Taxation revenue under Labor is set to be at an all time high (even excluding mining super tax). We should then be basking in the happy knowledge that we are set to reduce the $100bn debt racked up since Rudd took office. Unfortunately, the increase in revenue has been outstripped by the increase in spending.

The expenditure required of the federal government for the repair of flood damage could be as high as $5bn over the next few years. (roughly 1% of tax revenue)

Rather than make serious expenditure cuts that might deprive allies of patronage, they are going to save by cutting expenditure on some of its hare brained policies that were essentially dead in the water already such as the cash for clunkers. The rest will be made up with a "Mateship" tax for the majority of the amount.

So wedded is federal Labor to its expenditure programs and promise to balance the budget, that the only solution is to increase taxes. Perhaps it should be renamed "The budget shortfall supplemental tax"

You would love to see labour go into debt over the floods.
Labor is committed to a surplus in a year or two.
All you want them to do is break a promise..

SHADOW.. you are not correct.

Under labor its "BIG" TAXES and "BIG" debt.

Now.. you are sorted :)

totally chuffed!
Grin on my face 3 feet wide Shadow minister and Boazy, together.
Pay the tax ask if it was you two gentlemen would you oppose it,be honest now?

The only thing wrong with the levy is it should be ten times higher and only applied to those earning more than 200k a year.

SM & AGIR political to the core. Reality don't come into it. Overstepped the line. Human suffering is cheap.

Who ever got the idea in their head that members of political parties were intelligent or had integrity? Despite having a reasonable constitution, none of the parties require or demand that members promise that they will honour and obey the terms of their constitution. From what I have seen, to become a member, all one has to do is sign a form promising that they will agree with the decision of the majority. This implies that persons joining, have no integrity, and little intelligence, and the decisions made by the parties show that my remarks are true. The resources exporting shows this up, the reciprocal imports demanded for this trade, allows those companies like Wesfarmers/Bunnings/Coles/KMart/Target, Big W , Lowes and hundreds more to import all those clothes, cotton and woollen goods etc., Tools and electric tools and other goods etc.etc. As well as the State Governments importing the Electric suburban trains, all these imported goods are goods our own Australian manufacturers were producing before, and employing hundreds or thousands of our workers. Our Queensland company Walkers I believe were building them for Queensland, and a similar situation exists in other states, or did. The employment does not show this unemployment, because to deceive the public, have decided that as long as a person has got a permanent position even if it is for only one hour a week, that person is employed. In actual fact, thousands have only got employment for two or three days each week, and this certainly does not provide enough wages to feed a family, buy or rent a house or provide many essentials. And yet look at the other end of the income scale, Seventy years ago, Harold Holt as the treasurer, experimented and found that a top tax of 66.6% was ideal for controlling excessive obscene incomes, and applied it and the workers and small business people were enthralled because their lifestyle was vastly improved, and the rich people didn't really suffer, they still had plenty and the cost of everything was much lower.

Belly,

I do oppose the tax. It is a prime indication of Labor incompetence. The $1.8bn is about 0.7% of the annual budget, far less than many of the low value to the community pork barrel projects they are not prepared to sacrifice.

Here's an article itemising all the cuts to planned projects.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/01/27/3123277.htm?site=thedrum

Poirot,

The PM has used this as an excuse to axe some of the more moronic Labor policy initiatives that were beginning to stink like a 10 day old piece of fish.

How about some of the pork barrel promises to the independents?

Today we present

Friday's edition of

Anti-Labor spin

Merv09;
I agree with your sentiments. Frankly I would like to saw off the rest
of the world and let ourselves be self sufficient.
About the only things we would need to import would be specialised
computer chips. We certainly won't want to import jet transport
aircraft because the fuel will be too expensive.

Manufacturing will return to Australia just as it has started to return
to the US. 25 Knot container ships are sailing at 14 knots to save fuel
so how long before their fuel is too expensive to undertake the voyage.
Higher wages in China, higher oil prices, loss of air transport etc.
No, things are starting to change, but it will take some years.
No one really knows how long but hopefully it will be gradual not a
systemic collapse.

Thanks Baz, I am 81, and have been a worker all my previous life till 65, and really know what life was like in the years from 1950 to 1970, during the time of Harold Holt as the treasurer, and those raving morons might like to know that he was a member of the Liberal party, and he was appreciated by the Labor and Liberal/National workers alike. These idiots do not realise that if the top tax was increased to that 66.6% on the top taxable income $450,000 today, the top salaries and other such incomes would fall and so would all the prices of goods and services, and life would be more sustainable for our workers, even if the no tax level was not increased, although it should be increased to about $25,000 of more. However it certainly would be great if the Governments than used the excess to build the essentials, Decent roads, Damms and improve the railway etc. and do their best to floodproof the country as good as possible. I might add, that our workers are just as intelligent or more so then those lawyers who have Hijacked the positions of Prime Minister and treasurer, and have got more integrity.

