Do the Liberals have any good policies?

[Power Raid]

Well, the policy development orthodoxy in this country now seems to be is something is even raised as being considered it is heavily criticised and then declared "dead, buried and cremated".

we have to separate roles of government away from parliament similar to demarcation with the RBA and the courts.

Power is definitely one of them

 

[Power Raid]

The introduction of the Carbon Tax was one of the biggest factors in Gillard's fall. It doesn't feel like the rise in GST will have that kind of effect on Turnbull.

Of course it's just a feeling I could be completely wrong but I don't understand how the Libs justify the GST when the Carbon Tax was considered such a demon of the oppossition.

because the carbon tax was a lemming and favoured overseas production of local, it would exported our pollution and increase the net pollution rather than reduce it and does not consider local power solutions rather it was a dumb one size fits none.

 

[Power Raid]

The fact it seems only the GST is being considered and discussed publicly as "tax reform" is really quite sad.

Put simply, raising the GST to 15% and putting it on fresh food is NOT tax reform. That's akin to shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic!

take a step back and its not just increasing the GST rate

It is a shift from govts reliance from income taxes to expanding the base and the balance between income and consumption. Hopefully they tackle wealth taxes in the same process but as a second step with a few years of consolidation between.

Its common sense given the working % in the nation is so low. Why not tax the retired or who have overseas income that is not taxable here in Oz but is spent here in Oz (especially seeing they have HECS debts, Medicare etc)?

 

[Gough]

Well, the policy development orthodoxy in this country now seems to be is something is even raised as being considered it is heavily criticised and then declared "dead, buried and cremated".

Legacy of the Abbott era, he followed the Republican policy in America of opposing absolutely everything proposed by the government for no better reason than the idea came from his "enemy", and you could argue it worked a hell of a lot better for him than it did the GOP. That era is now thankfully finished.

 

[The Punter]

we have to separate roles of government away from parliament similar to demarcation with the RBA and the courts.

Power is definitely one of them

I actually believe we elect parliamentarians to make these decisions. We have so many agencies and authorities that seem to be at arms' length from ministers and the parliament that it is hard for someone to know where the buck stops. (Disclaimer - I currently work for one of these agencies).

I understand what you're trying to achieve here - a untangling of policy and politics. But the end of that road is a lack of responsibility to the electorate.

Things are really difficult right at the moment - perhaps the system is broken. But I'm not sure what the way through is, but reform is a past experience in Australia in 2015.

 

[Maggie5]

what else was there to take?

imports rising, exports rising but not as much

industry struggling to compete not because of wages but crazy electricity prices

I found this statement very interesting and it surprised me:
"This country is now a net importer of pork. It is a net importer of seafood. It is a net importer of fruit and vegetables. It is only a matter of time. As I said, it is 103 per cent every 10 years, the last time I looked, and a 21 per cent increase in exports every 10 years."

I thought most politicians were saying that we could be the food bowl for Asia. Intend to look for more information on it.

Also I tend to agree that in time the fact that most pollies say we will be big in technology, service and education don't think it will be enough to balance the books against what we will import long term.

No manufacturing, food production down, privatised most essential services, although not a big supporter of him, think he may have a point even if it may be a slight exaggeration at this time.

 

[Power Raid]

I found this statement very interesting and it surprised me:
"This country is now a net importer of pork. It is a net importer of seafood. It is a net importer of fruit and vegetables. It is only a matter of time. As I said, it is 103 per cent every 10 years, the last time I looked, and a 21 per cent increase in exports every 10 years."

I thought most politicians were saying that we could be the food bowl for Asia. Intend to look for more information on it.

Also I tend to agree that in time the fact that most pollies say we will be big in technology, service and education don't think it will be enough to balance the books against what we will import long term.

No manufacturing, food production down, privatised most essential services, although not a big supporter of him, think he may have a point even if it may be a slight exaggeration at this time.

we won't be the food bowl of asia this century. Politicians who say that either lie or their dumb (but that doesn't mean there isn't an opportunity).

take seafood for example:
- our seas are like deserts with F all fish. The environmental departments are run by watermelons and they don't like aquaculture. So where do we get the fish from to become a food bowl?
- despite our seas being like desert, we have fisherman who do not haul fish because the species doesn't have a market. A separate discussion.
- Australian fillet"ers" are not as efficient as the Kiwis and the Kiwis are not as efficient as the SE Asians
- Our processing centres have power bills of around $350k per year which is simply not competitive gloablly. In fact its cheaper to process our Australian catch, send it to Asia for processing and bring it back.

