Opinion Morrison’s campaign unravels as Labor learns his game Sean Kelly Columnist May 2, 2022 At the Liberal campaign launch in 2019, Prime Minister Scott Morrison promised to help first home buyers. With just six days until election day, it was his first remotely memorable policy announcement of the campaign: “When you give Australians a go, they will get a go and they will have a go.” This was close to gibberish – but the meaning could be easily deciphered, because of how snugly it fitted the rest of Morrison’s campaign. His headline promise was that nothing had to change, but this abstract pledge was anchored by a weighty topic: money, and specifically the idea that then opposition leader Bill Shorten would take it from you. Even when the campaign seemed to drift to other topics, like climate, it quickly returned to money: how much would Labor’s climate plan cost? Morrison’s housing announcement was just another way to make the same point: he would give money to hard-working voters, not snatch it away and smash their dreams...... The great campaigner: Prime Minister Scott Morrison addresses a Liberal Party rally on Sunday. Credit:James Brickwood ................................... This guy would have to be one of the biggest bs artist politicians Australia has seen imo, but why wouldn't he be, taught well by little Johnny bs artist up himself Howard. Add religion into the mix and this is what you get.
Labor proposes new homebuying scheme in which government would take stake in people’s properties April 30, 2022 - 11:11PM a Labor government will make it easier for 10,000 Australians per year to buy a home by taking an equity stake of up to 40 per cent in their property. The scheme, called Help to Buy, is designed to help Australians buy a home with a smaller deposit, a smaller mortgage and smaller mortgage repayments. https://www.news.com.au/finance/rea...e/news-story/1e235323506b12d5a790fc317d71a312
So the plan is for the government to own 40% all future real estate? When is the revolution coming? The west is full of idiots running their countries. Its just a matter of time before the leftists take over just like the 1930s. Just hope it isn't the ghost of Robespierre and the resurrection of the Reign of Terror.
House prices must fall for sake of young: former RBA governor Patrick Durkin BOSS Deputy editor May 2, 2022 https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/...-of-young-former-rba-governor-20220502-p5ahou Former Reserve Bank of Australia governor Ian Macfarlane says house prices must fall to help solve growing wealth inequality for younger Australians, amid warnings that Labor’s home equity scheme could drive up prices. Mr Macfarlane, appointed deputy governor of the RBA by the Keating government in 1992 and governor by the Howard government in 1996, refused to comment directly on Tuesday’s interest rate decision but has previously warned that cutting rates to near zero had not done “any good”. Ian Macfarlane said a fall in house prices would not be very popular, “but that’s probably essential to any solution”. iStock He also avoided commenting directly on Labor’s Help to Buy scheme of contributing as much as 40 per cent of the purchase price of a new home for more than 10,000 Australians, but appeared to suggest it was not the solution. “You actually have to have probably a fall in house prices – that’s not going to be very popular, but that’s probably essential to any solution,” he told the Actuaries Institute’s annual summit in Melbourne on Monday. Grattan Institute chief executive Danielle Wood told the same panel that Labor’s proposal was only part of the solution. Grattan made a similar shared-equity proposal earlier this year but conceded it might moderately push up prices. “The question of supply is important ... tax breaks we’ve talked about which encourage investors to come into the market,” Ms Wood said. “We’re seeing more schemes such as the one announced [by Labor] yesterday, which help first home buyers in but, ultimately, you have to do all those things to have a chance of shifting the dial.” Grattan Institute CEO Danielle Wood says a home equity scheme is only part of the solution. Eamon Gallagher Mr Macfarlane said young Australians should be “squealing louder” as wealth inequality grows, despite near-zero interest rates and record high fiscal stimulus. He pointed to renewed debate in the United States over the concept of secular stagnation – little or no growth – “despite the most expansionary monetary and fiscal policy in US history”, which he attributed to increasing wealth inequality. “If most of the increases in national income fall into the hands of the already rich, which is indeed what has happened, it is easy to see why it won’t lead to strong growth in consumption.” Australia’s reliance on income tax was making wealth inequality worse, he said. Australians pay more personal income tax as a share of government revenue than any other advanced economy, except for the high-taxing Scandinavian state of Denmark, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Personal income tax revenue rose to 42 per cent of total tax collected by federal and state governments in 2019, nearly twice as much as the OECD average of 23.5 per cent, which Mr Macfarlane warned was disproportionately hurting younger working Australians. Ian Macfarlane, left, with John Howard, Josh Frydenberg, David Morgan and former ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel at the Financial Review 70th Platinum dinner in