Random thoughts not worthy of a thread (Part I)

[Only Forwards]

I was almost wrong when I called Abbott One-term-Tony after the federal election. Almost didn't make it.

The similarity between our political parties outlines how farcical Australian politics truly are.

2012 the Labor party did exactly what the Liberals are doing right now.

They are all the same and there is not a leader amoung them.

 

[Jay-Z]

The similarity between our political parties outlines how farcical Australian politics truly are.

2012 the Labor party did exactly what the Liberals are doing right now.

They are all the same and there is not a leader amoung them.

Couldn't agree more. Half the country are so disillusioned with our political system right now because neither party seems fit to run the country

 

[TennisPlayerAndy]

Couldn't agree more. Half the country are so disillusioned with our political system right now because neither party is fit to run the country

Fixed.

They're all in it for personal gain. None of them give a shit about the average Australian.

 

[TooUglyForFugly]

They couldn't run a bath.

 

[Tas]

Couldn't agree more. Half the country are so disillusioned with our political system right now because neither party seems fit to run the country

None of them know what they are doing, not only are they political short people they are economic buffoons. We just do not have a sustainable economic system, both governments have allowed the annihilation of our manufacturing industries. We have just become a dumping ground for the world.

 

[kangaspurs]

The similarity between our political parties outlines how farcical Australian politics truly are.

2012 the Labor party did exactly what the Liberals are doing right now.

They are all the same and there is not a leader amoung them.

Both parties are far more interested in political point scoring and one-upping the other in the catchy slogan stakes rather than proposing genuine policy, which is directly down to the nature of the current leaders. Since the beginning Turnbull and Albanese/Plibersek seem like the far better political leaders yet none of those would be good opposition leaders, which is what the parties seem to want.

 

[Nate7]

Both parties are far more interested in political point scoring and one-upping the other in the catchy slogan stakes rather than proposing genuine policy, which is directly down to the nature of the current leaders. Since the beginning Turnbull and Albanese/Plibersek seem like the far better political leaders yet none of those would be good opposition leaders, which is what the parties seem to want.

Albo? The minister for bad teeth? The same guy who let the aviation sector in Aus become a complete stuff up and allowed certain government groups to get away with acts that would otherwise land them in jail.

I'll agree on the political points scoring and primary school behaviour that runs rampant through all parties.

Last week the Chief of the RBA and a person from Treasury both said, all sides of government need to find a way for Australia to get a grip on this debt and pass it through the upper house or we will NEVER be out of debt.

It was aimed evenly at both sides of government and a fair kick up the arse for everyone - if only that warning was noticed.

 

[Only Forwards]

I'll agree on the political points scoring and primary school behaviour that runs rampant through all parties.

During the Victorian election I was waiting, longing for a political ad that didn't just point the finger at the another party and say hey look how shit they are.

I got it, I went to a local cinema and they screened an ad for with sex party, which actually talked about policy and seemed something that I am really unaccoustomed to......

they seemed progressive.

 

[blackshadow]

this is a wonderful British Bomber

love that anti flash white.

And this is a wonderful picture of *.

 

[Tas]

Albo? The minister for bad teeth? The same guy who let the aviation sector in Aus become a complete stuff up and allowed certain government groups to get away with acts that would otherwise land them in jail.

I'll agree on the political points scoring and primary school behaviour that runs rampant through all parties.

Last week the Chief of the RBA and a person from Treasury both said, all sides of government need to find a way for Australia to get a grip on this debt and pass it through the upper house or we will NEVER be out of debt.

It was aimed evenly at both sides of government and a fair kick up the arse for everyone - if only that warning was noticed.

We need to stop corporations dodging their tax paying responsibilities, the government (both have) turned a blind eye to the amount of taxation that companies dodge through tax avoidance schemes. Tax minimisation is legal, tax avoidance is illegal. 61 of our 100 largest companies utilise tax havens and dogge billions of dollars in corporate tax revenue annually.

We do not derive much from the sale of raw minerals, most countries have far more severe mining tax, ours is insufficient and with enough loopholes in the income tax assessment act to allow these rich mining tycoons to pay a very low proportion of their earnings in tax, at least Labor made a ham-fisted attempt to get more money out of these massive tight-arses. These people are so rich they don't know what to do with their own wealth and they begrudge giving anything remotely fair back to the nation.