- As a result of this cost, much of Australia's seafood caught here is:
- frozen and thawed 6 times between the boat, the storage facilities, the airport, then processed in Thailand or Vietnam, back by plane to Australia, thawed to be refrozen in dispatch volumes, thawed for tray pack and refrozen and the served or labelled as "fresh". How do they get away with this misleading statement? Its not "frozen" until its below -18 dgrees, so they only bring it down to minus 10.


I am working on a project to clean out the seafood industry of shonky practices, implement proper labeling and to make seafood not only a quality product but convenient. An excellent example of how to do seafood (not my product) is http://glacier51toothfish.com/.

The trick is not to become the food bowl of Asia, as Asia can feed themselves, and us, cheaper than we can feed them (even if there's is highly polluted). The trick is to focus on quality and something they won't have for 100 years and that's clean, safe and trusted food.



Why would any person including an Asian eat this? yet many Australians do....



when you could eat clean Australian food. but this will be a boutique and not a food bowl. Same said for all other agriculture except wheat type products.

 

[Power Raid]

I found this statement very interesting and it surprised me:
"This country is now a net importer of pork. It is a net importer of seafood. It is a net importer of fruit and vegetables. It is only a matter of time. As I said, it is 103 per cent every 10 years, the last time I looked, and a 21 per cent increase in exports every 10 years."

I thought most politicians were saying that we could be the food bowl for Asia. Intend to look for more information on it.

Also I tend to agree that in time the fact that most pollies say we will be big in technology, service and education don't think it will be enough to balance the books against what we will import long term.

No manufacturing, food production down, privatised most essential services, although not a big supporter of him, think he may have a point even if it may be a slight exaggeration at this time.

The above post is an example of the food bowl myth but what is the solution?

1) EPA
An EPA where workers are paid a success rate of projects getting up and the % of profit. At the moment, we have greenies running the EPA with a watermelon mentality of shutting down projects or simply being uncommercial.

An excellent example is Cone Bay Barramundi, who have spent $56m on trial aquaculture off the coast of WA demonstrating to the EPA that their operations did not effect the environment. The EPA limited the licences for the best part of ten year to a scale that wasn't economical as a test case. They asked for the study and measurement of pollutants (fish poo) which was done and demonstrated no material change. The department wasn't satisfied that there was no change and did their own study for a further 2 years only to get the same result.

This EPA should be forced to underwrite the $56m and the workers at the EPA contribute out of their own pay. How the F is this reasonable, especially considering the Tasmanian government has already paved the way for other states to follow?

2) Power
Separate power from the government to a independent group like we have with the courts and the RBA. Power costs could be halved in this nation. More importantly, we need to be thinking about how we will power the electric car and other increasing demands.

3) Education
We need to teach kids at school how to see opportunity. We teach them all kinds of important stuff but zero on being commercial. Education is great but many courses such as engineering focus on risk and why something can't be done. We need to balance education out with why something can be done.

4) Politics
We need politicians that can see solutions rather than just problems. Good on Bob for raising a concern and pointing out power as a probable issue but we need people in politics that have done something other than law, unions & teachers.

I'm not sure of the ultimate solution for our parliament or politics but it is fair to say our current model is broken.

 

[Maggie5]

we won't be the food bowl of asia this century. Politicians who say that either lie or their dumb (but that doesn't mean there isn't an opportunity).

take seafood for example:
- our seas are like deserts with F all fish. The environmental departments are run by watermelons and they don't like aquaculture. So where do we get the fish from to become a food bowl?
- despite our seas being like desert, we have fisherman who do not haul fish because the species doesn't have a market. A separate discussion.
- Australian fillet"ers" are not as efficient as the Kiwis and the Kiwis are not as efficient as the SE Asians
- Our processing centres have power bills of around $350k per year which is simply not competitive gloablly. In fact its cheaper to process our Australian catch, send it to Asia for processing and bring it back.

