Opinion Domestic Politics BF style

[Lawnchair Larry]

I'm not totally against selective privatisation (eg Qantas), even if that is a poor outcome.
What I am against is the privatisation of utilities.
The provision of energy, in particular, rattles my cage.
It's a dog's dinner and coordinating that industry for the benefit of the populace must be like herding cats.
We have:
a. Raw energy suppliers eg Santos
b. Raw energy suppliers who market to residents eg Alinta, AGL
c. Middle men who buy energy and on-sell to residents
d. Companies who own poles and wires eg SA Power Networks
e. Supply of gas vs supply of electricity to residences

If there are more options or I have misrepresented the maelstrom of confusion then please feel free to correct.

Coupled with all of this is a lingering perception (unproven) that traditional energy sources are in a death spiral, and that companies are wringing all they can from the decaying carcass before its final demise to dust.

The government can place a cap on gas prices all they like (which I believe flows through to energy generation using coal), and you can try your hardest to limit usage, only to find that you butt up against the formidable supply charge.

Admittedly this is somewhat aged data from 2020-2021, but it gives the flavour of how energy is broken down by state. It depicts the state of the electricity market (NEM; National Electricity Market- Eastern States, Tasmania). The network costs dominate, particularly so in SA.
It's about time someone investigated network costs in detail to assess whether this is a rort.

I also took a look at the spot price of LNG, Asia to see what it is doing. Prices have tumbled (US $; 1mmBTU = 1.055GJ), but what I have read suggests that in the period of highly elevated prices companies contracted up in fear that prices would rise even further. We are paying for that now, but I must say it was potentially a lose-lose situation. Not doing so would have been criticised if prices rose further, while doing so with diminishing prices has generated the current situation.

 

[edgie]

.

Back in past eras such as the 1930s depression, people would hunt and fish during tough times. Now we're slaves to supermarket chain price gauging.

Watching some Australian history on the ABC, people in the late 40s and 50s would literally build their own houses with generic building plans provided by architects.

Times have changed a lot.

Been watching that myself, nothing I didn't already know, but yeah fascinating nonetheless. Gone are the days when everyday men and women, mums and dads, etc, could just knock up their own perfectly compliant house or extensions over a few weekends, and sadly. My great grandparents built their house with their own hands in the 40s. Neither was a builder.

 

[edgie]

We are still in the very early days of post covid fallout.

 

[Chewy316]

HECS debt went up by 7.1% literally two days ago m8

Yes - indexed to inflation, not the addition of interest.

The entire purpose of indexing HECS to inflation is so it ensures the government is getting back the exact value dollar for dollar that they are loaning you when you are undertaking some form of tertiary education. Inflation has been barely 3% the last decade year on year which has meant people's HECS debts have gone up bugger all in that time. It is only now that inflation has skyrocketed that HECS debt has suddenly become another area for people to gripe upon.

The indexation is not going to make it any more difficult for anyone in terms of keeping up with their cost of living. The repayments on HECS debt are not tied to a set repayment but is rather a percentage of income once you hit the threshold (a little over 48k this FY increasing to over 51k for 23/24 FY) so the indexation isn't going to affect anyone's cost of living issues right now. There's no time limit on which the debt has to be repaid - only the requirement that you're paying the bare minimum based on your taxable income - and if you die before the debt is paid, it is cancelled and doesn't become someone else's problem. I can't think of another debt in the world that has such favourable repayment conditions and stipulations surrounding its cancellation upon death.

HECS is an extremely valuable tool for anyone to properly leverage their strengths into a tertiary education that will significantly increase their income going forward. The two biggest issues I would suggest surrounding HECS and tertiary education is 1) the indexation shouldn't be back dated if voluntary repayments have been made whilst not fully paying the debt off. And 2) being that there are a whole bunch of essentially pointless and wasteful university degrees out there which offer little to no employment pathways and are simply a great way for people to accrue debt with nothing to show for it all the while lining the universities' coffers. But I also would think that the responsibility lies with the individual to ensure what they are enrolling and subsequently studying is going to help them down the line as opposed to going in with blind faith and hoping it gets them future opportunities.