I do you know get a kick out of you Shadow Minister.
Very rare indeed to meet some one so one eyed and uninformed.
I love my ALP what it was,what it seemed to be the day Kevin won, what it will be under Shorten, after him Howe's.
But I insult them prod them get disgusted in them.
WANT the best from them.
I just may be a Mr average Aussie,you know don't you, more vote ALP than any single party?, including yours.
You see only good on your side only bad on mine, in fact you do not see at all.
This tax, is NEVER going to have the impact of the Tony Abbott charity for rich new mothers he wants to impose on business who must then impose it on?US.
Yes true the canceled cash for clunkers thing was, words can not describe how stupid it was, but I SEE IT, question it storm my party's door step in outrage over it.
You blindly like a horse grinding corn walking in a circle forever are quite sure you will arrive some place soon.
Sorry champ, Turnbull is you only chance.

The biggest tax bought in the last twenty years was the 10% GST which affects all. Who bought that in?

*that the only solution is to increase taxes*

Come on SM. Abbott was going to clobber companies with an extra
tax to fund his babies for the rich scheme. He is no different.

*and only applied to those earning more than 200k a year.*

Nope Squeers, make that 50k a year, so that it includes yourself :)

Ah Yabby, old mate.
I wasn't trying to evade the levy. I'm a good socialist, you know that. I just want to screw the wealthy.

*I just want to screw the wealthy.*

Its all relative, Squeers. With your big house, we just need to
make sure that you get screwed too :)

All you want them to do is break a promise..
a597,
Isn't that their doctrine ?

The biggest tax bought in the last twenty years was the 10% GST which affects all. Who bought that in?
Flo,
I have a counter question. Where do you think Australia would be without the GST by now ?
have you ever heard of money going round'n round? As far as economical sense is concerned the GST is what saved us from the Labor ruins over the years. Even better would be a flat tax but that at would make so much sense that even the conservatives won't go for it. You reckon the GST affects us all? Of course it does & in a positive way . That's what it was meant to do. If you can state that the GST was not a good economic strategy I'd really like you to bring forward some figures.

Debt and taxes under the ALP?

Then it must be the plundering of public assets, cronyism, promoting internal social unrest and hypocrisy under the LNP.

What a miserable bunch of opportunists they are - putting their own electoral self-interest above the national interest yet again.

Wobbles,

I agree the ALP are a miserable bunch of opportunists putting their own electoral self-interest above the national interest yet again.

With annual tax revenue of nearly $300bn, the repair bill of about $5bn is tiny compared to the $16.2bn squandered on expensive, mostly unneeded buildings.

No one is saying the repairs should not be done. The question is how it is financed. The extra $1.8bn can easily be financed by scrapping some Labor patronage, or some more silly projects.

I see that another idiot is talking about a flat rate tax, aparently going by the newspapers, Peter Costello about fifteen years ago, remarked that he prefferred a 30% flat rate tax. If this had come into being, our workers would all be well and truly up that creek and the rich would be taking billions until all the money, industries and the country would be in the worst depression that has ever been seen. As far as what the taxes are used for, an intelligent pary in power, would not need those extra GST and similar taxes, would not be allowing the destruction of our industries with that resources exporting. Unfortunately not one of our political parties since 1970 have taken notice of the fact that the 66.6% tax by Harold Holt, pulled Australia out of the recession then, and to apply the same now would do the same now, into a profitable era for our economy. It is unfortunate, that some people never grew a brain.

This thread, and a few others is of great worth.
IF we look truly at it and the little man leading the charge Tony Abbott.
See the winging is not from conservatives, they may think of them selves as that but are not.
It shines the spotlight on the lurch away from LIBERAL policy's the party's founder put in place.
Sir Robert[Ming the merciless] Menzies would not for a second plum the depths of brown politics seen here and in Abbott's shadow cabinet.
Those putting the victims first, understanding the nature of Abbott's confrontational ism, should take heart.
This issue, its supporters, may be the very one that unseats him, sends him like lead ballast to some board room,and starts the long march to return Liberal party to,LIBERALISM.
Worth too noting some who contribute here do so from with in a big black hole not seeing hearing or knowing much about the pain.

merv09,
Could you please explain how a flat tax can make the wealthy wealthier & send the workers up the creek ? Interesting prognosis but how so ?

not seeing hearing or knowing much about the pain.
Belly,
that is about as hypocritical as anyone can be. The mob you defend so vehemently has;
1, caused most of this pain.
2, perpetuates this pain,
3, is out to create yet more pain.

