This morning I caught the end of a press conference where two ministers of the crown were in full melt-down. David Bradbury and Craig Emerson were falling over themselves to condemn the Liberal Party’s North Australia thought bubble. Unfortunately I can’t find a transcript.
As best I can work out from Bradbury and Emerson’s comments the North Australia proposal means that millions of low-wage migrants will be coming to Australia to take the jobs of western Sydney-siders who don’t currently live in northern Australia and who don’t want to live there anyway. I also gather the federal public service – who all seem to live in the western suburbs of Sydney – are all going to get sacked. But their jobs will be moved to northern Australia. It was that incoherent.
They kept emphasising that jobs would be relocated across the continent and people given Hobson’s choice; take a job in north Australia or lose your job.
I had the mental image of the defence force rounding up Sydney-siders and relocating them to the north. What rubbish. Both Bradbury and Emerson should be ashamed of themselves.
But what of the idea of decentralising government services? I recall that the previous Victorian Labor government did that. This is how The Age reported the move.
THE Transport Accident Commission is set to pay millions of dollars to entice its workers to move to Geelong, following a widely resisted State Government decision to relocate the company’s Melbourne headquarters.
TAC Minister John Lenders announced the week before Christmas that the commission, which has about 650 staff, would be moved to Geelong by 2009.
The move was branded a vote-buying exercise and angered TAC workers, many of whom said it would not be feasible for them to relocate. But The Age believes that in a deal to be put to workers tomorrow, employees who agree to the move will be offered $30,000 towards a new home. Stamp duty and legal fees will be paid, together with expenses such as school books and uniforms for families with children.
About half of the Transport Accident Commission’s 700 employees quit their positions as a result of the State Government’s controversial decision to relocate the TAC head office from the Melbourne CBD to Geelong.
But the organisation says the office relocation – the biggest ever undertaken by a Victorian government organisation – has been a success, with 161 employees buying homes in the Barwon area, and another 32 people looking to buy, now that the new Brougham Street office is open.
Far the best way to slim a government department is to move it to a “regional” location other than Canberra. There’s a lesson here that I hope Abbot heeds, (but I’ll bet he wont).
Bill
7 Feb 13 at 1:58 pm
Bradbury has lost the plot and gone totally off the reservation.
I saw snippets of him this morning and also last Friday night on Lateline.
Despite Alberscreechy constantly trying to send Pyne to the neutral corner every time he put Bradbury on the canvas, Pyne still landed plenty.
Bradbury totally lost it, not helped by Pyne’s cheesy grin once he knew Bradbury was on a leash.
Bradbury is sitting on a margin of 1-2% in his electorate and looks awfully like a man who has seen some Armaggedon polling numbers from his seat.
Leigh Lowe
7 Feb 13 at 2:01 pm
Christopher Pyne bashed Bradbury to within an inch of his life on Lateline last Friday.
C.L.
7 Feb 13 at 2:06 pm
LOL – they’re terrified aborigines will get jobs and off handouts…
ar
7 Feb 13 at 2:06 pm
Tony Abbott’s opening up the North could be quite an achievement. I hope they get more details out there really soon and announce it publicly.
An election winner.
In my opinion, this is far better for Australia than an NDIS, if comparing big policies.
candy
7 Feb 13 at 2:14 pm
I predict Bradbury, Emmo the Emo and the Lying Slapper will feature prominently in coalition election advertisements
JamesK
7 Feb 13 at 2:18 pm
I am sure that with minimum govt,interference,theremoval of ALL alp and green laws stifling freedom ,and redirecting ALL foreign aid to the project it will work relly well.As for moving the p.s. people ,I suggest Privatising as much govt , tasks would be a Huge Bonus,and eliminate massive super and pension payments .Having done that start on govts,and pollies .eliminate All but 1federal(now National) assembly of members elected for 4years,then not allowed te serve again for 30years.ALL legislation Must be approved by a National Referenda,voluntary voting,no preferential voting,All candidates stand in round 1two with highest number of votes contest round two.Recipe for a modern politicians Worst Nightmare is it not?
Borisgodunov
7 Feb 13 at 2:21 pm
Compare also with the mother of all white elephant, th NBN.
How interesting. This government’s policy decisions which lead to the immigration being subcontracted to organised criminals has resulted in:
The only difference I see is this government is settling their migrants in Western Sydney.
Token
7 Feb 13 at 2:22 pm
Sounds just like all the bleating when the commonwealth public service was moved from Melbourne to Canberra.
Drawing on that theme, why don’t we move the Parliament first.
Mother Hubbard's Dog
7 Feb 13 at 2:25 pm
Bob Carr is now in on this act on Twitter aksing people to signe an ALP petition which I presume auto emails Tony Abbott to complain about “forced” job moves etc etc etc.
Micamaleous
7 Feb 13 at 2:27 pm
Hmm, the UK Guardian has flagged a proposal for local communities to start using local currencies for their transactions rather than the fast becoming worthless national currencies.
If ALP policy is to centralise Australia’s population into the urban centres by destocking regional Australia, then I can see how the flagging of the Gina Reinhardt proposal might cause “difficulties” for the ALP.