 

[sobrave]

Yes - indexed to inflation, not the addition of interest.

The entire purpose of indexing HECS to inflation is so it ensures the government is getting back the exact value dollar for dollar that they are loaning you when you are undertaking some form of tertiary education. Inflation has been barely 3% the last decade year on year which has meant people's HECS debts have gone up bugger all in that time. It is only now that inflation has skyrocketed that HECS debt has suddenly become another area for people to gripe upon.

The indexation is not going to make it any more difficult for anyone in terms of keeping up with their cost of living. The repayments on HECS debt are not tied to a set repayment but is rather a percentage of income once you hit the threshold (a little over 48k this FY increasing to over 51k for 23/24 FY) so the indexation isn't going to affect anyone's cost of living issues right now. There's no time limit on which the debt has to be repaid - only the requirement that you're paying the bare minimum based on your taxable income - and if you die before the debt is paid, it is cancelled and doesn't become someone else's problem. I can't think of another debt in the world that has such favourable repayment conditions and stipulations surrounding its cancellation upon death.

HECS is an extremely valuable tool for anyone to properly leverage their strengths into a tertiary education that will significantly increase their income going forward. The two biggest issues I would suggest surrounding HECS and tertiary education is 1) the indexation shouldn't be back dated if voluntary repayments have been made whilst not fully paying the debt off. And 2) being that there are a whole bunch of essentially pointless and wasteful university degrees out there which offer little to no employment pathways and are simply a great way for people to accrue debt with nothing to show for it all the while lining the universities' coffers. But I also would think that the responsibility lies with the individual to ensure what they are enrolling and subsequently studying is going to help them down the line as opposed to going in with blind faith and hoping it gets them future opportunities.

Who makes the judgement on what's a useless degree? You? Just because someone doesn't parlay their degree into a high paying job doesn't mean it's a waste FFS. Maybe it improved them as a person? Maybe they have other benefits to society other than paying off their debt faster.

3% indexation still hurts anyway, when you're just over the threshold to make repayments, so you're losing income, meanwhile you're hardly making a dent in the overall debt.

A modern society should value an educated populace and fund it accordingly. Instead we have a race to the bottom where the right decides that their best bet to stay in power is to make poor people as dumb as possible so they can be manipulated easier.

But yay, when you die the debt disappears! What a fantastic system.

 

[sobrave]

HECS debt went up by 7.1% literally two days ago m8

No schonzenfoost, that's indexation, its different from interest because it's tied inflation unlike interest rates which are completely separate and not linked to inflation in any way at all. I am very intelligent.

 

[Chewy316]

Who makes the judgement on what's a useless degree? You? Just because someone doesn't parlay their degree into a high paying job doesn't mean it's a waste FFS. Maybe it improved them as a person? Maybe they have other benefits to society other than paying off their debt faster.

3% indexation still hurts anyway, when you're just over the threshold to make repayments, so you're losing income, meanwhile you're hardly making a dent in the overall debt.

A modern society should value an educated populace and fund it accordingly. Instead we have a race to the bottom where the right decides that their best bet to stay in power is to make poor people as dumb as possible so they can be manipulated easier.

But yay, when you die the debt disappears! What a fantastic system.

The government funds tertiary education because of the economic productivity it provides by giving people a leg up to gain employment. To fund it at the same levels seen with primary and secondary schooling is simply not economically sustainable - and is why the HECS system came about in the first place. It's not a perfect system but the HECS-HELP system is far better than an alternative in which instead of having the government subsidise the fee with a repayments system that favours the individual, the individual could have to pay full fee and be beholden to a bank having taken a loan out to pay for the education in the first place. Then you'd be forking out regular repayments which would affect your cost of living far more than the current system. Easy to say you want things better, absurd to think that the current system isn't better than many alternatives.

If you really think that the government should be funding tertiary education on the basis that it "improved (sic) them as a person" then you could equally make the argument that funding should then go to everyone attending the next Tony Robbins seminar. It's a slippery slope and a line has to be drawn somewhere.