Merciless Menzies ? Aren't you & millions others benefitting from his policies, the biggest being the Snowy scheme ?
What's your mob then ? The pain makers ? The pain perpetuators ? Sounds more like a mob of sadists than community leaders.

merv09:>> I might add, that our workers are just as intelligent or more so then those lawyers who have Hijacked the positions of Prime Minister and treasurer<<

Merv09, you have seen a load of talent from both sides of the house in your 81 years, but that is over and as you say lawyers now abound in our parliaments. I cried to Belly a while back about the Labor Party of old compared to the lot we have now, and Belly pointed out that the rank and file still carry the same aspirations and values that have in the past driven their MP's to implement "every" major social policy that has made Australia the equitable society that it is today.

Foresight and a want to make the dream a reality for the average Aussie came from the rank and file, local members escalated to political control. While lawyers represent corporations, people represent people, and there are no people left at the top of the Labor Party.

What Labor was:
•Legislated for Commonwealth Bank and issued Australia’s first national banknotes.
•Expanded and increased the old age pension.
•Introduced payment to mothers on the birth of a child.
•Introduced the first national system of widows’ pensions.
•Began funding public hospitals for the first time.
•Introduced legislation to create a public health system, paving the way for the creation of Medibank.
•Began planning of the national capital.
•Formed the Royal Australian Navy.
• Founded Commonwealth Shipping Line
•Began planning o the transcontinental railway.
•Created a government airline ‘Trans Australian airlines’.
•Began building the Snowy Hydro Electricity Scheme.
• Reformed the tertiary education system
•Legislated for the construction of the Australian National University.
•Legislated for a national worker’s compensation act.
•Introduced Australia's national superannuation scheme

This track record of real unambiguous achievement is all that we have left of a time when Labor was the people’s party. The advent of the educated Chardonnay socialist and the Fabian ideologues that were grown in our universities in the 70’s and 80’s took Labor from the people.

Merv09, we seen the best now we’ve got the rest.

sonofgloin,
succinctly put.

In 2007 the liberal government spend was 23% of GDP, today the ALP spend is 26% of GDP where the GDP is about $1000bn. If spending was cut to match the previous government's fiscal discipline there would be an additional $30bn for flood relief, paying off the debt etc.

There are two ways to get a surplus, one is to increase taxes and the other is to cut spending. Already Labor has cut $3.8bn by axing a few of its more idiotic spending programs, it would take very little to save the last $1.8bn.

However, Labor simply prefers to take the easy way out.

And Merve09 while I am ranting, where is that rank and file that had the sense to know when they were being duded. I think they have disappeared on the whole except for scattered pockets throughout the country. Social engineering has done one thing and that is smoother the "average Aussie", is there an average Aussie anymore? The term “average Aussie” for this exercise has nothing to with race or tenure with this country. It had to do with a nationwide mindset from the poorest of the poor that collectively decided that in the country they were building you called a spade a spade and you rebelled against the type of monolithic social structure that England bestowed on her masses.

We have imported on the whole migrants that come from countries where you need to keep your head down as opposed to the Eureka spirit of “we are not going to wear this”. That is what social engineering has achieved, our cities are so culturally mixed that "acceptance" of everything is the golden rule; we can't state the obvious without being a pariah to multiculturalism and of course being Politically Incorrect.

The vast majority of migrants from the seventies on vote Labor because the Libs are seen as "White Australia Klansmen", anyway the unskilled migrant was always going to go with the perceived party of the people rather than the perceived party of the establishment. So we have voter blocks that run with a party for a perceived personal security issue rather than a vote judged on the party performance and I believe that the Labor travesty of a government in NSW was kept in power more than partially due to the loading of migrants into Sydney.

That is why Gillard is still there, the migrant vote.

we are not going to wear this,
sonofgloin,
why the hell aren't you in politics? Go on, get movin". the country needs a few thinkers instead of the tinkers we have now.

Sonofgloin,
while I can understand your dislike of "social engineering"--though I'd be grateful if you elaborated a little on what exactly this is--since we live in societies don't we need codes of conduct? Indeed, don't several of the items on your list of Labor achievements qualify as social engineering? And isn't Labor meant to be a democratic socialist party?

