Gough Whitlam: Messiah or Very Naughty Boy?

Messiah or Very Naughty Boy?

  • Messiah

    Votes: 37 72.5%

  • Very Naughty Boy

    Votes: 7 13.7%

  • What the?

    Votes: 7 13.7%
  • Total voters
    51

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pokerspiv said:
England was just as densely populated when it was run by the government, and it was a shambles then. Governments just aren't very good at running businesses, again because there is no responsibility for the people running it. It doesn't matter to them if the business is successful or not, since taxpayers will keep funding them regardless.
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You're missing my point. In a country as densely population as England, there is money to be made by running public transport. Here there is not; hence the reason the Government has to pay massive subsidisation.
 
pokerspiv said:
The issue with this is that if you tax people too highly, they will leave. There are numerous famous examples.

Your country is competing with every other country in the world to attract successful companies and successful business people.

Taxes can be looked at as the price of doing business/working. Like anything else, increasing prices reduces demand.

This is why the idea floated by various people to establish special economics zones in Northern Australia is something I think has a lot of merit. It would encourage firms to move operations to Australia. Northern Australia is vastly underpopulated but has significant natural advantages (namely much more water than Southern Australia and close proximity to asian export markets). Establishing SEZ's like China has with Shenzhen, Macau, Hong Kong etc would significantly kickstart the economy in places like Far North Queensland and Northern WA.
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I'll phrase it another way; our budget can't afford tax cuts at the expense of infrastructure. We barely have enough infrastructure to service the current population, let alone any increases through increased business.
 
Jiska said:
I'll phrase it another way; our budget can't afford tax cuts at the expense of infrastructure. We barely have enough infrastructure to service the current population, let alone any increases through increased business.
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As I have said a few times previously, very little of our tax budget is spent on infrastructure. Less than 15%.
 

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Jiska said:
You're missing my point. In a country as densely population as England, there is money to be made by running public transport. Here there is not; hence the reason the Government has to pay massive subsidisation.
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There are privately owned public transport companies in Australia, they just don't build trains, because trains are not financially viable. They run buses and taxis, and both have been profitable operations in Australia for decades.

Trains are rarely profitable anywhere.

Hopefully Australian governments will do the right thing and not ban Uber, and taxis will be again be a viable method of public transportation for people who aren't millionaires.
 
pokerspiv said:
As I have said a few times previously, very little of our tax budget is spent on infrastructure. Less than 15%.
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Precisely my point. Instead of handing our middle class tax cuts, Howard should have put that money in to increasing infrastructure spending.

pokerspiv said:
There are privately owned public transport companies in Australia, they just don't build trains, because trains are not financially viable. They run buses and taxis, and both have been profitable operations in Australia for decades.

Trains are rarely profitable anywhere.

Hopefully Australian governments will do the right thing and not ban Uber, and taxis will be again be a viable method of public transportation for people who aren't millionaires.
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Which is again the point I'm trying to make. I doubt trams would be profitable either.

If privately owned, most bus services wouldn't run after 7pm due to lack of demand either.

The point is that there are quite a number of things that the Government pays for, either directly or via subsidies, that are not profitable - nor should they be. The whole existence of Government is to provide services to the Community. Business exists to make money. There are situations where the two are mutually independent and cannot be intertwined, such as trains.
 
rodney hoo said:
The man was trying to set up the slush fund as you call it to buy the mining leases back in Australian hands. Just think if he had achieved this & how much money would be in this countries pockets now, look at Norway & see how simple it is.
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You forgot to mention "world peace".
 
Jiska said:
No. He was sacked because the Liberal Party decided that democracy was a bad thing.
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I'll file that one next to the catholic church, mining industry, CIA, Queen and Murdoch conspiracies. No, the reason there was a crisis was because of the shambles of a government Whitlam ran along with a myriad of controversies. Economically the country was battered and the Khemlani fiasco compounded what was already a growing list of self-inflicted problems. In any event Australian voters didn't feel sorry for him. They realised quickly that Whitlam was a fake and a failure and given the first opportunity put him out of government for good.
 
Xsess said:
I'll file that one next to the catholic church, mining industry, CIA, Queen and Murdoch conspiracies. No, the reason there was a crisis was because of the shambles of a government Whitlam ran along with a myriad of controversies. Economically the country was battered and the Khemlani fiasco compounded what was already a growing list of self-inflicted problems. In any event Australian voters didn't feel sorry for him. They realised quickly that Whitlam was a fake and a failure and given the first opportunity put him out of government for good.
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Even that's not essentially true.

He had been re-elected in 1974.
 
Jiska said:
Precisely my point. Instead of handing our middle class tax cuts, Howard should have put that money in to increasing infrastructure spending.


Which is again the point I'm trying to make. I doubt trams would be profitable either.

If privately owned, most bus services wouldn't run after 7pm due to lack of demand either.