- As a result of this cost, much of Australia's seafood caught here is:
- frozen and thawed 6 times between the boat, the storage facilities, the airport, then processed in Thailand or Vietnam, back by plane to Australia, thawed to be refrozen in dispatch volumes, thawed for tray pack and refrozen and the served or labelled as "fresh". How do they get away with this misleading statement? Its not "frozen" until its below -18 dgrees, so they only bring it down to minus 10.


I am working on a project to clean out the seafood industry of shonky practices, implement proper labeling and to make seafood not only a quality product but convenient. An excellent example of how to do seafood (not my product) is http://glacier51toothfish.com/.

The trick is not to become the food bowl of Asia, as Asia can feed themselves, and us, cheaper than we can feed them (even if there's is highly polluted). The trick is to focus on quality and something they won't have for 100 years and that's clean, safe and trusted food.



Why would any person including an Asian eat this? yet many Australians do....



when you could eat clean Australian food. but this will be a boutique and not a food bowl. Same said for all other agriculture except wheat type products.

I thought that there was already an enquiry going on for proper labelling and country of origin on fish.

 

[The Punter]

Surely the solution is not cost but quality in terms of what we make or provide to the world.

As always, if you are not happy with the quality of elected officials in Australia, I urge you to stand for public office.

 

[Pessimistic]

The above post is an example of the food bowl myth but what is the solution?

1) EPA
An EPA where workers are paid a success rate of projects getting up and the % of profit. At the moment, we have greenies running the EPA with a watermelon mentality of shutting down projects or simply being uncommercial.

An excellent example is Cone Bay Barramundi, who have spent $56m on trial aquaculture off the coast of WA demonstrating to the EPA that their operations did not effect the environment. The EPA limited the licences for the best part of ten year to a scale that wasn't economical as a test case. They asked for the study and measurement of pollutants (fish poo) which was done and demonstrated no material change. The department wasn't satisfied that there was no change and did their own study for a further 2 years only to get the same result.

This EPA should be forced to underwrite the $56m and the workers at the EPA contribute out of their own pay. How the F is this reasonable, especially considering the Tasmanian government has already paved the way for other states to follow?

2) Power
Separate power from the government to a independent group like we have with the courts and the RBA. Power costs could be halved in this nation. More importantly, we need to be thinking about how we will power the electric car and other increasing demands.

3) Education
We need to teach kids at school how to see opportunity. We teach them all kinds of important stuff but zero on being commercial. Education is great but many courses such as engineering focus on risk and why something can't be done. We need to balance education out with why something can be done.

4) Politics
We need politicians that can see solutions rather than just problems. Good on Bob for raising a concern and pointing out power as a probable issue but we need people in politics that have done something other than law, unions & teachers.

I'm not sure of the ultimate solution for our parliament or politics but it is fair to say our current model is broken.

Id say, basing on your comments and my thoughts, that the extremes get too much influence in this country. It wasn't always so.

we need a "miltant moderate" movement in this country. Trouble is the extremists think they are moderate too

 

[Power Raid]

I actually believe we elect parliamentarians to make these decisions. We have so many agencies and authorities that seem to be at arms' length from ministers and the parliament that it is hard for someone to know where the buck stops. (Disclaimer - I currently work for one of these agencies).

I understand what you're trying to achieve here - a untangling of policy and politics. But the end of that road is a lack of responsibility to the electorate.

Things are really difficult right at the moment - perhaps the system is broken. But I'm not sure what the way through is, but reform is a past experience in Australia in 2015.

I've lost faith in democracy under Abott, Rudd and Gillard. but they are of course just the symptom of the electorate.

We have a dominant baby boomers generation who have had a welfare mentality hitting the pension. We have a massive problem across all generation, a cultural problem, of all rights and no responsibilities.

How can we move forward without massive pain if the politicians are simply pandering to the "I want free s**t now" electorate?

In the electorate's defense, we have a poor choice to choose from. Who in their right mind would become a politician these days and put themselves and their families in the limelight and at risk? So yes we need leaders and leadership but we need good leaders. For that to occur, these leaders and their families need to be protected, feel safe and be handsomely rewarded.