The last thing they want is policies that focus on decentralisation, which is totally against the policy set by Agenda 21 that aims at “sustainable” policies, whatever this moronoic term could mean. I assume that the ALP and its global peers are looking at concentrating humanity in large urban centres so they and their sustainable minions can observe the natives in their ecologically sustainable subsistence existence. Think of the sustainable tours that could be organised – photo shoots, or for those concerned with sustainability, culling tours.
I woudl cry to if my sustainable utopia was being threatened by the Abbott, Abbott, Abbott.
link to the Guardian thought bubble here
Louis Hissink
7 Feb 13 at 2:30 pm
This place is quite suitable for resettlement:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heard_Island
They can be connected by internet and with global warming the climate will be balmy with inexpensive energy costs.
sabena
7 Feb 13 at 2:36 pm
Can we move the public servants further north? Indonesia or PNG would be good.
Eyrie
7 Feb 13 at 2:37 pm
In a decidedly second- (or third- or fourth- or fifth-?) best world replete with statism, it seems to me that low-taxing localities are perfectly fine. After all classical liberals do commonly defend tax havens and radically decentralised (but small) government as ways of bringing leviathan to account, at least to some extent.
I also think that the argument favouring low-taxing economic zones in a statist world outweighs the conventional economic aversion to exceptions (as mentioned by Adam Creighton in a thoughtful piece about Gina Rinehart’s economics, published in The Australian last year).
The late, great British liberal Arthur Seldon nominated a few ways in which individuals can escape overbearing governments. I don’t have the relevant book on me, but I wonder if he ever did refer to low-taxing economic zones (e.g. Hong Kong) as one way in which to escape over-government?
Julie Novak
7 Feb 13 at 2:39 pm
Had to laugh about the news headlines: “Australian sports day of shame”.
Apparently some Federal Government commissioned report has just been released giving the “shock, horror” news that there are drugs being used in sport.
Drugs and cheating are bad in sport, but how hypocritical is it for the A.L.P. Federal Government, which lied and cheated its way onto the Government benches, to be pointing the finger of blame at Australia’s sportsmen and women and saying that “YOU LOT are all disgraceful cheats”. I’ll bet none of our sportsman are on pay-packets anyway near as lucrative, or as UNEARNED as crooked A.L.P. politicians are.
For the A.L.P., which lied its way to office with the promise: “There will be no carbon tax under the Government I lead”, to point the finger of blame at somebody ELSE, is like an axe murderer calling for the cops when somebody moved their Monopoly token one spot further on the board than the dice provided.
Up The Workers!
7 Feb 13 at 2:42 pm
to Port Hedland, and trim the number of Centrelink offices down to one, and put it in Katherine.
Keith
7 Feb 13 at 2:44 pm
A brilliant idea,start by cleaning out Canberra and then relocate the Army from Holsworthy to NW Western Australia and Darwin.Apart from having the Army conveniently located closer to potential troublemakers it would free up the 18000 hectares of land they currently occupy and provide an ideal location for a 24 hour airport.
Lew
7 Feb 13 at 2:47 pm
And if anyone is interested, the Developing Northern Australia Plan is here, all three pages of it. Strategically for long term development and defence, it has merit…which is why I believe Labor is doing a St Vitas dance over it.
Gab
7 Feb 13 at 2:52 pm
I’m trying to work out the coalition plan with this. Was it intended as a damaging leak by Turnbull camp, or was it an intentional leak to see how it flew with the public?
I lean towards the latter. Nobody cares what a bunch of hypocritical ALP talking heads say. And the libs have flushed out if they have a coherent argument against the plan, which they don’t. Note they went for the jobs / relocations angle rather than the OMG you can’t build dams argument, which is telling in itself.
Special economics zones have always been my personal platform, along with free trade in motor vehicles in this country.
brc
7 Feb 13 at 3:13 pm
I’ve got my own plan.
Abbot should rule the NT as a personal fiefdom with no income, payroll, royalties or stamp duties taxes, just GST and land rates and with reference to rational military policy, build more bases there and virtually eliminate the environmental planning process along with business licensing such as casinos, petroleum development and the building of dams. he should continue the intervention but treat Aborigines exactly the same as everyone else. That just means more AFP officers on the ground acting as peace officers in a frontier region.
.
7 Feb 13 at 3:14 pm
And if anyone is interested, the Developing Northern Australia Plan is
It is not a plan it is a set of cliff notes. You couldn’t start a small business with a document like that. It isn’t even a discussion paper because such documents should contain data and argument. Sad to think about pollies have descended to such levels. I’ve been involved in business start ups, read many business plans, and the simple truth is that it is often hard work involving lots of research and thinking to develop a sound plan.
For example, a few months ago I was invited to be involved in a not- for-profit start up to help people with anxiety problems. The chap who started it, a 22 year old Seattle resident currently studying business at Uni, has given presentations with excellent detail, forward projections, and cash flows projections. Just yesterday I learned he has already secured a big dollop of money. He did all that while working part-time, studying full time, and undergoing two surgeries! So if a 22 year old student can do so much I am at loss to understand why our politicians are so friggin lazy they would regard a set of cliff notes as a discussion paper.