Outside of our social services system, which is going to get more and more expensive, most arms of the government have become significantly more expensive to do the same job. There is chrnoic waste in our public service, the leadership is abysmal, there is nobody motivated to reduce costs or implement cost savings, if their required budget is lower than their allocated budget then they will spend all of the budget on crap and ask for more money, this is their mindset, because the government will take money away from them and reduce their budget if they don't spend.

It is ineffective having the federal government dictate budget requirements to the arms of the government, they need to hire corporate grade CEOs and give them incentives for increasing productivity, reducing cost, like most successful companies are run. The public service is a bureaucratic nightmare, when you see the kind of money being given to various departments it is mindblowing just how much money they are spending and what little outcomes are being received from that money spent.

The government provides a number of 'services' which should be privatised, are not really needed or we can source from overseas for significantly less. We just waste so much money, spending beyond our means. This was highlighted even during the Howard era and nothing was done about it. Our government bloated during the Labor years in an attempt to prevent the economy going into recession, however, we do not have the means to keep spending beyond our means indefinitely.

 

[Kangaroos4eva]

We need to stop corporations dodging their tax paying responsibilities, the government (both have) turned a blind eye to the amount of taxation that companies dodge through tax avoidance schemes. Tax minimisation is legal, tax avoidance is illegal. 61 of our 100 largest companies utilise tax havens and dogge billions of dollars in corporate tax revenue annually.

We do not derive much from the sale of raw minerals, most countries have far more severe mining tax, ours is insufficient and with enough loopholes in the income tax assessment act to allow these rich mining tycoons to pay a very low proportion of their earnings in tax, at least Labor made a ham-fisted attempt to get more money out of these massive tight-arses. These people are so rich they don't know what to do with their own wealth and they begrudge giving anything remotely fair back to the nation.

Outside of our social services system, which is going to get more and more expensive, most arms of the government have become significantly more expensive to do the same job. There is chrnoic waste in our public service, the leadership is abysmal, there is nobody motivated to reduce costs or implement cost savings, if their required budget is lower than their allocated budget then they will spend all of the budget on crap and ask for more money, this is their mindset, because the government will take money away from them and reduce their budget if they don't spend.

It is ineffective having the federal government dictate budget requirements to the arms of the government, they need to hire corporate grade CEOs and give them incentives for increasing productivity, reducing cost, like most successful companies are run. The public service is a bureaucratic nightmare, when you see the kind of money being given to various departments it is mindblowing just how much money they are spending and what little outcomes are being received from that money spent.

The government provides a number of 'services' which should be privatised, are not really needed or we can source from overseas for significantly less. We just waste so much money, spending beyond our means. This was highlighted even during the Howard era and nothing was done about it. Our government bloated during the Labor years in an attempt to prevent the economy going into recession, however, we do not have the means to keep spending beyond our means indefinitely.

I couldn't agree more Tas, particularly in terms of the public service, the system is beyond chaotic and in some industries there has been over hiring for pointless positions. We basically need improved fiscal responibility for state and fderal governments on this issue. Having written my honours thesis on the area of defence manufacturing and the bureaucracy over the last 50 years, l can't agree more with your point of lots of money going in, but very little coming out in terms of benefiting the nation, job and economic creation etc. We keep turning to the US and a lesser extent Great Britain for so much of our defence material now, its really scary. You just need to look at the joint strike fighter program, what a **** up () that is atm.

"The government provides a number of 'services' which should be privatised, are not really needed or we can source from overseas for significantly less. We just waste so much money, spending beyond our means. This was highlighted even during the Howard era and nothing was done about it."

Very much so, their should be more of liberalization of certain sectors because of government inefficiency (neo-liberal/neo-conserative here). At least it was highlighted in the Howard years, Labor tends (l use the word tends to in a stereotypical sense) overbloat the public and teaching sectors to generate limited job creation and claim a win.


Very basically our poli's for the last 50 years haven't had the balls to make tough decisions on manufacturing, what and how to invest in industry and job creation and challenge the status quo politically and develop some fiscal responsibility and develop a privitised services that won't drastically increase the cost of living.

 

[Kangaroos4eva]

And this is a wonderful picture of *.