Sydney in March. Lucas Jarvis “I’m surprised that it’s not a bigger issue,” he said. “The people who hold all the wealth are the older people – we don’t really tax wealth. The people who depend on income are the young people who have no wealth and our tax system relies very largely on taxing income, so we have a problem going forward. “I’m surprised that the younger generation aren’t actually squealing louder.” Mr Macfarlane, also a former director of Woolworths, Leighton Holdings and ANZ, pointed to house prices going “through the roof” as the major driver of intergenerational wealth inequality and said “it’s going to be very difficult to resolve”. “It’s always been an attractive proposition to buy your own house, but we also designed the tax system to increase how attractive it could be and so that’s what’s driven house prices through the roof. This has made this intergenerational inequality of wealth so much bigger,” he said. But he also blamed voters for failing to support governments in making tough reform. “Governments respond to what voters want them to do,” he said. “At the moment voters, by and large, are terrified with someone coming up with a policy that will hurt part of the economy, part of the population. Talking about taxation, there’s no way a political party is going to put that forward because it will guarantee they won’t get elected.” Ms Wood, however, called it a “failure of government”. “It’s very difficult to have conversations about taxation of wealth but certainly, we have argued we should be looking at things like the rate of the capital gains discount,” she said. “We probably should have a conversation about inheritance taxes, dare I say it, but this explosion of wealth we have seen over the last 30 years is largely in the hands of older Australians. “We know that they won’t spend it down, it will be passed on in future decades, and I fear we are then moving to a world with greater wealth inequality, where who your parents are will have a greater impact on your life than your own talents and hard work.”
Australia votes Opinion I was deputy leader of the Liberals. The party I served has lost its way Fred Chaney Former politician May 4, 2022 https://www.smh.com.au/national/i-w...-served-has-lost-its-way-20220502-p5ahuz.html Until 1995 I was a member of the Liberal party, and for 16 years a serving Liberal senator. I was a member of the frontbench for the majority of my years in the parliament and federal deputy leader from 1989 to 1990. The party I joined in 1958 proudly proclaimed that one of the distinctions between it and the Labor Party was that the primary obligation of a member of parliament was to the electorate, and that to cross the floor, unlike the tightly caucused Labor Party, was permitted on conscience issues. However, the party I served has lost its way. Members are no longer able to successfully execute what the electorate demands and it is now in the sad position of being held hostage by its extremes and those of its Coalition partner. Prime Minister Scott Morrison campaigning in the seat of Dunkley this week.Credit:James Brickwood My concerns today are about Australian democracy. They relate to the lack of accountability in the government; the blatant pork-barrelling; the use of public money for party electoral advantage rather than the public interest; the pursuit of immediate political advantage rather than the long-term interests of the country; the daily focus on politics rather than good government; and the way the government is reactive rather than forward-looking. This government appears to be dragged kicking and screaming to policy positions that most sensible Australians would support – including on climate change. Does anyone really think the government is as serious about carbon reduction as the community or the business community? Add to this the cruelty shown to people who have established that they are refugees yet are incarcerated and condemned to hopelessness at great public expense......
Opinion Young Australians have been betrayed by both parties Former RBA governor Ian Macfarlane nailed it this week when he identified the real economic and social problem fuelled by policymakers over the past decade or so. John Kehoe Economics editor May 4, 2022 https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/...been-betrayed-by-both-parties-20220502-p5ahu1 Former Reserve Bank of Australia governor Ian Macfarlane nailed it this week when he identified the real economic and social problem fuelled by policymakers over the past decade or so. Macfarlane wouldn’t be drawn on the RBA changing interest rates, but he touched on a much more pertinent structural problem. The tax system relies on the earnings of the young rather than the wealth of their elders. Anna Kucera Younger Australians should be “squealing louder” about the widening wealth inequality gap between the generations, he said in a rare public intervention. The central bank, the federal government and state and local governments must all share the blame for the betrayal of younger Australians. The massive jump in house prices during the ultra-low interest rate era has been terrific for asset owners, but terrible for people who don’t own property or shares. Moreover, wages growth has been weak and workers are on the hook for a growing share of the tax burden, a trend that will worsen as the population ages and there are more demands for spending on aged care and health for retirees. Put together, these trends favour lightly