Fester,

You called the PM a "mummy's boy."

The following link may change your mind:

http://smh.com.au/national/to-understand-anthony-albanese-you-need-to-know-about-his-mother-maryanne-20220517-p5am75.html

We know Dud Dutton is stupid, but surely he wont go to the next election promising to increase taxes for 95% of taxpayers, that's the middle Australian Battlers who'll benefit from these better tax cuts, and giving a tax reduction to the other 5% of silver tails that vote for the Noalition anyway. Oh dear! the Forums Old Farts who are not affected by this, they don't pay income tax, are crying in their beer, they've never voted LABOR in their life, and not about to start now, should they make it to the next election that is.

This is a win for the battlers, and a win for LABOR. Speaking to my son this morning, a worker, a taxpayer with a family and a mortgage, he can not agree more with what LABOR is doing with this.

I never agreed with the stage 3 tax cuts even though I personally would have and still will benefit. For that matter I never agreed with the stage 2 tax cuts even though I benefited.

Our economic circumstances are such that giving out tax cuts is exactly the wrong policy, adding to inflation and reducing our ability to reduce the national debt.

Yet the ALP went to the last election promising to maintain those tax cuts. They were terrified that doing other would result in lost votes. They now claim that circumstances have changed. All that has changed is that they are now concerned that NOT changing policy will result in lost votes.

And Votes is all its about. What's good for the nation is a distant second.

Way back in May 2022 (yes that long ago) I started a thread called "The poison Chalice Election" (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=9813#333463)pointing out that the economic circumstances facing the new government (Lib or ALP) were disastrous. And so it has come to pass. (I love being that right that far out!!)

The ALP are now panicking. The cost of living pressures are increasing and show no sign of abating. As I said back in May 2022, the present economic problems aren't the fault of the government but after 18 months in power and no improvement, they are now starting to get the blame. And that will only continue and exacerbate. This far out from an election, its not a good sign that the government is starting to throw money around to buy themselves another term or two.

/cont

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I never really expected anything better from Albanese but I thought Chalmers might have shown some backbone. But in the end politicians are politicians.

Breaking a promise is bad enough. But this was a promise that the ALP was anxious to break from the moment they made it. They hated the stage 3 cuts and opposed them all the way up to the point where it became politically untenable to do so. Then they accepted them and made pinky-swear promises to keep them. But anyone familiar with the way the ALP works knew that they'd backtrack the moment they had a viable excuse for doing so.

Albanese said his promise was 100% solid and that his word was his bond. We now know how good his word is - proceed accordingly.

The job of the ALP sycophants and the compliant media (but I repeat myself) is to now gloss over the breaking of his word and pretend he had no choice. They'll do it with alacrity. And the population, never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, will accept the money and demand more never understanding that the cost of living crisis was caused by government lockdown polices that the electorate approved.

The only loser here is the nation. Who cares?

On a blank slate, the decision to modify the tax-changes was correct.

But there was a promise, and promises must be kept, to the letter.

Does anyone know the exact wording of that election promise?
Perhaps some loophole could be found?
Maybe the prime-minister could resign for a day, and be replaced with a new PM who could say truthfully, "I did not promise anything"?
Maybe the original tax-changes could be kept, but changed back the day after?

And maybe, as I suggested earlier, the PM could say:
"Look, I made a promise, it was a bad promise but I will keep it. Therefore everyone will be entitled in the next financial-year to these original cuts, but I call on your conscience and ask you to please forego these cuts. I give you the option to forego these cuts on the next tax-return by ticking a single box, and shame on anyone who doesn't".

"More than 1.1 million households will be left worse off under Labor’s proposed changes to the stage three reforms, which will shift more of the benefits to lower and middle-income taxpayers."

How do you think these households and about 2m voters will react in May 2025? Albozo may well be a one-term wonder.