The idea for northern Australia is good, it has merit, but inviting comment on set of cliff notes that barely gets beyond some blog posts in terms of depth and analysis is a poor reflection on policy development.
John H.
7 Feb 13 at 3:19 pm
Bugger gay marraige and the Republic, we should be having a conversation about creating a new state in Nth Qld. Everything north and west of Sarina with the capital in Townsville.
The Poms had no trouble relocating civil servants to the far flung reaches of the empire so why would we? Better to be living in a tropical paradise than freezing your arse off in a bedsit in Footscray of Blacktown.
Splatacrobat
7 Feb 13 at 3:20 pm
I just read the paper. I cannot find a thing wrong with it, apart from a reference to the stupid direct action plan. If Hydro is good for power, build it for that reason, not to appease the sky gods.
brc
7 Feb 13 at 3:21 pm
I suspect at this stage that was all it was supposed to be.
Not a bad set of cliff notes to get discussion started though. More than that is a waste of effort at this point.
DriftForge
7 Feb 13 at 3:23 pm
Australia’s version of Texas Dot?
I find it strange that any political party will just outright dismiss any proposal to open up a part of the country to economic development because it gets a bit hot up there in the north.
With climate change making things irreversibly hot, we may as well populate the region to make an army of super beings able to handle the climate of the future.
Dan
7 Feb 13 at 3:28 pm
Not a bad set of cliff notes to get discussion started though. More than that is a waste of effort at this point.
It is a strategic error DF because it the lack of detail invites all manner of criticism. Crikey, we’re talking about the largest development plan ever imagined for this country, you’d think that before they released anything the document should have been fleshed out, if only to demonstrate that they had put a lot of thought into this, had accumulated the relevant data for consideration.
There is an old saying: New ideas are like seedlings, easily trampled upon. So if you are presenting a radical vision for consideration you’d better have your shit together.
John H.
7 Feb 13 at 3:30 pm
What the ALP and Greens are afraid of is losing their constituency and relevance with those locked into government subsistence.
In this day and age of internet communications, call centres and ease of travel there should be no arguement for not spreading PS job opportunities across regions.
The other policy all immigrants should be placed in regional areas first for a minimum period before they can relocate to a major city. If you have no recognised qualifications or English skills then being sent to Mildura or Gayndah fruit picking should not be sniffed at. We do this to Teacher grads and new Police Officers why not welfare, unemployed and unskilled migrants (illegal or otherwise). I didn’t hurt the thousands of Italian cane cutters in the 30′s.
Splatacrobat
7 Feb 13 at 3:40 pm
The difference is that you can expect the Coalition to implement the policy in a sensible fashion, whilst the ALP will cock up what ever they touch.
Rococo Liberal
7 Feb 13 at 3:40 pm
Under s.51(ii) and s.99 of the Constitution, the Commonwealth can’t discriminate between States or parts of States in tax policy. But it CAN discriminate between Territories or parts of Territories, or between States and Territories.
So the Libs wouldn’t be able to grant tax concessions to Cairns (Qld) or Karratha (WA). But they WOULD be able to grant tax concessions to the entire Northern Territory or any part thereof. Better still, they could impose a completely different tax regime on the NT, not only with a view to encouraging development in the NT, but also with a view to using the NT as a proving ground for their most radical tax policies, in order to discredit the scare campaigns that would otherwise stop those policies from being introduced across the country.
Gavin R Putland
7 Feb 13 at 3:43 pm
If Craig Emerson, David Bradbury, Julia Gillard and Ross Gittens are against it, the idea really must have merit!
Skuter
7 Feb 13 at 3:45 pm
Emmo would not feature in the ads. He has the face of a smacked arse.
Andrew
7 Feb 13 at 3:49 pm
I know a number of people of various ages working either in western Queensland or northern WA that are from either the Western Districts or Riverina. If they are going to pay fewer taxes in future well good luck to them.
dover_beach
7 Feb 13 at 3:49 pm
Gavin
Aren’t you forgetting about the Zone rebates in the income tax legislation?
It is clearly possible to introduce tax rebates for residing in remote areas.
Rococo Liberal
7 Feb 13 at 3:50 pm
So… potentially three northern ‘territories’ across the top as part of the process would enable this plan..
DriftForge
7 Feb 13 at 3:51 pm
Indeed ar ….. it strikes me that if Abbott included an Indigenous Traineeship program as part of his policy, Emmo and the High-per-bowl prone Bradbury would be snookered.
Also, for homework, could you define the difference between a “Federal Public Service Job” and a “handout”.
Leigh Lowe
7 Feb 13 at 3:51 pm
And the reverse of this they could penalise all those living in the ACT by raising taxes and removing any tax concessions making it so prohibitively expensive they would all be leaving in boats and making the hazardous journey across the Molonglo River to NSW.
Of course Barry O’Farrell would be quite entitled to tow them back when safe to do so.