taxed, asset-rich senior Australians, including Baby Boomers, at the expense of younger wage earners. I have been beating this drum on these pages for the past few years, so it’s of some comfort to have Macfarlane, 75, endorse a similar view. In comments reported by my colleague Patrick Durkin, Macfarlane said: “The people who hold all the wealth are the older people – we don’t really tax wealth. “The people who depend on income are the young people who have no wealth, and our tax system relies very largely on taxing income, so we have a problem going forward. “I’m surprised that the younger generation aren’t actually squealing louder.” Cheap money from the RBA has pumped up house prices to astronomical levels. To be sure, lower interest rates may have supported the economy to generate jobs for younger people, but the trade-off has been more difficulty saving a deposit for a home. Moreover, personal capital, such as housing and superannuation savings, are taxed relatively lightly, including discounted capital gains for investment property and shares, compared to full personal marginal rates for labour income. We risk becoming a more class-driven society like the United States or United Kingdom. “This has made this intergenerational inequality of wealth so much bigger,” Macfarlane said. Moreover, state and local governments have exacerbated the housing affordability problem through slow zoning and planning approvals that limit the supply of land to build homes on. The system gives too much say to incumbent home owners (“Not in my backyard”) who have a vested interest in restricting the supply of new homes to keep prices high. Rather than dealing with the root problems, the federal Coalition and Labor are pouring in more taxpayer support for aspiring home buyers via policies that add to demand for housing and increase price pressures. Two decades of first-home buyer grants have driven house prices higher. The Coalition will underwrite lenders’ mortgage insurance for 50,000 modest income earners with a low deposit, while Labor is now offering to become a government equity partner in the homes of 10,000 prospective buyers. While the intentions are noble to get more first-home buyers into the market, the government subsidies for a relative few will put upward pressure on prices for the many. Moreover, the Coalition and Labor are encouraging lower income earners into the top of the housing market just as interest rates are rising and property prices are beginning to fall. Some argue that the intergenerational wealth inequality will even out as children inherit wealth from their parents or call on the “bank of mum and dad” to get into the property market. Yet, this fails to recognise that not everyone is fortunate to have parents who can provide for their adult children. It impedes social mobility and entrenches intergenerational family class structures – the opposite of “fair go” Aussie egalitarianism. We risk becoming a more class-driven society like the United States or United Kingdom, not so much on income distribution grounds, but on wealth division. The election is exacerbating the intergenerational inequities and the fiscal burden being placed on workers. The Morrison government – matched by Labor – will grant an extra 50,000 seniors, including self-funded retirees, access to $6.80 prescription medicines and other discounts via the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card. The singles income test threshold for the card will increase from $57,761 to about $90,000, while the threshold for couples will increase from $92,416 to $144,000. Do these higher-earning people, many of whom have enjoyed massive asset price appreciation, sound like they need an extra $70 million in subsidies when government debt is on track to hit $1.2 trillion? Former Finance Department deputy secretary Stephen Bartos says he was “shocked” by the extra concessions. It’s on top of other election concessions for pensioners and self-funded retirees. Before whacking more on the debt bill of working taxpayers, retirees with the means to pay should be required to tap into their superannuation and home equity. The fiscal crunch will be exacerbated by people living much longer and paying tax for a smaller share of their lives, while putting greater calls on the public purse for aged care and health care, which are often GST-free. Amid entrenched budget deficits and debt, the fiscal burden will fall on a smaller share of working-age people. The ratio of working-age people to those over 65 has fallen from 7.3 in 1975 to 4 today. It is projected to fall to 2.7 over the next 40 years due to rising life expectancy and lower fertility, according to Treasury’s Intergenerational Report. Senior Australians who retort, “but we paid tax all our working lives”, must learn that the above maths shows the decline in the working-age population makes it unsustainable. We must all contribute a fair share during both our working lives and retirement.
That John Kehoe article is a good lesson for people who believe Pensions schemes are sustainable long term. All Pensions are simply Ponzi schemes in disguise since the people promising them won't be around to account for the collapse. I see it here in California all the time with state workers retiring at 55 with their last year's pay as a perpetual pension. I guess the issue with getting rid of them all together is that the average person is financially illiterate and would probably be taken to the cleaners by slick Goldman Sachs scammers.