The government does value an educated populace - it's why the HECS system is in place. Just because it isn't free at the tertiary level doesn't mean it isn't valued. If you think that the HECS system is designed to stop you personally from getting an education and/or is going to hinder you financially after you've obtained said education you have rocks in your head.

 

[sobrave]

The government funds tertiary education because of the economic productivity it provides by giving people a leg up to gain employment. To fund it at the same levels seen with primary and secondary schooling is simply not economically sustainable - and is why the HECS system came about in the first place. It's not a perfect system but the HECS-HELP system is far better than an alternative in which instead of having the government subsidise the fee with a repayments system that favours the individual, the individual could have to pay full fee and be beholden to a bank having taken a loan out to pay for the education in the first place. Then you'd be forking out regular repayments which would affect your cost of living far more than the current system. Easy to say you want things better, absurd to think that the current system isn't better than many alternatives.

If you really think that the government should be funding tertiary education on the basis that it "improved (sic) them as a person" then you could equally make the argument that funding should then go to everyone attending the next Tony Robbins seminar. It's a slippery slope and a line has to be drawn somewhere.

The government does value an educated populace - it's why the HECS system is in place. Just because it isn't free at the tertiary level doesn't mean it isn't valued. If you think that the HECS system is designed to stop you personally from getting an education and/or is going to hinder you financially after you've obtained said education you have rocks in your head.

Yes, a university education is the same as a tony Robbins seminar.

Uni is now basically for the wealthy.

 

[Pt Augusta Power]

Yes - indexed to inflation, not the addition of interest.

The entire purpose of indexing HECS to inflation is so it ensures the government is getting back the exact value dollar for dollar that they are loaning you when you are undertaking some form of tertiary education. Inflation has been barely 3% the last decade year on year which has meant people's HECS debts have gone up bugger all in that time. It is only now that inflation has skyrocketed that HECS debt has suddenly become another area for people to gripe upon.

The indexation is not going to make it any more difficult for anyone in terms of keeping up with their cost of living. The repayments on HECS debt are not tied to a set repayment but is rather a percentage of income once you hit the threshold (a little over 48k this FY increasing to over 51k for 23/24 FY) so the indexation isn't going to affect anyone's cost of living issues right now. There's no time limit on which the debt has to be repaid - only the requirement that you're paying the bare minimum based on your taxable income - and if you die before the debt is paid, it is cancelled and doesn't become someone else's problem. I can't think of another debt in the world that has such favourable repayment conditions and stipulations surrounding its cancellation upon death.

HECS is an extremely valuable tool for anyone to properly leverage their strengths into a tertiary education that will significantly increase their income going forward. The two biggest issues I would suggest surrounding HECS and tertiary education is 1) the indexation shouldn't be back dated if voluntary repayments have been made whilst not fully paying the debt off. And 2) being that there are a whole bunch of essentially pointless and wasteful university degrees out there which offer little to no employment pathways and are simply a great way for people to accrue debt with nothing to show for it all the while lining the universities' coffers. But I also would think that the responsibility lies with the individual to ensure what they are enrolling and subsequently studying is going to help them down the line as opposed to going in with blind faith and hoping it gets them future opportunities.

What about nurses and teachers who get paid poorly (nurses especially). Not a high earning profession but not a useless degree that costs them tens of thousands of dollars. Absolutely essential qualifications and they have been completely screwed over by politicians who got their higher ed for zero cost.

 

[Pt Augusta Power]

Yes, a university education is the same as a tony Robbins seminar.

Uni is now basically for the wealthy.

We have governments both labour and liberal, who would rather a dumb/docile society than an educated one.

 

[Chewy316]

What about nurses and teachers who get paid poorly (nurses especially). Not a high earning profession but not a useless degree that costs them tens of thousands of dollars. Absolutely essential qualifications and they have been completely screwed over by politicians who got their higher ed for zero cost.

The average salary for an RN in South Australia is about 80k/year. A quick google search has some nursing degrees in Australia which qualify the person to enrol as an RN cost a little over 4k/year in HECS fees - hardly a bad investment relative to the outcome.