Splatacrobat
7 Feb 13 at 3:51 pm
Sounds like it was a pretty expensive move. Those who quit and didn’t move to another government department got redundancy payments (2 weeks per year of service). And who tends to opt for redundancy payments? Those who can get jobs elsewhere, those who don’t think they can stick around.
Those that did move got large payments and stamp duty offsets. And the hired new people locally to replace those who didn’t. So they moved the office and perhaps got some political advantage by providing jobs to a regional area, but ended up with the people in the organisation who couldn’t get jobs elsewhere and people who are new and inexperienced. I hope the saved a *lot* of money on office space costs to offset all of that.
Chris
7 Feb 13 at 3:55 pm
Fair call that.
But.. this is politics too. A simple piece of gamesmanship has redefined the whole election.
Who has the biggest vision for tomorrow now? Are Labor going to be wedged as ‘Ms Negativity’ now?
DriftForge
7 Feb 13 at 3:55 pm
He’s tied up at the moment trying to find ways to limit free speech, so I think he’ll find it hard to find time to defend our borders from those barbarians.
Token
7 Feb 13 at 3:56 pm
Why are people paid redundancy for quitting?
Token
7 Feb 13 at 3:57 pm
Memo to Abbott: If you want to drastically reduce the federal public service – and I don’t see why you wouldn’t – relocate it to Cooper Pedy.
Any suggestions for our ABC? We can do it state-by-state.
dover_beach
7 Feb 13 at 3:59 pm
You’ve overlooked the massive savings to be achieved by only replacing half of those made redundant.Even then most Departments would still be over staffed.
Lew
7 Feb 13 at 4:01 pm
I am looking forward to Abbott reducing the public by 12000 but it doesn’t change the fact that more could be slashed.
Andrew
7 Feb 13 at 4:07 pm
Memo to Abbott: If you want to drastically reduce the federal public service – and I don’t see why you wouldn’t – relocate it to Cooper Pedy.
Memo to Abbott, while you’re at it relocate Parliament to Cooper Pedy. Build it underground like they do there, perhaps that will make the bastards spend more time thinking and less time chattering. Then sell off Canberra, I’m sure some corporations would love that Parliament House as a head office.
John H.
7 Feb 13 at 4:07 pm
Julia in parliament today finds a “single mum of 2 kids” the best example for attacking the coalition over super funds..
I heard 3 “answers” all used a single mum/poor woman as the target of the eeeevil Mr Rabbits plans.
Shes stuck on stupid, and seems to think if she frames all he answers as womens issues it helps her.
thefrollickingmole
7 Feb 13 at 4:09 pm
Halls creek would be lovely this time of year…
thefrollickingmole
7 Feb 13 at 4:10 pm
Agreed. Gillard attacks the Coalition for removing a tax cut which is ultimately funded by debt yet when Gillard cuts superannuation, she just avoids the question. Her avoidance on the health cuts in Victoria is also disgraceful.
Andrew
7 Feb 13 at 4:13 pm
OK, so how much is a poor woman/single mum of 2 kids going to contribute to super anyway, as compared to high income earners?
Skuter
7 Feb 13 at 4:14 pm
Prime ministers can do things in an emergency. Today we face such an emergency.
John Curtin said jump and people went where they were told to go. No argument. The National Security Regulations had teeth.
stackja
7 Feb 13 at 4:15 pm
That’s already happening with the liebor/greenfilth local government, so Abbott wouldn’t need to.
Keith
7 Feb 13 at 4:17 pm
Two words : Theme Park
Keith
7 Feb 13 at 4:20 pm
RL, the constitution is pretty clear about discriminatory tax zones. Either nobody has whinged about the zonal rebates (who would after all) or it hasn’t gone before a sensible judge. Maybe a tax rebate is considered to be a welfare measure and therefore ok. A tax deduction is part of the definition of your taxable income, but a rebate is a welfare cheque dressed up.
I’m in favour of low taxes, but not low tax zones. Especially low tax zones that will require a big infrastructure spend if successful in attracting people. Plus, how long do you think the zone would last?
Pedro
7 Feb 13 at 4:21 pm
There is something about frontiers that brings out the core humanity in people.
In cities, people get isolated from the real world that people on the frontier can’t ignore.
Greenfilth grows in cities. A bastardised imagining of what reality is, by people who have no experience in it.
Any re-engagement with the frontiers that still exist will be good for the country.
DriftForge
7 Feb 13 at 4:21 pm
Qld used tick gates to keep the southern cockroaches out. NSW could do the same to Canberra, inspecting all crossing for intestinal parasites the old rubber fist way.
Tim
my Gillard would approve vause they could wrangle the prossto at the same time.
WhaleHunt Fun
7 Feb 13 at 4:23 pm
At least it is better than what the Rann ALP government did here a few years ago, they centralised all the payroll areas from around the regional areas and created this moster resource consumer called Shared Services, with 14 director level positions and basically incompetent throughout. This stripped positions from regional towns like Mt Gambier, Pt Lincoln, Ceduna and Whyalla. Then again the ALP in SA believes that SA finishes at the Tollgate to the south and Gepps Cross to the north.
Tator
7 Feb 13 at 4:23 pm
Simple Pedro
NO WELFARE
.