And Shadow Minister,
isn't it the case that the Liberal Party follows the same populist policies as Labor? They wouldn't dare to implement Costello's flat 30%tax rate these days, however much they'd like to. Similarly, Labor wouldn't dare follow its professed socialist ideology.
What we have in this country are interchangeable leading parties feeding off a broadly conservative ideology. That's why the same tired old tactics are used by both parties: cut taxes, tough on crime, border protection etc. etc.
By the way, how do you defend Howard's "silly" and expensive off-shore processing policy? Or Abbott's silly and expensive maternity leave fund? And how do you justify not heavily taxing the wealthy? (and please don't give me that crap about the wealth creation you no doubt give them credit for).

"There are two ways to get a surplus, one is to increase taxes and the other is to cut spending. Already Labor has cut $3.8bn by axing a few of its more idiotic spending programs, it would take very little to save the last $1.8bn"

You are wrong, there is a third way. Increase productivity and grow the economy. The third is what Hawke and Keating concentrated on. Is the one that the NBN is being built for.

I hope that governments continue to give in bad economy times and take back in good.

You can't take 3.8 b out of circulation without causing unemployment, no matter what the money was for
The levy is a very small price to pay. 1.40/week if you earn over 60,000 / year.
How measly can one get.

You can't take 3.8 b out of circulation without causing unemployment,
a597,
I wish Rudd & his gang hadn't squandered 50+ billion & then there was that insane stimulus package & several other hellishly expensive band aids but the wound is even bigger now.
Had none of that been done 3.8 billion wouldn't even amount to an itch the economy now. Had people only listened before the last federal election & done a little thinking amounts to pretty much the same thing.

Bad luck for the people that stimulus money kept floating eh. That is a very narrow view of the situation at hand.
The same that u suggested could apply here. It was Qld flood so it's qld problem. That is what you are inferring.
The fires in victoria, the infastructure was paid for by victorians. We had a 100 dollar levy for all ratepayers.
Qld already gets a quarter of victorias GST.

The federal government should go into debt to re-build infrastructure destroyed by the flood and it should grasp the nettle to improve and build new infrastructure at the same time. The opposition should be supporting that policy too.

The economic stupidity of the deficit Bogeyman should be apparent to all economists. It is foolish to run an economy according to some deficit hurdle artificially created to scare voters in the hope of winning an election.

What a nonsense it is to open the flood gates for expenditure when the economy is booming and slam them shut at all other times.

Individual thanks for the thoughts. The Labor party had three big internal bust ups, in 1916,31, and 55. I can remember my pop telling me about the general strike in NSW after the 1916 punch up.

The Labor party needs another internal revolution, they have an identity crisis, they don't know who they are and I am sick of guessing.

Posted by Squeers:>> "social engineering" I'd be grateful if you elaborated a little on what exactly this is<<

Given that one of the themes of my rant was the ethnic vote being a foregone conclusion, I apply the term social engineering rather than electorate stacking given we are discussing a single ethnic community.

This from the ABC By Danuta Kozaki August 14, 2010.

"Blaxland in Sydney's south-west is traditionally a Labor safe seat. Former prime minister Paul Keating held the Blaxland seat from 1969 until 1996.
Current Labor MP Jason Clare currently holds the seat by a margin of 16.7 per cent.

The electorate has had its boundaries redrawn since the 2007 election and now has the highest proportion of voters from a Muslim background in Australia, with over 17 per cent of the vote."

That is the social engineering I alluded to, first you flood an electorate with your supporters, then just to be safe you re draw the boundaries. You hold a margin of 17%, then you redraw the boundaries to encompass a 17% pro vote.

>> Indeed, don't several of the items on your list of Labor achievements qualify as social engineering? And isn't Labor meant to be a democratic socialist party?<<

Squeers whats your point? If you change a bus time table you are social engineering. But I would consider the achievements you mention as social benefit rather than social engineering. For the most part social engineering is a modification that suits the plans of the few over the manny.

a597:>> Bad luck for the people that stimulus money kept floating eh. That is a very narrow view of the situation at hand.
The same that u suggested could apply here. It was Qld flood so it's qld problem. That is what you are inferring.<<

I don't believe anyone is inferring that we turn our backs. IMO it should come straight out of the budget because if something came up that "they" wanted they would find a couple of billion in cuts easily. Secondly I believe that our couple of billion will get a billion worth of value given their current track record. As I said Leighton’s are having Xmas in February. Just wait for the rorts allegations to come from this gold rush.