It sounds as though you believe tertiary education should be free and paid solely by the government. How would you suggest they even realistically fund such a scheme? It was free until they couldn't afford it to be free anymore because participation rates went through the roof and it was no longer economically viable. I don't see how you can fund free tertiary education when you've got a healthcare system that's ****ed and an NDIS system which is quickly becoming a bottomless money pit?

 

[Schulzenfest]

The average salary for an RN in South Australia is about 80k/year. A quick google search has some nursing degrees in Australia which qualify the person to enrol as an RN cost a little over 4k/year in HECS fees - hardly a bad investment relative to the outcome.

It sounds as though you believe tertiary education should be free and paid solely by the government. How would you suggest they even realistically fund such a scheme? It was free until they couldn't afford it to be free anymore because participation rates went through the roof and it was no longer economically viable. I don't see how you can fund free tertiary education when you've got a healthcare system that's ****ed and an NDIS system which is quickly becoming a bottomless money pit?

Maybe all the boomer politicians who received a free tertiary education in the 70's and 80's ago and have since spent the last decades fighting against the right for anybody else to have the same advantage that they had could retrospectively pay back the government for their own educations?

 

[Jimmy95]

Maybe all the boomer politicians who received a free tertiary education in the 70's and 80's ago and have since spent the last decades fighting against the right for anybody else to have the same advantage that they had could retrospectively pay back the government for their own educations?

When university education was free, the standards to be accepted were much higher than today's standards. Today's standards pretty much anyone who wants to attend university can but it's expensive.

Acceptance standards to get a free university education in the military are much higher.

Plenty of people in the USA need to work part time jobs to pay off their college fees as they go.

 

[Pt Augusta Power]

The average salary for an RN in South Australia is about 80k/year. A quick google search has some nursing degrees in Australia which qualify the person to enrol as an RN cost a little over 4k/year in HECS fees - hardly a bad investment relative to the outcome.

It sounds as though you believe tertiary education should be free and paid solely by the government. How would you suggest they even realistically fund such a scheme? It was free until they couldn't afford it to be free anymore because participation rates went through the roof and it was no longer economically viable. I don't see how you can fund free tertiary education when you've got a healthcare system that's ****ed and an NDIS system which is quickly becoming a bottomless money pit?

Haha - did I say it should be free???

If I were to find money to make education free then I’d scrap the bottomless money pit of the submarines before I gut the NDIS though.

 

[Chewy316]

Haha - did I say it should be free???

Not explicitly, no.
So how would you improve or change the HECS system?

 

[Pt Augusta Power]

Maybe all the boomer politicians who received a free tertiary education in the 70's and 80's ago and have since spent the last decades fighting against the right for anybody else to have the same advantage that they had could retrospectively pay back the government for their own educations?

Or maybe not just the boomer politicians - maybe all boomers who benefited from free s**t should start to pay it back retrospectively haha

 

[Pt Augusta Power]

Not explicitly, no.
So how would you improve or change the HECS system?

Cut the indexation or cap the indexation.

Raise the rate that the minimum repayments start

Incentives for early or extra repayments

Cap the amount that can be accrued as debt so that someone would need to repay before the started to accumulate further debt.

 

[Andre]

Maybe all the boomer politicians who received a free tertiary education in the 70's and 80's ago and have since spent the last decades fighting against the right for anybody else to have the same advantage that they had could retrospectively pay back the government for their own educations?

These ones always sound nice, but numbers make it a meaningless gesture if it was done. It worked back then for free as Uni was not attended at such a high rate. If they capped Uni numbers to smaller amount, it was back then, it could be free, but few would go for that. The situation is far from perfect, but if spending on Uni, then what other big cost expense, like NDIS, Medicare or other education does it come from?

 

[Jimmy95]

The NDIS is a great idea but unfortunately it's being rorted to the max and is not sustainable until the rorting stops.

When there's easy government money available, unfortunately it will he rorted, classic example was Jobkeeper. Businesses that didn't need it or qualify for it got it anyway because they just lied about their turnover and it was never checked.

NDIS is being rorted now and i assume it will soon be overhauled to make it sustainable.