7 Feb 13 at 4:27 pm
Nah, you could change Parliament House into a legal injecting centre that the lefties want. Plenty of drugs already being inhaled in their so it would take very little money to set up.
Andrew
7 Feb 13 at 4:28 pm
Maybe, at last, Craig Thomson’s explanation to Parliament would make sense.
.
7 Feb 13 at 4:29 pm
Rococo Liberal and Pedro: I can’t comment on the “welfare” aspect. But if it’s constitutional to give a rebate for remote areas, it might still be hard to argue that (e.g.) Cairns is more remote than (e.g.) the Nullarbor.
Be that as it may, in the Territories the Feds can discriminate as much as they like.
Gavin R Putland
7 Feb 13 at 4:36 pm
Tator, shared services are an empire building excercise for labor hacks beloved by ALP state governments
Entropy
7 Feb 13 at 4:40 pm
Remoteness is a defined characteristic – you can go to the ABS and look up maps where the remoteness of an area is shown.
Actually doing the offsets based on remoteness would probably work, even if the ‘big plan’ is Northern Australia. It would also solve the issue of how long – as remoteness is changed by development, the offsets reduce.
DriftForge
7 Feb 13 at 4:42 pm
There are now large areas of freshly burnt land available to replant bureaucrats. They are not so inflamable as pine tree plantations.
john malpas
7 Feb 13 at 4:57 pm
For NSW, relocate head office west of Parramatta.
Even better, Lithgow.
The regionals could certainly do with a boost.
duncanm
7 Feb 13 at 5:08 pm
Thought bubble. Projects to be covered by the scope of the Lib plan could be accredited on a case by case basis, according to the specifics of the project itself, and not by its geographic location. This could be reinforced by making it clear that not very development is in line for a tax break simply because of its location.
Such a distinction would place it outside of any State or Territory dependent Constitutional prohibitions on taxation discrimination.
Wow what a stir this idea has caused in a short space of time!
Tapdog
7 Feb 13 at 5:10 pm
In the dying days of the Whitlam government, there was a Department of Northern Australia. An unknown called Paul Keating was the Minister. I worked there for a few months while taking a well-earned break from university.
We had every mad ‘develop the north’ idea imaginable come through the door. It’s a meme as old as European settlement. We had schemes to pipe water (very, very expensive), to create foodbowls (tried before – went broke because of droughts and monsoons and distance) and every other imaginable fantasy that would work if only the government would pay for it.
Numerous attempts to create government-supported nirvana in the Top End have been tried, and all have comprehensively failed absent a steady flow of taxpayer funds on top of large initial investment. Darwin is probably the most obvious example. Without a constant drip of taxpayers money, it would be lucky to have a population of 7,000.
I am a bit surprised to see this atavistic and economically irrational dream take hold here. The reality is that even very rich mining sites have to fly workers in and out – after paying them high wages – because people don’t want to live there and it is not worth it for their employers to spend the billions it would take to change that.
Honestly, this reminds me of Tom Uren’s decentralisation money pits. Does anyone remember how Bathurst/Orange was going to become a growth centre by government fiat? And believe me, it would be a lot cheaper to try to do it there than at Karratha.
johanna
7 Feb 13 at 5:12 pm
For Victoria, locate it to Barwon Heads, right next to the prison.
Andrew
7 Feb 13 at 5:12 pm
The Leg-over Man seems to have taken Bradbury on in some sort of clown apprenticeship. Might as well learn from a master.
H B Bear
7 Feb 13 at 5:13 pm
“There is something about frontiers that brings out the core humanity in people.” Like massacring the natives?
“In cities, people get isolated from the real world that people on the frontier can’t ignore.” Yeah, I look out my office window and its just fake fake fake!
“Greenfilth grows in cities. A bastardised imagining of what reality is, by people who have no experience in it.” What’s this hippy-dippy shit you’re trying to say?
“Any re-engagement with the frontiers that still exist will be good for the country.” Yeah get out in the desert and do some good!
Sheesh.
Pedro
7 Feb 13 at 5:15 pm
Johanna
See my response at 3.14 pm.
Laissez faire to boot.
.
7 Feb 13 at 5:15 pm
I think it’s brilliant!!
Aside from being forward thinking and practical, It just may steal 1/4 of Katter votes for the LNP.
Tactical genius.
Those opposed would never vote LNP anyway.
Attaque au fer. ( perhaps, my frog is baaaad )
jumpnmcar
7 Feb 13 at 5:22 pm
Bradbury was squealing about “goldplated footpaths” up north whilst people in Sydney sit in traffic jams.
This coming from a politician who introduced a carbon (sic) tax by deceit, designed to save the universe by encouraging people to walk more & drive less.
(explained at the
GreenLaboUrtax-payer funded website:Living Greener.)
Bradbury is one confused politician. Or a hypocrite.
handjive
7 Feb 13 at 5:26 pm
Dot, what’s laissez-faire about spending hundreds of millions of dollars on building and maintaining military bases, plus paying everyone who works there and not collecting any income tax? You’re just taking taxes from people down south and redistributing them to public employees and facilities up north.