You'll admit, Sonofgloin, that your contributions on OLO have a racial bias and agenda. How is it that these canny Labor politicians induced so many Muslims to settle in Blaxland? And do you have any evidence that the Muslims are disposed to vote Labor, or that the boundaries were redrawn to exploit ostensible Muslim favouritism?
I don't have time to look into it, but I find it hard to believe any party is consciously exploiting immigration for political purposes. Do you have any evidence?

Squeers here is another except from the previously quoted ABC report

>>The Lebanese Muslim Association, which has a lot of its members living in Blaxland, says Labor should not take the Muslim vote for granted. Association president Samier Dandan says the first wave of arrivals from Lebanon voted Labor due to their working class background.
He says the community has evolved and become more educated.
"What we see today, as opposed to what used to be in the '70s or '80s, there's a shift taking place within the Muslim community," he said.<<

Well the Lebanese Muslim Association seems to think the community votes labor. In this edict prior to the last election they are putting the blow torch to Labor because they are a voting block that has traditionally delivered to Labor.

Here is the link; if you have issues with the validity take it up with the ABC.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/14/2982939.htm

And finally Squeers refrain from suggesting that I am vilifying a race because I identify them as a keystone to the issue i am discussing.

THE Prime Minister first raised the prospect of a flood levy 10 days ago. Her government wants taxpayers to believe the levy is an unavoidable consequence of the natural disaster in Queensland - imposing a special tax is regrettable, but out of the government's hands.

Yet the day she signalled the flood levy also happened to be a day when her minister Kim Carr quietly announced the start of the government's Automotive Transformation Scheme. This scheme packages up $3.4 billion of taxpayers' money and wires it directly to the dilapidated (but very well connected) car industry.

This is a prime example of one of Labor's Holy pork barrels to her union buddies in Adelaide. $1.8bn trimmed off this will still allow $1.6bn of pork for the AWU.

canny Labor politicians induced so many Muslims to settle in Blaxland?
Squeers,
That is a rather ignorant & unintelligent statement. It has been a well known fact for millennia that groups of people simply feel more at ease by living in their own enclave/community. As far as I am aware only dogs & cats are the only animals which prefer the company of another specie i.e. humans but only after realising which side the bread is buttered on.
Deny the food & they'll soon be wandering off the premises. I wonder if people would act in a similar way if suddenly social security were much less generous here or on par with countries where there is none & the corrupt leaders collect all the foreign aid money.

sonofgloin,

you have not answered my questions (which is fine. I doubt you could to your own satisfaction, let alone mine) and you certainly haven't validated your "social engineering" thesis. Muslims have as much right to organise and vote as blocks (though there's no evidence that they do) as any other group in Australia. It's easy to establish voting trends based on gender, sexuality, belief systems, regions, age-groups, education etc. etc. In fact there is no such thing as an individual vote or an amorphous Australian identity (thank God!).
According to Terry Eagleton:
"no cultural belief is ever extended to sizeable groups of newcomers without being transformed in the process. It is this that some simple-minded philosophy of intergration fails to recognize. There is no assumption in the White House, Downing Street, or the Elysee Palace that their own beliefs might be challenged or changed in the act of being extended to others. A common culture on this view is one that incorporates outsiders into an already established, unquestionable framework of values, while leaving them free to engage in whichever of their quaint customs poses no threat to the preordained harmony. Such a policy appropriates newcomers in one sense, while leaving them well alone in another. It is at once too possessive and too hands off. A common culture in the more radical sense of the term is not one in which everyone believes the same thing, but one in which everyone has equal status in cooperatively determining a way of life in common".

Even without Muslim sensibilities in the mix, our culture is and has always been vibrant with the seeds of change. It makes for a perpetually uncertain future, but for me that's better than a stultified, self-satisfied and incredibly naive conservatism.

You can't shield yourself from a prevailing wind of change.

self-satisfied and incredibly naive conservatism.
Squeers,
Well, isn't that the way Islam operates ?

Squeers did you not read the ABC report? The gist of it is that the Lebanese Muslim Association is telling the Labor party that the community is upwardly mobile economically and that Labor may not be the automatic first choice as it was historically. They are telling Labor that they will have to do more for the electorate to win the vote in future. That is like the wife in the marriage telling the husband to shape up or ship out.

Squeers give up the "social engineering" definition; it's a descriptive sidebar, whatever your definition of "social engineering" is, so is mine, so we are agreed.

