I think you'd find that most of the working-poor-don't have any investments. Besides, have you got any idea how much it would cost to raise the tax-free threshold to $35,000? Where would the money come from to maintain Medicare, the PBS, education, defence? There would be no money, either, to continue subsidising-private-education either. Your-proposal-would-blow-a-hole-in-the-budget-so-big-that all-services-including-health,-aged-care-and-education-would simply-collapse.-This-is-without-asking-where-the-money-would-come from-for-Howard's-'military-adventures-abroad'.

Col Rogue, meanwhile, doesn't seem to understand the difference between a social democratic welfare state and Stalinism. Ikea, Volvo and Ericsson do very well indeed in socialist societies, as do the wage earner funds that comprise about 10% of the Swedish stock exchange. My democratic socialism is not a negation of capitalism - rather it is a democratisation of it. I don't want to replace all markets: merely to democratise them through wage earner funds, co-operatives and mutual societies. Meanwhile, the United States has a higher level of Company Tax than Australia. I suppose by this reckoning the US is 'socialist'. Also re: public debt - some public debt is necessary to pay for infrastructure - which in of itself adds to competitiveness and is worth the cost of debt-servicing. Meanwhile we have a massive current account deficit and - as opposed to public debt - Howard says it 'doesn't matter' so long as we can service it. Whether or not we can service us questionable - as total external debt is at about 60% of GDP.

"But this also raises the question: does an individual not have the right to NOT provide these services? The right to these services implies the neccessity of forcing someone else to provide them."

Fine - in your world we can go down the US road where medical costs are by far the largest cause of bankruptcy and where people die for lack of money to pay for spiralling medical costs. A decent society does not let people sleep in the streets - nor does it let people die on hospital waiting lists or miss out on life-saving medical care simply because they cannot afford it. Conservatives, however, wouldn't know anything about compassion or decency.

As-for-'Seeker'-wishing-I-was-dead-the-capacity-of-individuals-for hatred,cruelty-and-evil-no-longer-surprises-me-I've-seen-too-much-of-it.

Tristan, "Conservatives, however, wouldn't know anything about compassion or decency." - Now you are being a bit more honest in your bigotry and stereotyping.

You might find that if you could get past your blinkers that a lot of conservatives do care a lot about compassion and decency, we just seek different ways to implement them. Many of us place a large priority on "the state" not being the one to cause harm to individuals, a concept that you don't appear to place any value in.

You are happy to sit by while wage earners are taxed relentlessly and spend time dreaming up ways to hit them a bit harder. When asked about the responsibilities of those who choose not to work or choose to minimise their work and ways that they can contribute the silence is deafening.

It's not that conservatives know nothing of compassion and decency, rather that many understand enough that they cannot stomach your narrow version of those concepts.

For the record I know some "left leaning" people who care deeply about those concepts. Compassion and decency are not "left" or "right" issues they are a mark of the character of the person.

Get over your hatred of those who put in effort and start working for justice and a genuine chance for the genuinely needy and you might start to make a meaningfull difference. In the mean time you remain one of those who draw attention away from the genuinely needy by lumping people into your neat little pigeon holes.

R0bert

Tristan, if you did your homework, you’d find out that Ikea, Tetra Pak and other large Swedish companies have moved their headquarters elsewhere, where they pay less tax. Nokia, Ericson and others are moving many of their manufacturing bases to either cheaper new EU countries or to China. Swedes have moved 65 billion US$ out of Sweden, where they escape tax.

In fact the Nordic model is in deep doo doo, as it relies on lots of taxpayers, yet demographics make it unsustainable. Governments carry mountains of debt, no funds to pay those pensions, the only option will be for the oldies to keep working.
Private pensions are now being suggested as another option.

Compare that with Australia, where we have virtually no unemployment, no federal Govt debt, a trillion $ put aside for
pensions and growing by the day and you’ll understand why we are so much better off then them and will continue to be so in future years.

One thing about Keating, he understood economics and he understood that the politics of envy does not solve problems, it just creates new ones.

All the things you suggest have been tried before and failed, being young you are perhaps just not aware of the many failures.
If you try to screw people with high taxes and regulate everything, people aren’t stupid, they respond. The very rich and very smart
make their money elsewhere. Even now we have 1 million Aussie expats around the world. In HK, Singapore and elsewhere, they pay little tax. Have you noticed how they don’t rush to Sweden?

If people have no economic incentive to get out of bed, innovate, start and build companies, they won’t do it. Next you’ll be screaming for job creation schemes like Labor used to, that was a dismal failure too.

The federal Govt spends 91 billion $ a year on welfare. If more people paddled their own canoe and that dropped by 10%, you would have another 9 billion $ to spend on healthcare and your problems would be solved

Tristan,

If you stopped over-hyphenating for a moment, you would realise that pro-choice and anti-market are inconsistent and conflicting ideals. You would also realise that if we collect $120 billion in income taxes and spend $100 billion on welfare, something’s wrong already. As Yabby implies, this doesn’t leave much for financing health or education.

You also have a lot to say about imperfect markets, but at the same time seem oblivious to the fact that these are most likely made less perfect with each government intervention.

You also fail to address many of the questions raised. Here’s some new and overlapping ones for you – should I pay higher marginal rates of tax simply because I live in Sydney? Should I pay more tax because I’m at a certain age, gender, or just happen to have a good year? Should I simply pay more because I can?

If you said yes to any of those, then where is the balancing compulsion for all individuals to contribute to society in the way they themselves, CAN? How is the redistribution of such capacity legislated? Can we for example make women have children for those that can’t? Can we make them have one for the country, or even one for the father that he can keep post-divorce?

Convince me this is a revolution worth fighting for, and I’ll gladly put on my Che t-shirt and beret.

re: welfare - you could begin by reining in the Family Tax Benefit and means testing it thoroughly if you're worried about welfare going to those who don't need it. One of the largest item of public expenditure is aged care - and that's only going to increase in the future. How are you going to pay for that if you keep reducing tax?

Also - your attacks on welfare are the hallmarks of typical Tory 'downward envy' 'punishing the poor'. We already have work for the dole and provisions for mutual obligation in this country and very strict means and assets based tests for those on the age pension and other pensions. Specify where the money would come from and I'd listen to you. But already Howard's shown his attitude by ripping $50/fortnight from Disability pensions. This is simply punishing the most vulnerable in our society - and it is disgusting.

Also - I'm yet to be coinvinced that the so-called 'brain drain' is solely about income tax rates. There are other consideration such as the lure of cheaper housing, higher wages, returning to an ethnic homeland - or simply the desire to travel and be near international cultural and fianancial centres. Regardless, we import more skilled labour than we lose - and many expats eventually return home.
I tend to think that those with the mobility to travel would do so regardless of income tax rates - simply because they could - as a lifestyle choice.

Well Janet Albrechtsen was spot on.We have more than 3 times the number of public servants per head of population compared to New Zealand.Using the economies of scale advantage we should have fewer PS per head than NZ.

Just recently I had a request from one of our Govt Depts to quote for putting a spring on a gate in one of our Parks.With all the nonsense of meeting a Govt rep,transport time etc,a ten minute job will cost the tax payer more than $420.00 to do.Why don't they use their own workers who can use a cordless drill? Multiply this waste by a millions of inefficient activities and you will realise why NSW is in serious infrastructure debt.No matter how they try to spin the reality,NSW is broke.