce. Go back and read Dunarts post, He jumped into this
forum like a smart-arse and that message is now for Dunart.
Dunart thinks he is a entrepreneur but he's not because he dosn't
have the ethics and compassion needed. I am totally for unions
they are needed for balance in society whether you belong to them or
not. However i am very much entrepreneurial with the ethics dunart
will/may never have. Tao, be cool. That is what we are meant to
be discussing here which is directly connected to work choices
and its effects on society. The work choices bill was rushed and so
badly written it will be a legal nightmare for all. No other
western country has such anti-union legislation.

Have a Good day.

written

DLC, I can't understand your problem with an NIT.

As my recent paper on tax/welfare reform (called "reform 30/30") showed, it is perfectly affordable to introduce an NIT and significant tax cuts a the same time.

You say it would remove incentives to work -- but that is exactly wrong, with my scheme improving the incentive by drastically cutting EMTRs.

And while it's true that the NIT is a subsidy, so is all welfare! So what?

You suggest raising the TFT -- and 30/30 suggests that also. But alone this measure still leaves us with a complex and inefficient tax/welfare system that costs too much, discourages work, has unnecessarily high admin/compliance costs and is unfair.

Speaking of 30/30 -- Nick, why aren't you in support of the idea, at least as a template for the direction of reform?

I recently read some papers regarding a 1% debt tax. It states that
if all transactions (including cash)had a one percent tax on them it would raise more money than the current system does. It also states that for an extra 0.5% all citizens would have excellent health care.
GST is gone, income tax is gone.

There had been studies at uni and they found no problem with this simple idea. This is real tax reform. I guess that some of you realize that there is little chance of this happening because finally
Big Bussiness would have to pay their share. The Government gets
paid daily through the banks computer network. That's a vote winner give me one percent anyday.

To start off,
The 30/30 paper is anything but new; it is a rehash of ideas in another paper you wrote many years before that.

Next on the Agenda...
The fact that you cannot see a problem with subsidies leaves me feeling a little depressed with regards to the health of Australian Liberalism.

The current welfare system, with all it's faults. Still requires people to accept a job when offered, the NIT system provides no mechanism to replace that.

The focus of modern Liberalism should not be to make socialism sustainable, but to get our ideas out into the public domain so that once the failure of socialism becomes apparent (through a depression) we can hold weight in a battle of ideas on the direction this country should head in our attempt to regain prosperity. If we falter and do not challenge every assertion put forward by those who glory in statism, then we will end up like FA Hayek, spending the rest of our lives regretting not fighting every battle as Australia drifts further along the path to totalitarianism and poverty.

Any comments on the one percent debt tax from my last post.

Sly,
I'm going to go ahead and come clean here, while I have heard of the 1% debt tax system, I've never really looked into it. Given that, I'm going to judge it purely by assumptions one can make by it's name and your comments regarding it.

From what I gather this tax is structured to place more of the tax burden on companies, while yobs who mindlessly consume are allowed to keep more of what they earn. So the least productive should prosper at the expense to the most productive? This will encourage more companies to invest in Australia, how?

DLC , I am so glad you came clean in your last post.

You admitt to knowing very little about the one percnt debt tax
and yet you dismiss the idea and then you sound all concerned about big business losing out. DLC, big bussiness make record profits nearly every year and thats your arguement. You come out clean
like Howard the lier.

While I admit I have not studied the topic, I somehow appear less ignorant than you Sly.

Strange that.

DLC, Any poverty brought to this country in the future will be a direct result of Howard and his damaging legislation.

Are you just another greedy and selfish Howard voter who thinks he's rich but really is not. It's a bit sad to hear you say how concerned you are about big business that is mainly American losing out.

Big business will not cut and run just because thier profits fall from 1200 million to 1130 million a year. Howard is small businesses and workers worst nightmare and they are starting to wake up to these facts.

Wake up Sly, any real substancial business that isn't relient of the mining industry or holding a strategic plant in Australia has already cut and run. We should really be damamge control right now.