Strategically, it doesn’t make sense either. The monsoon is a bit of a problem for both the cost and the efficacy of large military establishments out in the middle of nowhere.
johanna
7 Feb 13 at 5:28 pm
Bullshit, Lavarack and Darwin ( Yanks coming soon )
jumpnmcar
7 Feb 13 at 5:35 pm
Because they moved their work location a considerable distance away, essentially making them redundant. Otherwise an employer could force anyone to quite for any reason simply by moving their job, even temporarily, to somewhere they know the employee doesn’t want to go to.
Very little. I suspect in practice it predominantly used by low income earning people who have high income partners. There’s better ways of helping low income earners with their superannuation – such as it being a tax break on marginal rate, even if that ends up being a credit rather than a flat 15% for everyone which helps high income earners much more than everyone else.
Well its one way to reduce traffic jams. Singapore take it to the extreme where the right to own a car is now around $60,000 – they just auction off a limited number of permits.
Chris
7 Feb 13 at 5:36 pm
Karratha, Port Hedland and Broome would be ten times the size they currently are if you could buy land around there. Unfortunately it’s all tied up in either native title red tape or environmental green tape.
If Arabs can live in any of their godforsaken shitholes I fail to see why we couldn’t develop cities up north. Release the land and see if people follow is the easy, cheap answer.
P.S. Dam the Fitzroy.
Infidel Tiger
7 Feb 13 at 5:40 pm
IT
I think between conservative Governments in Fed, NT, WA and QLD we could cut a shit load of red and green tape.
And the Natives with Title would be happy to help.
jumpnmcar
7 Feb 13 at 5:48 pm
Strategically, it doesn’t make sense either. The monsoon is a bit of a problem for both the cost and the efficacy of large military establishments out in the middle of nowhere.
Bullshit, Lavarack and Darwin ( Yanks coming soon )
——————————————
Townsville (pop. 190,000) is not in the middle of nowhere. Darwin (pop. 130,000 entirely due to southern taxpayers) is not in the middle of nowhere either. The entire, enormous Shire of Roebourne, where Karratha is, has a population of around 20,000 including indigenous communities, and is 1,500 km from Perth. It is definitely in the middle of nowhere, although not in the NT. Establishing a military base there from scratch would cost hundreds of millions, with upkeep to match. Remote locations in the NT would be the same.
Pie in the sky stuff, and given our national debt, not a proposition I would expect Cat readers to support.
johanna
7 Feb 13 at 6:02 pm
Here is Paul Howes pushing the idea in 2011:
http://progressiveaustralia.org.au/2011/this-post-needs-a-title/
Steve X
7 Feb 13 at 6:13 pm
Damnitall Johanna, at 5.13 and 5.28- Two contributions that make more sense than all the rest combined.
I would ask you to marry me, but we might not totally agree on everything. I think the Leichardt River would support a successful large scale irrigation scheme, and the ALP’s whitewash of food production in northern Australia needs to be revisited with the blinkers off.
gnome
7 Feb 13 at 6:20 pm
The Department of the Environment and Climate Change should be moved to Alice Springs.
Samuel J
7 Feb 13 at 6:20 pm
Lol
JC
7 Feb 13 at 6:22 pm
SamJ
Why move them? Why not just close the rotten thing down?
JC
7 Feb 13 at 6:23 pm
Johanna
My ” bullshit ” was to your ” monsoon problem ” obviously .
Darwin has a 2 Army barracks, 1 RAAF base and HMAS Coonawarra.
NQ has…….fuck it… Look for yourself.
jumpnmcar
7 Feb 13 at 6:26 pm
Top comment. Johanna maybe a neolithic political troglodyte, but she is a consistent neolithic political troglodyte.
Apparently we are all against subsidies, picking winners and intervention – except when the Liberal party suggests it.
Grey
7 Feb 13 at 6:28 pm
Grey, go back to Tasmania and blow up the dams.
You know you want to.
jumpnmcar
7 Feb 13 at 6:34 pm
Disturbing to hear that our armed forces can’t operate in the wet. 5 years of ALP have really fucked things up.
Infidel Tiger
7 Feb 13 at 6:34 pm
Memo to Abbott: If you want to drastically reduce the federal public service – and I don’t see why you wouldn’t – relocate it to
Cooper Pedy.the nearest Centrelink office, starting with the Department of Carbon VilificationLeigh Lowe
7 Feb 13 at 6:34 pm
All good points Johanna. I can’t see why anyone would support a proposal that barely goes beyond a wish list. It does seem odd that Cats would endorse a program that requires gazillions of govt funds. There are a number of problems, including an already severe housing shortage in Darwin, costs up there are huge so tax breaks will need to be huge to offset, the building of roads and other infrastructures must precede any private involvement.
The discussion reads reads more like a relocation exercise, an attack on public servants, is completely lacking in detail, and will incur enormous govt costs before any real returns are realised. It is a dream, not a discussion paper, not a plan.
The coalition will now drop this. Sadly though we do need to think about such projects for the North but the operative word here is “think”!
John H.