Squeers did you not read the ABC report?

The gist of it is that the Lebanese Muslim Association is telling the Labor party that the community is upwardly mobile economically and that Labor may not be the automatic first choice as it was historically. They are telling Labor that they will have to do more for the electorate to win the vote in future. That is like the wife in the marriage telling the husband to shape up or ship out. The report also states that the electoral boundaries were redraw by Labor to encompass this community as they spread from suburb to suburb.

Squeers give up the "social engineering" definition; it's a descriptive sidebar, whatever your definition of "social engineering" is, so is mine, so we are agreed.

Finally Sqeers I told you not bring a racist slant into the discussion, as you have again with the bullscheise quip about Aussies being “vibrant with the seeds of change” again suggesting that I as opposed to you am an advocate of the white Australia policy.

sonofgloin,

there was no intended racist slight against you in my last post. However, I do not take instructions from you. And I comment as I see it, just as you do.
No I haven't read the article. Will try to find the time as I don't believe electoral boundaries were redrawn for that reason, but more likely to keep up with development.
The Muslims are just as entitled as anyone else to contribute to the evolution of Australian values, and to lobby on behalf of their community.

Sonofgloin said;
They are telling Labor that they will have to do more for the
electorate to win the vote in future. That is like the wife in the
marriage telling the husband to shape up or ship out.
unquote

Well that wife is not a moslem for sure.

Anyway Islam is not a race but a religion.

I truly find it intriguing.
Here in what is in my view our country's best forum, [we inhabit the basement]opinions are free.
And quite often in no way related to those the party we follow.
However consider this we know if government pays it is us who pays.
Labor has been flogged for? getting us in debt.
Now it is proposed"? we borrow go further in debt!
The alternatives
Well some of us could pay a levee, only some, at the high end every one ,middle all but not much.
We have costs cuts to do most of it,including the totally silly cash for clunkers scheme, lets sack the person who thought that up.
Australians on both sides of the fence surely want us back in the black, and want these people helped now?
Now cancel the NBN? While we are at it,do we fund little man Tony's baby bonus for the already rich? by levee cost cuts or borrowing blokes tell me?

Belly,

I have already "donated" a large chunk to the government in Capital gains, income tax and GST. Much of which they squandered.

I have donated to the flood relief, but am not happy, with a government that is more concerned with maintaining its spending on frivolous projects than helping those in need.

I read somewhere that if qld was not included in the NBN there will be plenty of money for reconstruction .

I shadow minister do not agree NBN is frivolous.
I do how ever want you to look at little man Tony Abbott's big new tax.
His imposition on business to fund already well off mums to have children.
That big new tax is forever and we pay it in the end
a597 silly stuff, why should Queensland not have the same standards of communication we all will have?
SM thinks it is for games surely you do not?

I was in particular referring to the automotive transfer fund of $3.4bn which is part of the stimulus that is no longer needed. This is frivolous.

The NBN is a monopolistic, over priced waste of money that will deliver, in value, only a fraction of its cost, and cannot bear scrutiny.

As far as the maternity levy, Labor's policy simply added it to the existing tax burden. Considering that most large businesses do already provide some paid maternity leave, this simply formalises it. However, I personally do not agree with the tax on large businesses.

However, this is minuscule compared to the proposed mining super tax, the carbon tax, and the flood tax, all of which are going to push up the cost of living, and reduce take home pay.

It will drastically reduce take home pay 1.40 / week.

Belly:>> While we are at it, do we fund little man Tony's baby bonus for the already rich? by levee cost cuts or borrowing blokes tell me?<<

Abbott was playing policy on the run with that incipit offering, it was obvious during the election. IMO the rightful condemnation of the government as reflected in this forum can only be exactly that, just condemnation, as there is no vision on offer from the Abbott team. They ran the election on condemnation and it did not work.

Abbott is an acolyte by nature so there is no vision in him, Hockey is tainted and sleazy, and Turnbull is an elitist. They are dry and tapped out BUT the no Carbon tax and the no spend $40+ billion is enough for me at the moment.

You be careful Sonofgloin while some of your comments find favor with SM others will see you targeted.
Agree on Abbott not NBN.
Interesting year ahead Gillard can not lift Abbott may not make it to Christmas.
Next election? if conservatives win, big chance , They will be damaged by the introduction of confrontational ism,they threw the first thousand stones now watch the impacts.

I personally expect some action in July when the greens take the deciding vote in the senate.

If I were Abbott, at this point I would abandon the pairing arrangement.