Why fly, when you can drive one of these.

 

[blackshadow]

Why fly, when you can drive one of these.

But beware of these around * and *albert...

 

[Tas]

I couldn't agree more Tas, particularly in terms of the public service, the system is beyond chaotic and in some industries there has been over hiring for pointless positions. We basically need improved fiscal responibility for state and fderal governments on this issue. Having written my honours thesis on the area of defence manufacturing and the bureaucracy over the last 50 years, l can't agree more with your point of lots of money going in, but very little coming out in terms of benefiting the nation, job and economic creation etc. We keep turning to the US and a lesser extent Great Britain for so much of our defence material now, its really scary. You just need to look at the joint strike fighter program, what a **** up () that is atm.

"The government provides a number of 'services' which should be privatised, are not really needed or we can source from overseas for significantly less. We just waste so much money, spending beyond our means. This was highlighted even during the Howard era and nothing was done about it."

Very much so, their should be more of liberalization of certain sectors because of government inefficiency (neo-liberal/neo-conserative here). At least it was highlighted in the Howard years, Labor tends (l use the word tends to in a stereotypical sense) overbloat the public and teaching sectors to generate limited job creation and claim a win.


Very basically our poli's for the last 50 years haven't had the balls to make tough decisions on manufacturing, what and how to invest in industry and job creation and challenge the status quo politically and develop some fiscal responsibility and develop a privitised services that won't drastically increase the cost of living.

I think the government, especially in countries like Australia, should build then privatise. Because due to draconian regulation it is near on impossible to get money from a bank or financial institution without bricks and mortar to secure it.

We have three major cancers of middle australia.

First, negative gearing which has cooked our housing industry so that young people can't afford homes unless they go bush, it has allowed families earning more than enough money that they can invest in multiple properties to reduce their tax burden in exchange for accumulating assets, they are not paying as much tax as they should be paying.

Second, foreign investment, a lot of foreigners buy property and just sit on it and wait for it to appreciate because we have overcooked our property market, but also to an extent allowing foreign nations to purchase up our farmland, they produce products which they sell at next to no 'profit' back to the motherland, so they rape our natural resources, use our water and sell it back to themselves at cost and don't effectively pay any tax worth noticing.

Lastly, Imputation system, in theory avoiding double taxation is a good thing, this has merit when scumbags are actually paying tax. In reality, for the vast majority of significant investors who dodge the **** out of their tax paying duties, it allows them to also minimise any effective taxation that the corporation is paying on income distributed to investors. Companies should pay a fixed amount of tax on their profit and taxpayers should not include this income as assessable income tax from ATO approved corporations like blue chip companies.

This would incentivise those on higher incomes to invest in corporations, rather than destroying the housing industry as a tax dodging mechanism, the government can give this status also to approved new businesses to attract investment from the public.

The government should not allow business losses to carry across into personal income tax, they should just carry forward until the business makes a profit, this will eliminate the types of businesses designed to never make a profit, like asset accumulation businesses.

Government should focus on getting people to pay a reasonable amount of tax, especially from rich campaigners. At present the only Australians paying a fair amount of tax are low income earners because they lack the means to implement tax minimisation/avoidance schemes. The ATO act like complete campaigners to low income earners and let rich campaigners get away with ****ing the nation.

 

[Kangaroos4eva]

I think the government, especially in countries like Australia, should build then privatise. Because due to draconian regulation it is near on impossible to get money from a bank or financial institution without bricks and mortar to secure it.

We have three major cancers of middle australia.

First, negative gearing which has cooked our housing industry so that young people can't afford homes unless they go bush, it has allowed families earning more than enough money that they can invest in multiple properties to reduce their tax burden in exchange for accumulating assets, they are not paying as much tax as they should be paying.

Second, foreign investment, a lot of foreigners buy property and just sit on it and wait for it to appreciate because we have overcooked our property market, but also to an extent allowing foreign nations to purchase up our farmland, they produce products which they sell at next to no 'profit' back to the motherland, so they rape our natural resources, use our water and sell it back to themselves at cost and don't effectively pay any tax worth noticing.