7 Feb 13 at 6:37 pm
Labor got its way when it deported the industry commission to melbourne in 1992. about the only canberra staff to go were the recent graduates.
Jim Rose
7 Feb 13 at 6:37 pm
I will leave the freelance demolition of renewable energy installations to Winston Smith
Grey
7 Feb 13 at 6:38 pm
All a place needs is water security.
Build it and they will come.
jumpnmcar
7 Feb 13 at 6:40 pm
Good.
jumpnmcar
7 Feb 13 at 6:41 pm
Forget this salami slice/relocation shit!
Abbott needs to simply ditch complete Departments and Agencies in their entirety.
The problem is that each portfolio needs a Department, which carries with it a minimum employment of – pick a number – say, 2,000 people.
The further problem is that Abbott has hinted at jobs for the existing front-bench (which is already too heavy by 2 people), and if he wins by heaps, there will be pressure for more ministries.
Unfortunately, I don’t see radical surgery in Canberra’s near future.
Leigh Lowe
7 Feb 13 at 6:42 pm
A great idea Tony. Get the country moving out of the green, politically correct, big city suburban focus and learn to face real lifestyle challenges, rather than wasting our time debating gay marriage and the risk of being offended. It’s time for Oz to grow up.
Australia has been very lucky, with no wars for decades, enabling Oz to focus on minor, trivial issues, while ignoring the elephant in the room. We cannot begin to imagine what residents of war torn countries have gone through. Let’s hope we don’t find out the hard way, because just saying it’s not fair will not cut it in the real world.
terrarious
7 Feb 13 at 6:48 pm
John H and Johanna.
The ” discussion paper ” didn’t mention ” instant cities ”
It’s about encouraging redirection of population growth to more potentially productive areas on this most excellent landmass .
And no matter how much the greens and ALP want it to be about the APS, it is not.
FFS, goldfish.
jumpnmcar
7 Feb 13 at 6:53 pm
Leigh, the vast majority of Commonwealth public servants are in the States already. Proposals to shift agencies into the empty North (or anywhere else) would have very little effect on Canberra, because Ministers want their policy staff close by when Parliament is sitting.
It would,however, cost an absolute motza, and unless people were offered a lot more money, recruitment would be difficult. Do people want to pay some Centrelink drone $180k a year (current salary $60k) to entice them and their families to move? Just look at what the miners have to pay.
I can’t believe this silly idea has got so much traction.
Oh, and gnome, your comment made this ageing (but far from dead – ask the Canberra Cats drinking collective) lady very happy today!
johanna
7 Feb 13 at 6:56 pm
John H
It’s a concept discussion paper. It is not a business plan.
Mk50 of Brisbane
7 Feb 13 at 6:57 pm
I don’t know how this has somehow transformed into a ‘we don’t want the government to spend funds’.
All I see in the discussion paper is a list of ways to get people to start investing in the north, leading out with deregulation and going on from there.
About the only direct government involvement appears to be dam building, shifting military bases and making sure public services are up to scratch.
You could do worse than release a pile of crown land at realistic prices with development conditions attached (ie, develop it or lose it), put in place the water infrastructure and let the rest take over. And push it along with zones of economic freedom – lower taxes and less regulations for example.
The ones here who think that nothing can happen unless the Liberals spend a shed-load of dough are effectively arguing that economic activity can only take place if the government makes it happen.
Removing impediments and providing incentives would prove once and for all whether this model worked or not.
Singapore and Hong Kong turned from marshy little islands into economic powerhouses, monsoons and all. Open your eyes and your mind.
brc
7 Feb 13 at 7:03 pm
John H and Johanna
Neither of you has been in the north recently – and by God it shows.
neither of you knows what you are talking about.
Why is housing in Dawtrin so expensive? Because of a tremendous employment boom in teh offshroe and onshore oil and gas sector. Dampier-Karratha is no longer in a marginal economic area, it’s at the heart of the largest single offshore energy development in history. Not our history, world history. last time I was in Karratha, a 4BR and DLUG basic house had just sold for a million bucks. They can’t expand housing because of native title (and the usual greenfilth of course).
On top of the offshore, there’s enormous investments in onshore and something weird is happening in the Canning basin, I hear rumours of vast reserves of very, very wet gas and the rumours talk in the hundred million tcf range as a minimum. On top of all of that there’s mining.
The investment is there, the jobs are there, the resources are there, the water is there and the irigatable land is there too for agribusiness.
Go have a look at what’s on the bloody Burrup peninsula and tell me it ain’t gonna work.
Oh, and you’ll need bugger-all public money.
Private will do the lot if government just gets out of the goddam way, and crap like 12,000 page EIS that take 450 people 4 years to develop are junked.
Mk50 of Brisbane
7 Feb 13 at 7:10 pm
What brc said.
jumpnmcar
7 Feb 13 at 7:12 pm
NT is THE best performing state ( as it should be a state ) in this shit hot country.
Bless em and learn from them.
jumpnmcar
7 Feb 13 at 7:16 pm
jump, the fact that there are military bases in certain locations proves nothing except, in many cases, the ability of marginal seat holders to get them established and defend their continuing existence.