Negative gearing and capital gains tax breaks go to top income earners and men By Tawar Razaghi May 5, 2022 https://www.smh.com.au/property/new...p-income-earners-and-men-20220503-p5ai3v.html Key points Analysis shows 57 per cent of negative gearing deductions go to the top 20 per cent of income earners. The top 10 per cent of earners receive more capital gains tax discounts than the bottom 90 per cent combined. Greens leader Adam Bandt said both the Liberal and Labor parties back spending more each year on property handouts than on public schools. The bulk of negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions go to top income earners and men, new figures reveal. Independent analysis by the Parliamentary Budget Office, commissioned by the Greens, found that 57 per cent of negative gearing deductions go to the top 20 per cent of income earners. Across the country, 638,000 people own two or more investment properties, accounting for 1.7 million homes.Crediteter Rae Meanwhile, the top 10 per cent of earners claim more in capital gains tax deductions than the remaining 90 per cent combined, the analysis found. A gender analysis of the figures also revealed 72 per cent of these deductions go to men. Across the country, 638,000 people own two or more investment properties, accounting for 1.7 million homes. A whopping 11,200 individuals own seven or more investment properties. Greens leader Adam Bandt said both the Liberal and Labor parties back spend more each year on property handouts than on public schools. “With so many people locked out of the housing market, we shouldn’t give billions of dollars to an elite few to help them buy their fifth, sixth and seventh home,” Bandt said. “The housing market is cooked and these handouts don’t just make inequality worse, they push house prices out of reach for everyone else.” Under the Greens’ current policy of allowing just one investment property to be negatively geared, the Australian government could make a $63 billion saving over a decade, Bandt claims. “In balance of power, the Greens will kick the Liberals out and push Labor to fix the housing affordability crisis.” Labor scrapped its position on abolishing negative gearing after the last federal election. The Liberals claimed it would punish mum and dad investors. Both parties support the tax breaks in this year’s election campaign. Grattan Institute economic policy program director Brendan Coates said the capital gains tax discount has been a “free kick” to investors. “The discount has been much higher than the rate of inflation … it’s been massively overcompensating investors,” Coates said. “The budgetary cost of negative gearing will also rise as interest rates rise. Investors will have more losses to offset against their taxable income.” “The biggest benefit of [scrapping] these policies is the budgetary impact. The improvement in the budget position. Australia has a structural deficit of 2 per cent of GDP. “We have to do something to close that over time, and if you’re thinking of ways to raise money to improve the budget, these policies are the best candidates. They’re the first things to be up the wall. Sixty-three billion [dollars] over a decade is a lot of money.” Coates said while these tax breaks have a small impact on prices, it has ultimately driven housing inequality. “Negative gearing and capital gains tax definitely contributed to the growing divide between the housing haves and have-nots. You’re talking about $63 billion a decade that is flowing to the richest Australians, which are the ones who own multiple investment properties.” AMP Capital chief economist Dr Shane Oliver said many “ordinary Australians” are tapping into the tax breaks as well, but the dollar value was skewed to higher income earners as they look to reduce their tax bill. “If you earn more, you pay more tax and those are the ones who get more concessions,” Oliver said, adding that it was inextricably linked to income tax, which the country heavily relies on. He said while negative gearing had declined in recent years due to explosive property prices and low interest rates, and is likely to have had minimal impact on the market, the capital gains tax discount was too excessive. “The capital gains tax is the problem. I don’t know why you can halve your tax bill if you hold an asset for 12 months. It encourages excessive speculation. Some may be taking excessive advantage of the system. There is an argument to be made of restricting either the dollar amount or the number of properties.” Ultimately, Oliver said the property related tax breaks were “second order issues” and the chronic lack of supply in Australia was the real culprit of housing affordability. He also raised concerns that scrapping these tax breaks could worsen the rental market if investors were turned off buying investment properties. The Australia Institute’s senior economist Matt Grudnoff said removing these tax concessions would not hurt the rental market, which is already in crisis with these policies in place. “That’s utter bullshit [that it will hurt rental property supply]. That one investor, they’re going to get out. They don’t burn their house to the ground. That house doesn’t disappear. They sell it. If another investor buys it, it doesn’t make a difference.” But if an investor sells to a renter, that is one more owner-occupier and one less renter, driving up homeownership rates, Grudnoff said. “It was Menzies, the founder of the Liberal Party, who found owning your own home was a great idea. If you owned your own home, if you owned a slice of your neighbourhood, you would less likely burn it down. “We need to go back to the idea that housing is a utility. It’s good for housing and not an investment. That’s not a radical lefty theory, that’s Menzies idea – the founder of the Liberal Party,” Grudnoff said.