Lastly, Imputation system, in theory avoiding double taxation is a good thing, this has merit when scumbags are actually paying tax. In reality, for the vast majority of significant investors who dodge the **** out of their tax paying duties, it allows them to also minimise any effective taxation that the corporation is paying on income distributed to investors. Companies should pay a fixed amount of tax on their profit and taxpayers should not include this income as assessable income tax from ATO approved corporations like blue chip companies.

This would incentivise those on higher incomes to invest in corporations, rather than destroying the housing industry as a tax dodging mechanism, the government can give this status also to approved new businesses to attract investment from the public.

The government should not allow business losses to carry across into personal income tax, they should just carry forward until the business makes a profit, this will eliminate the types of businesses designed to never make a profit, like asset accumulation businesses.

Government should focus on getting people to pay a reasonable amount of tax, especially from rich campaigners. At present the only Australians paying a fair amount of tax are low income earners because they lack the means to implement tax minimisation/avoidance schemes. The ATO act like complete campaigners to low income earners and let rich campaigners get away with ******* the nation.

You obviously have a deeper understanding of this than l have as l focus on the political and military side of things. I'll leave with comment that Australia still has established an effective dynamic equilibrium between state capitalism and outright economic liberalism. Equality v liberty in an economic and political sense will never be fully addressed in this country.

 

[Kimbo]

The similarity between our two traditional major political parties outlines how farcical Australian politics truly are.

efa

2012 the Labor party did exactly what the Liberals are doing right now. They are all the same and there is not a leader amoung them.

Well, yeah that's one way they're similar. Poll and power driven, not policy driven.

Couldn't agree more. Half the country are so disillusioned with our political system right now because neither of our traditional major party seems fit to run the country

efa

Both traditional major parties are far more interested in political point scoring and one-upping the other in the catchy slogan stakes rather than proposing genuine policy, which is directly down to the nature of the current leaders.

efa

Two issues here. One is the single member electorate system in the lower house which conspires to create a two party only system, or impression of such.

The other is that this impression (there are only two parties) and a lack of awareness of how preferential voting works leads people to vote for one or both major parties ahead of others, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. (People think a vote for a minor party or independent is wasted, when in fact if they don't get in, your vote is then redistributed to candidates still in the running). It counts twice, if anything.

So, for those disillusioned with the two traditional major parties, did you vote for either of them ahead of others? We won't get change until people use the ballot box to show they want something else.

During the Victorian election I was waiting, longing for a political ad that didn't just point the finger at the another party and say hey look how shit they are.

I got it, I went to a local cinema and they screened an ad for with sex party, which actually talked about policy and seemed something that I am really unaccoustomed to... they seemed progressive.

I notice a Sex Party leader (?!) on the box the other day saying that if they could/did re-badge themselves, the name that would fit best would be the liberal party. As in true liberal, not the conservatives dressed as liberals. Greens are also progressive, of course.

 

[Tas]

You obviously have a deeper understanding of this than l have as l focus on the political and military side of things. I'll leave with comment that Australia still has established an effective dynamic equilibrium between state capitalism and outright economic liberalism. Equality v liberty in an economic and political sense will never be fully addressed in this country.

I studied accounting at uni, worked for a large global accounting firm in the private client wealth creation department which made rich people richer, have been contracted to do work for both sides of state and federal governments, contracted to do work for numerous arms of the government at state and federal level for strategic planning and business analysis. My interest is economics and economic systems.

Ideologically speaking I am socialist motivated, however, like Thomas Sowell, once you see and experience how the public service works you can't advocate the system, there are chronic flaws with every attempt to redistribute the decision making and the wealth to the people.

Capitalism puts the decision making into the hands of the competent yet psychologically deranged, there isn't one ridiculously wealthy person (that hasn't inherited that wealth) that is of sound mind.

Systems aren't flawed, it is people that are flawed. We can't get enough good people to make the right decisions for the right reasons, as soon as someone is put into power they go troppo and it is the psychologically deranged that go looking for that power and are addicted to it and they will destroy their lives, their families lives and humanity if given the opportunity to in the search for more power. They are sick people, they need to be in an institutionalised and treated, not running our companies and our governments.

As soon as Bill Gates had the power taken from him he realised what a colossal campaigner he was and now devotes his life to giving away a significant portion of his wealth and to use the rest to try and do some good.