Money brings out the worst in people.

 

[sobrave]

These ones always sound nice, but numbers make it a meaningless gesture if it was done. It worked back then for free as Uni was not attended at such a high rate. If they capped Uni numbers to smaller amount, it was back then, it could be free, but few would go for that. The situation is far from perfect, but if spending on Uni, then what other big cost expense, like NDIS, Medicare or other education does it come from?

trillion dollar submarines?

get rid of tax rorts for the wealthy? scrap negative gearing? make corporations pay tax? charge fossil fuel companies for extracting instead of handing them cash?

i dunno, there's just no options other than cutting healthcare?

 

[sobrave]

Stop wasting money pork barrelling marginal seats?

Make effective policy decisions based on expert advice, instead of appealing to the lowest common denominator?

 

[Chewy316]

Cut the indexation or cap the indexation.

Raise the rate that the minimum repayments start

Incentives for early or extra repayments

Cap the amount that can be accrued as debt so that someone would need to repay before the started to accumulate further debt.

Cap indexation to what? Capping it to inflation has worked because inflation the last decade has essentially been 2% or less. If you scrap indexation completely you're then left with a scenario in which there is no incentive for anyone to pay their HECS debt off. The longer it takes to pay off in that scenario the less that actual debt is worth. Great for the individual, sure. Not so much the lender.

What would you raise the income level to which repayments start? Next financial year the minimum is around 51k and the actual repayment rate at that level is 1%. I personally don't see that as being unreasonable.

They had incentives for early repayments previously. Got abolished at the start of this calendar year IIRC.

With regards to your last point, for my clarification, are you implying that someone shouldn't be allowed to accrue further HECS debt unless their current HECS debt is under a particular threshold? If so, that seems a fairly reasonable implementation. Some pitfalls there however would be a scenario in which someone is wanting to change careers - in which case you're adding a further burden to achieve that. I do think there is merit to this and there would be a happy medium that could be found.

 

[Pt Augusta Power]

Cap indexation to what? Capping it to inflation has worked because inflation the last decade has essentially been 2% or less. If you scrap indexation completely you're then left with a scenario in which there is no incentive for anyone to pay their HECS debt off. The longer it takes to pay off in that scenario the less that actual debt is worth. Great for the individual, sure. Not so much the lender.

What would you raise the income level to which repayments start? Next financial year the minimum is around 51k and the actual repayment rate at that level is 1%. I personally don't see that as being unreasonable.

They had incentives for early repayments previously. Got abolished at the start of this calendar year IIRC.

With regards to your last point, for my clarification, are you implying that someone shouldn't be allowed to accrue further HECS debt unless their current HECS debt is under a particular threshold? If so, that seems a fairly reasonable implementation. Some pitfalls there however would be a scenario in which someone is wanting to change careers - in which case you're adding a further burden to achieve that. I do think there is merit to this and there would be a happy medium that could be found.

You and I clearly see eduction in a different light.

I don’t see that there should be any incentive for the ‘lender’ other than to support someone to get a good education regardless of their social/economic background - without the fear of crippling further debt.

No $51k is not reasonable in the current economic climate - rent, bills, petrol.

You shouldn’t have to be born to wealthy parent in order to gain an education and then hold an ongoing snowball of debt. And there are so many other ways to save $ to support this other than going for the ndis. Maybe try franking credits or submarines.

 

[Pt Augusta Power]

The NDIS is a great idea but unfortunately it's being rorted to the max and is not sustainable until the rorting stops.

When there's easy government money available, unfortunately it will he rorted, classic example was Jobkeeper. Businesses that didn't need it or qualify for it got it anyway because they just lied about their turnover and it was never checked.

NDIS is being rorted now and i assume it will soon be overhauled to make it sustainable.

Money brings out the worst in people.

Of course you mean NDIS is being rorted primarily by the businesses right?

 

[TazD]

Of course you mean NDIS is being rorted primarily by the businesses right?

Preposterous. Business would never. Its clearly being rorted by the Johnny No Legs and Lobotomised Lizzys of the country. I bet they're foreign too.