 

[Power Raid]

Id say, basing on your comments and my thoughts, that the extremes get too much influence in this country. It wasn't always so.

we need a "miltant moderate" movement in this country. Trouble is the extremists think they are moderate too

100% with you.

I think everyone wants to have a great environment, great jobs, great pay, great tax collection so we can re-invest in health, education, the environment etc

the trouble is getting agreement on how to achieve it.

 

[The Punter]

Id say, basing on your comments and my thoughts, that the extremes get too much influence in this country. It wasn't always so.

we need a "miltant moderate" movement in this country. Trouble is the extremists think they are moderate too

I understand this, but as a moderate, it sort of inoculates you against being militant about anything. What we really need is a moderate movement who is expert in how to play the game, or how to change the game.

As far as politics goes we are in an era of great uncertainty, and perhaps it won't be until a government believes it cannot win no matter what it does, so therefore the pain with prudent yet unpopular policies and decisions is no deterrent, that things do change. I believe we are getting closer to that moment, even if we aren't that close yet.

End gibbersh.

 

[Power Raid]

Surely the solution is not cost but quality in terms of what we make or provide to the world.

As always, if you are not happy with the quality of elected officials in Australia, I urge you to stand for public office.

Yep, we have to focus on quality and remember to basic principles that controlling the "channels" to market is more important than the product itself. There's a big hint to SA and its debate on power.

In regards to politics, its too dangerous for individuals and the families of the politicians. Who would put their family at risk like that?

 

[The Punter]

Someone has to.

 

[Pessimistic]

100% with you.

I think everyone wants to have a great environment, great jobs, great pay, great tax collection so we can re-invest in health, education, the environment etc

the trouble is getting agreement on how to achieve it.

without re-entering the goodes debate, that was a clear example of how the extremes took the issue over and in the end, were poking each other, often in ways only slightly connected to the actual issues. The media have a nose for controversy and can fan or create it at will.

 

[Power Raid]

I thought that there was already an enquiry going on for proper labelling and country of origin on fish.

too many stakeholders in the industry are against it but that's the opportunity. I'm setting up a distribution channels to market which forces the issue. Label and your in, don't and you will be squeezed out of the market.

The time is right as the fish mongers are either aging italian/ greek families being run down or silver spoons running the business into the ground. On the other end you have Westfields and co who want a seafood offering but not the smell. Coles and Woolies are on board and so too are the corporatised fishing groups. Tying this together and explaining to these sometimes competitive groups that the market is now bigger than what we can ever supply has been difficult and time consuming but we are almost there.

Without giving the game away, this paves the way for a multi million dollar Australian business to capitalise on home soil and the premium market in Beijing and co.

 

[Power Raid]

without re-entering the goodes debate, that was a clear example of how the extremes took the issue over and in the end, were poking each other, often in ways only slightly connected to the actual issues. The media have a nose for controversy and can fan or create it at will.

The way media and politics interact is not healthy. This has been exacerbated by the speed and simplicity of social media.

My only solution here would be policy is written and published with no name, face or political party acknowledgement. People then vote on a policy suite that suits them and not the party.

Take a look at a prospectus in the UK vs a prospectus in Australia and that's the direction I would like to head. No pictures and glossy pages. Just black and white with the added criteria of no names or alignment acknowledged.

 

[Pessimistic]

we won't be the food bowl of asia this century. Politicians who say that either lie or their dumb (but that doesn't mean there isn't an opportunity).

take seafood for example:
- our seas are like deserts with F all fish. The environmental departments are run by watermelons and they don't like aquaculture. So where do we get the fish from to become a food bowl?
- despite our seas being like desert, we have fisherman who do not haul fish because the species doesn't have a market. A separate discussion.
- Australian fillet"ers" are not as efficient as the Kiwis and the Kiwis are not as efficient as the SE Asians
- Our processing centres have power bills of around $350k per year which is simply not competitive gloablly. In fact its cheaper to process our Australian catch, send it to Asia for processing and bring it back.

- As a result of this cost, much of Australia's seafood caught here is:
- frozen and thawed 6 times between the boat, the storage facilities, the airport, then processed in Thailand or Vietnam, back by plane to Australia, thawed to be refrozen in dispatch volumes, thawed for tray pack and refrozen and the served or labelled as "fresh". How do they get away with this misleading statement? Its not "frozen" until its below -18 dgrees, so they only bring it down to minus 10.