What we need to do as regular joes is to realise anyone we put in power is ****ed before they even get into power, these old farts who have been in politics their whole life are gone, we need to find young people who haven't been exposed that long who are motivated by pushing for political reform and more importantly educating the masses as to what is going on because what people should be concerned about is how many people were conned by the mining industries ad campaign against Labor when they wanted to introduce the mining tax.

Both parties have created this system of scaremongering as a political tool for advantage rather than being honest and looking to educate the public about how things work and why. Despite our national wealth, people are dumber, they don't question authority, they don't educate themselves about politics or economics or finance so when politicians talk it is like the adults talking in the Peanuts comics, nobody knows if someone is full of shit or not and the media has long ago given up being that intermediary which informs the public.

 

[kangaspurs]

efa

Well, yeah that's one way they're similar. Poll and power driven, not policy driven.


efa


efa

Two issues here. One is the single member electorate system in the lower house which conspires to create a two party only system, or impression of such.

The other is that this impression (there are only two parties) and a lack of awareness of how preferential voting works leads people to vote for one or both major parties ahead of others, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. (People think a vote for a minor party or independent is wasted, when in fact if they don't get in, your vote is then redistributed to candidates still in the running). It counts twice, if anything.

So, for those disillusioned with the two traditional major parties, did you vote for either of them ahead of others? We won't get change until people use the ballot box to show they want something else.


I notice a Sex Party leader (?!) on the box the other day saying that if they could/did re-badge themselves, the name that would fit best would be the liberal party. As in true liberal, not the conservatives dressed as liberals. Greens are also progressive, of course.

Completely agree with all of this. As you say, it's down to a lack of awareness and knowledge of the voting system in the electorate. The problem though is that this is unlikely to change anytime soon, the only way it will change is through a thorough education of the people who vote yet the major parties have no interest in providing this education as the current system suits them just fine. Alternatively, the smaller parties are unlikely to have the influence or resources to change the situation as it is.
The media also has a role to play in education yet as has been shown in previous elections a lot of the major publications have some sort of stake in the outcome.

 

[Only Forwards]

Well, yeah that's one way they're similar. Poll and power driven, not policy driven.

To draw a venn diagram of the parties the would only be tiny slivers for where they don't overlap.

No leaders all politicians.

I notice a Sex Party leader (?!) on the box the other day saying that if they could/did re-badge themselves, the name that would fit best would be the liberal party. As in true liberal, not the conservatives dressed as liberals. Greens are also progressive, of course.

I have never really understood how the (more) conservative of the major parties is called liberal. A little counterintuitive that is.

If I was voting for names I would suggest the Progress Party.

 

[blackshadow]

We need to stop corporations dodging their tax paying responsibilities, the government (both have) turned a blind eye to the amount of taxation that companies dodge through tax avoidance schemes. Tax minimisation is legal, tax avoidance is illegal. 61 of our 100 largest companies utilise tax havens and dogge billions of dollars in corporate tax revenue annually.

We do not derive much from the sale of raw minerals, most countries have far more severe mining tax, ours is insufficient and with enough loopholes in the income tax assessment act to allow these rich mining tycoons to pay a very low proportion of their earnings in tax, at least Labor made a ham-fisted attempt to get more money out of these massive tight-arses. These people are so rich they don't know what to do with their own wealth and they begrudge giving anything remotely fair back to the nation.

Outside of our social services system, which is going to get more and more expensive, most arms of the government have become significantly more expensive to do the same job. There is chrnoic waste in our public service, the leadership is abysmal, there is nobody motivated to reduce costs or implement cost savings, if their required budget is lower than their allocated budget then they will spend all of the budget on crap and ask for more money, this is their mindset, because the government will take money away from them and reduce their budget if they don't spend.

It is ineffective having the federal government dictate budget requirements to the arms of the government, they need to hire corporate grade CEOs and give them incentives for increasing productivity, reducing cost, like most successful companies are run. The public service is a bureaucratic nightmare, when you see the kind of money being given to various departments it is mindblowing just how much money they are spending and what little outcomes are being received from that money spent.

The government provides a number of 'services' which should be privatised, are not really needed or we can source from overseas for significantly less. We just waste so much money, spending beyond our means. This was highlighted even during the Howard era and nothing was done about it. Our government bloated during the Labor years in an attempt to prevent the economy going into recession, however, we do not have the means to keep spending beyond our means indefinitely.