Turnbull encourages voters to back independents to ‘thwart’ Liberal factions By Farrah Tomazin Updated May 6, 2022 https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...-thwart-liberal-factions-20220505-p5aiui.html Washington: Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has encouraged Australians to vote for independents if they reflect their values, a month after he declined to say if he would vote for Liberal MP Dave Sharma in his old seat of Wentworth. In an intervention likely to infuriate the ex-colleagues Turnbull led to victory in 2016, the former Liberal leader has entered the fray in a speech concluding that “even if the members of a political party cannot escape from the thrall of the dominant faction, their traditional supporters in the electorate can do so by voting for an independent who has a real chance of success”. Malcolm Turnbull, right, with former Liberal prime minister John Howard, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, and former treasurer Peter Costello in March.Credit:Oscar Colman Due to address the Washington Harvard Club at 8am Friday (AEST), Turnbull is expected to say that the Liberal Party had once been a broad church of liberal and conservative traditions, but since his “deposition in 2018”, moderate voices had become increasingly marginalised, “especially on the toxically controversial issue of climate change where the political right, supported by [Rupert] Murdoch’s media, have opposed effective action for many years”. In a copy of the speech provided to The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, he notes there is also growing grassroots support for small-l liberal independent candidates who are typically progressive on climate and social issues and are now threatening his former colleagues in once-safe Liberal seats. “In many respects this may be the most interesting part of the whole election, because if more of these ‘teal’ independents win, it will mean the capture of the Liberal Party will be thwarted by direct, democratic action from voters,” Turnbull will tell the club, whose members are made up of Harvard University alumni and associates. While Turnbull spruiks the benefits to democracy of the rise of the independents, he does not explicitly instruct people to vote for them. In an interview with ABC radio on Friday morning, Turnbull said that at federal level, “the tide has really gone out for the small “l” liberals and the moderates, so the consequence is that people who are more comfortable with that side of the Liberal party are, if you like, voting with their feet and supporting teal independents. That is their democratic right and whether you want to vote for them or not...I’m not encouraging people to vote for anyone, I’m encouraging people to vote.” Responding to his remarks, Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce accused Turnbull of having a tantrum. “Mr Turnbull’s form of politics is because he doesn’t get every present he wants, he throws teddy in the dirt and says, ‘well, to hell with that’,” he said. “He knows full well. He understands politics. That he is inherently going to inspire a process that makes our nation weaker. And I’d say to Mr Turnbull: have a little bit more consideration and do something statesman like”. Malcolm Turnbull and his then treasurer Scott Morrison in 2018 only days before he was replaced as prime minister.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen While Turnbull has been a trenchant critic of the federal government since he resigned from parliament in 2018, his Harvard Club speech marks the first time he has weighed into the federal election campaign. The proposal that the 22 “teal” independents might best represent Liberal values marks a further break between Turnbull and the party he led, after he accused Prime Minister Scott Morrison of being a serial liar at last November’s UN climate conference in Glasgow. Defence Minister Peter Dutton told 2GB radio last year that Turnbull was “totally consumed by hatred and this desire to bring down the Morrison government”. In March, Turnbull declined to say how he would vote but said the rise of small-l liberal independents was an understandable reaction to the federal Liberals “being seen as too right-wing on most issues”, particularly climate change. In the speech prepared for the Harvard Club, Turnbull suggests that traditional Republican voters would also benefit if they could vote for “an independent Republican who better represented their values than Mr Trump’s pick and who could go on to win a district on Democrat preferences”. “By direct democratic action, voters could ensure they have, in this case, the centre-right representatives that best share the values and political agendas of the majority of the electorate.” Over the past few days, the former prime minister has met members of Congress on Capitol Hill, including Republican Adam Kinzinger, who has been rejected by his own party after voting to impeach Donald Trump and now sits on the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack. “Had a great meeting today with former Australian Prime Minister @TurnbullMalcolm. We discussed challenges to peace, and most importantly the challenges to truth and democracy,” Kinzinger tweeted last week alongside a photograph of the pair. “Freedom is worth the hard work, truth is essential to freedom.” Turnbull, who last year backed former prime minister Kevin Rudd’s call for a royal commission into Rupert Murdoch’s influence over Australian politics, criticises News Corp in his Harvard Club speech for legitimising “the type of crazy fact-free, conspiracy-laden content that used to be the preserve of social media alone. “Australia has not been immune to this. Rupert Murdoch has the largest voice in Australia’s media. His outlets, to differing extents, have gone down the same populist partisan track as Fox News. Sky News Australia is the local Murdoch owned subscription television service and has essentially the same model as Fox. “We are learning that merely elevating truthful content will not be enough to change our current course. We are drowning in lies.”