I am working on a project to clean out the seafood industry of shonky practices, implement proper labeling and to make seafood not only a quality product but convenient. An excellent example of how to do seafood (not my product) is http://glacier51toothfish.com/.

The trick is not to become the food bowl of Asia, as Asia can feed themselves, and us, cheaper than we can feed them (even if there's is highly polluted). The trick is to focus on quality and something they won't have for 100 years and that's clean, safe and trusted food.



Why would any person including an Asian eat this? yet many Australians do....



when you could eat clean Australian food. but this will be a boutique and not a food bowl. Same said for all other agriculture except wheat type products.

What about a tax on food, or fresh food which has been transported great distance? a sort of carbon tax. but the people who now want to slug 15% on everything would arc up at what could be described as a carbon tax, or even worse an import levy

Work that one out. Everyones cool with taxes to help produce better outcomes for humanity. The flat sales tax never got traction

 

[Lebbo73]

What about a tax on food, or fresh food which has been transported great distance? a sort of carbon tax. but the people who now want to slug 15% on everything would arc up at what could be described as a carbon tax, or even worse an import levy

Work that one out. Everyones cool with taxes to help produce better outcomes for humanity. The flat sales tax never got traction

I am totally against a GST on fresh food, health services, rates, etc. Although, I believe in reduced government spending and lower income taxes as well.

 

[Power Raid]

What about a tax on food, or fresh food which has been transported great distance? a sort of carbon tax. but the people who now want to slug 15% on everything would arc up at what could be described as a carbon tax, or even worse an import levy

Work that one out. Everyones cool with taxes to help produce better outcomes for humanity. The flat sales tax never got traction

I'm against a GST on fresh food but would like to know more on health and education before taking a position.

on one hand health and education should be GST free, as much of it is a net zero as Govt already pays for much of these services. I'm leaning towards keeping these GST exempt but like food, it should meet certain criteria to be exempt.

 

[Power Raid]

What about a tax on food, or fresh food which has been transported great distance? a sort of carbon tax. but the people who now want to slug 15% on everything would arc up at what could be described as a carbon tax, or even worse an import levy

Work that one out. Everyones cool with taxes to help produce better outcomes for humanity. The flat sales tax never got traction

ahh

I missed understood your angle. We don't need a "carbon tax" to protect our industries including food. NZ got rid of their tariffs on food earlier than us and they are now beating us is the growth opportunities in Asia. The removal of tariffs meant they had to produce better product more efficiently.

We will get there but we are 5-10 years behind.

As for "better" outcomes for humanity. There is no better outcome than giving everyone a fair chance.

 

[The Punter]

There is, of course, another thing that does not attract GST that no one is talking about expanding the base to include: housing.

Can I throw this one open to the masses: what would be the pros and cons of imposing a GST on existing houses that are sold for over 200% of the median house price in that city? Surely it would be a good little money raiser.

 

[Pessimistic]

There is, of course, another thing that does not attract GST that no one is talking about expanding the base to include: housing.

Can I throw this one open to the masses: what would be the pros and cons of imposing a GST on existing houses that are sold for over 200% of the median house price in that city? Surely it would be a good little money raiser.

The disincentive of stamp duty (which state governments absolutely rely on by the way) means people aren't so mobile. apparently over 50% of detached housing in the middle bands of Melbourne are occupied by over 50s, sometime just one person. stamp duty etc swallows up all the point of downsizing.
Families are pushed to the fringe away from all the services like schools, doctors.

The alternative is apartments which are not usually targeted at families. Could someone build family friendly apartments near schools ? perhaps even with in house childcare if its big enough? Maybe once all the baby boomers die off all that aged care infrastructure will be re-purposed for young families

Stamp duty is an unfair tax for people who would move around more, be more agile.

Better to have capital gains where you only get taxed on sale profits, perhaps mitigated a bit if you have lived somewhere a long time ie not the same as CGT on a commercial or rental property.

So much could be done to make our cities more efficient an amenable, but I cant see how a flat rate tax on everything does that