Bring back Max Moore-Wilton.

 

[blackshadow]

I think the government, especially in countries like Australia, should build then privatise. Because due to draconian regulation it is near on impossible to get money from a bank or financial institution without bricks and mortar to secure it.

We have three major cancers of middle australia.

First, negative gearing which has cooked our housing industry so that young people can't afford homes unless they go bush, it has allowed families earning more than enough money that they can invest in multiple properties to reduce their tax burden in exchange for accumulating assets, they are not paying as much tax as they should be paying.

Second, foreign investment, a lot of foreigners buy property and just sit on it and wait for it to appreciate because we have overcooked our property market, but also to an extent allowing foreign nations to purchase up our farmland, they produce products which they sell at next to no 'profit' back to the motherland, so they rape our natural resources, use our water and sell it back to themselves at cost and don't effectively pay any tax worth noticing.

Lastly, Imputation system, in theory avoiding double taxation is a good thing, this has merit when scumbags are actually paying tax. In reality, for the vast majority of significant investors who dodge the **** out of their tax paying duties, it allows them to also minimise any effective taxation that the corporation is paying on income distributed to investors. Companies should pay a fixed amount of tax on their profit and taxpayers should not include this income as assessable income tax from ATO approved corporations like blue chip companies.

This would incentivise those on higher incomes to invest in corporations, rather than destroying the housing industry as a tax dodging mechanism, the government can give this status also to approved new businesses to attract investment from the public.

The government should not allow business losses to carry across into personal income tax, they should just carry forward until the business makes a profit, this will eliminate the types of businesses designed to never make a profit, like asset accumulation businesses.

Government should focus on getting people to pay a reasonable amount of tax, especially from rich campaigners. At present the only Australians paying a fair amount of tax are low income earners because they lack the means to implement tax minimisation/avoidance schemes. The ATO act like complete campaigners to low income earners and let rich campaigners get away with ******* the nation.

Strongly agree on all three points.

But will anyone have the political will to do it?

 

[Jay-Z]

Two issues here. One is the single member electorate system in the lower house which conspires to create a two party only system, or impression of such.

The other is that this impression (there are only two parties) and a lack of awareness of how preferential voting works leads people to vote for one or both major parties ahead of others, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. (People think a vote for a minor party or independent is wasted, when in fact if they don't get in, your vote is then redistributed to candidates still in the running). It counts twice, if anything.

So, for those disillusioned with the two traditional major parties, did you vote for either of them ahead of others? We won't get change until people use the ballot box to show they want something else.

I largely agree with what you've said. It is a big problem that a lot of voters don't know how to vote properly and aren't given any education on it. For example, this year at the state election the person who handed me my forms actually told me "don't worry about the stuff below the line, just put a 1 somewhere above the line" - I mean What The Actual F***? If that is the advice you're giving prospective voters you have no place doing that job

For the last few elections the Sex Party have been getting my number 1 preference because they are actually one of the few talking about policies and making some sense.

 

[Kangaroos4eva]

To draw a venn diagram of the parties the would only be tiny slivers for where they don't overlap.

No leaders all politicians.



I have never really understood how the (more) conservative of the major parties is called liberal. A little counterintuitive that is.

If I was voting for names I would suggest the Progress Party.

Because Robert Menzies created the party and instilled liberal rather purely conservative values in the party. Fraser changed it too more of a Conservative party. The two main factions in the party are the conservatives led by Abbott who are in the majority and turnbull leads the liberal faction.

 

[Kimbo]

To draw a venn diagram of the parties the would only be tiny slivers for where they don't overlap. No leaders all politicians.

One reason I like the term Laboreal. They talk up differences in election mode, but differences are at the margin.

I have never really understood how the (more) conservative of the major parties is called liberal. A little counterintuitive that is.

Call them Tories and be done with it.

 

[Jay-Z]

Because Robert Menzies created the party and instilled liberal rather purely conservative values in the party. Fraser changed it too more of a Conservative party. The two main factions in the party are the conservatives led by Abbott who are in the majority and turnbull leads the liberal faction.

Can we replace Tony's faction with this one?