The point is that there are quite a number of things that the Government pays for, either directly or via subsidies, that are not profitable - nor should they be. The whole existence of Government is to provide services to the Community. Business exists to make money. There are situations where the two are mutually independent and cannot be intertwined, such as trains.
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Correct..although it's 9pm as a rule.
 
Xsess said:
You forgot to mention "world peace".
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That would be nice except the multi nationals won't like that not enough money in it. Just think all those profits that go off sure could be in Australian hands your man Abbott would not have to rise the fuel exsize tax, gst etc etc.
No matter how much you hate Whitlam he was man enough to forgive Fraser if the right wing bigots of this world would have half his compassion the world we be a better place.
 
Jiska said:
The point is that there are quite a number of things that the Government pays for, either directly or via subsidies, that are not profitable - nor should they be. The whole existence of Government is to provide services to the Community. Business exists to make money. There are situations where the two are mutually independent and cannot be intertwined, such as trains.
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Yes, and my point is that a lot of those things are not actually necessary. Why do you need trains when buses can do the same thing?

Trains have pretty much always been vanity programs for politicians to stick their name on.

I realise that a most people have grown up expecting the government to take care of everything, but the history of countries without much government influence shows that private enterprise can and did provide most of the things that we now expect the government to do for us.

The USA for example had virtually no government until just prior to WWI. The constitution was amended to allow for income tax to support the war effort. Everything the USA achieved up to that point was primarily the result of private efforts.
 
pokerspiv said:
Yes, and my point is that a lot of those things are not actually necessary. Why do you need trains when buses can do the same thing?

Trains have pretty much always been vanity programs for politicians to stick their name on.

I realise that a most people have grown up expecting the government to take care of everything, but the history of countries without much government influence shows that private enterprise can and did provide most of the things that we now expect the government to do for us.

The USA for example had virtually no government until just prior to WWI. The constitution was amended to allow for income tax to support the war effort. Everything the USA achieved up to that point was primarily the result of private efforts.
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Using the United States as some sort of beacon of free enterprise needs to also address the pitfalls of that arrangement.

Gun laws so lax that there is massacre after massacre.

Most of the population not having affordable healthcare.

University degrees requiring scholarships for the most part and not encouraging equity.

Lax taxation laws virtually giving every big business a free kick.

Legislators who get free rein to do as they like.

And a love of war.
 
I was talking about the US pre-1915. The USA of today is not much different to any other country in terms of the size and scope of government.
 

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pokerspiv said:
Yes, and my point is that a lot of those things are not actually necessary. Why do you need trains when buses can do the same thing?

Trains have pretty much always been vanity programs for politicians to stick their name on.

I realise that a most people have grown up expecting the government to take care of everything, but the history of countries without much government influence shows that private enterprise can and did provide most of the things that we now expect the government to do for us.

The USA for example had virtually no government until just prior to WWI. The constitution was amended to allow for income tax to support the war effort. Everything the USA achieved up to that point was primarily the result of private efforts.
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The United States is the last country in the world I'd like Australia to end up like.
 
Xsess said:
I'll file that one next to the catholic church, mining industry, CIA, Queen and Murdoch conspiracies. No, the reason there was a crisis was because of the shambles of a government Whitlam ran along with a myriad of controversies. Economically the country was battered and the Khemlani fiasco compounded what was already a growing list of self-inflicted problems. In any event Australian voters didn't feel sorry for him. They realised quickly that Whitlam was a fake and a failure and given the first opportunity put him out of government for good.
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Doesn't matter. He was democratically elected in 1972 by the people of Australia. The Liberal Party had no right to basically dismiss democracy, regardless of the situation.
 
Ripper said:
Have you been there? I have , kept away from the nanny states like California and New York, and loved it.
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Yep. I've been there. As a tourist it's a lovely place; so is Greece. Afghanistan is a lovely country too, but that's a different topic for another discussion.
 
Ripper said:
That's bullshit. All Kerr did was call an election and the PEOPLE dismissed him, much to my disgust at the time.
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I'm not talking about Kerr, I'm talking about the Liberal Party blocking supply.
 
Ripper said:
Whole different attitude in the "flyover states" They push what they can do, a stark contrast to here where we push what we can't do now.
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Not quite sure the relevance of what you're saying to social and economic policies.
 
Jiska said:
Yep. I've been there. As a tourist it's a lovely place; so is Greece. Afghanistan is a lovely country too, but that's a different topic for another discussion.
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Middle America is a perfectly nice place, much better than most of Europe. Not all of America is LA or NYC.

The states that coastal urbanites dismissively refer to as "flyover states" are where all the nice Americans live. You don't see much of it on TV though since normal people living normal lives doesn't make for very compelling viewing.

All this is kind of irrelevant to what I was talking about before though. My point was that the US pre-WWI had no income tax and the government was barely existent, yet a whole lot of things still got done by private enterprise. The USA's rail networks and copper telephone networks were built by private enterprise, for example. (not to mention invented by private inventors)
 
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