About 10 years ago, I was involved in an exercise looking at closing and/or relocating bases which were (by Defence’s own admission) in stupid locations, strategically irrelevant, cost a fortune to run and were generally a waste of taxpayers money. Not surprisingly, several of them were in northern Australia. We identified savings of over $2bn a year in a progressive shutdown and sale of these bases. Defence owns massive tracts of unused land, so relocation was not particularly expensive. There would be no loss of military capacity – indeed, it would be enhanced by locating bases nearer to the technical support and other services required to keep them operating.
Guess what. The marginal seat-holders and aspirants from the other side swung into action, and every one of them was ‘saved.’
There were 23 of them, BTW, and at least 10 were in the far north.
No matter how much lipstick you put on that pig, it’s pork-barrelling at the cost of public money and military capacity.
johanna
7 Feb 13 at 7:17 pm
Oh, and I have never defended absurd regulatory obstructions to economic development at all. Never.
But the notion that governments should tilt the playing field against other parts of the country is implicit and explicit in these proposals. The NT is already a constant drain on the rest of the country, and extending that preferential treatment to other remote regions is a ludicrous proposition.
johanna
7 Feb 13 at 7:23 pm
From the “Humanity is awesome” Department, the best of 2012 in video form:
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2013/02/this-is-probably-the-best-video-on-youtube-like-ever/
tbh
7 Feb 13 at 7:25 pm
Shit, wrong thread. Sorry.
tbh
7 Feb 13 at 7:26 pm
Jumpnmcar,
you have forgotten Tindal Airforce Base out near Katherine where 75 Squadron run Hornets from
Tator
7 Feb 13 at 7:27 pm
Surely that is part of the vision thing that governments should be doing? Plan, build the infrastructure, then let matters take their course, within broadish parameters.
mct
7 Feb 13 at 7:27 pm
OK Joanna.
Are you suggesting basses be in Melb and Syd ?
For what, controlling the residents or defending an attack from Antarctica ?
Anyways, this is a diversional argument, it’s not the guts of the paper.
I’m leaving it at that.
jumpnmcar
7 Feb 13 at 7:30 pm
Regarding land release – IT, I’ve not been game to tell himself that the house that I bought before christmas in one of these areas, is according to the NT Govt worth 1/3 of what I paid….
The artficialness of having to pay 1/2 million for an ex-commission house that has been trashed is just wrong…perhaps forcing people up here would bring some normality into the place!
Dianne
7 Feb 13 at 7:30 pm
If the peoples assembly and East Timor Solution can get a run this is more than worthwhile to discuss. Now if you are against Abbott on wanting to discuss it, ipso facto you think Gillard is an idiot at best.
Honesty
7 Feb 13 at 7:32 pm
What!!! Develop South Irian? Employ the currently unemployable? Populate the unpopulated? Create a new frontier? Ridiculous, too positive, and besides, it would annoy the Indonesians.
Ian Macmillan
7 Feb 13 at 7:33 pm
It’s a concept discussion paper. It is not a business plan.
It is not a discussion paper. I’ve spent the last week involved in more in depth discussions on evolutionary theory than that tripe. If you’re going to propose radical ideas then do your homework and show you’ve done it. You can’t discuss something without data, without a conceptual framework, without a timeline. It is lazy thinking.
DOT’s approach has far more going for it than some big govt initiative. First see if the people will come with a low tax environment, see if private enterprise will build the necessary infrastructure of schools, hospitals, and housing. See and create the demand before you create another white elephant.
John H.
7 Feb 13 at 7:34 pm
One can not forget something one has never learnt tator.
I thank you for educating me.
Go the 75th!!
jumpnmcar
7 Feb 13 at 7:36 pm
@jumpnmcar
“OK Joanna.
Are you suggesting basses be in Melb and Syd ?
For what, controlling the residents or defending an attack from Antarctica ?”
Please don’t put words in my mouth. I never suggested any locations for military bases, then or now. Defence did. And some of them were relocations in the north, some were closures, some were relocations to regional areas further south. Sydney and Melbourne did not feature except for a few suggestions of closures there.
johanna
7 Feb 13 at 7:45 pm
The ABC TV News presented the “discussion papaer” as if it was Coalition Policy. No ifs, no buts.
They are a despicable rabble and need to be expunged.
blogstrop
7 Feb 13 at 7:47 pm
The number of military bases in the south is out of all proportion to the actual risk of an attack by penguins.
Steve at the Pub
7 Feb 13 at 7:52 pm
The number of military bases in the south is out of all proportion to the actual risk of an attack by penguins.
Not the penquins, it is the bloody Kiwis. Vicious little creatures.
John H.
7 Feb 13 at 7:54 pm
NT, what is this NT of which you speak?
Not the Northern Territory that gets $5.50 back for every dollar of GST spent plus untold direct funding from the commonwealth.
Grey
7 Feb 13 at 8:01 pm
Grey
Evidence and comparison list please.
jumpnmcar
7 Feb 13 at 8:37 pm
Goals:
- remove regulation
- redirect foreign aid funds to the project
- move public services and defence
- encourage investment
@ Johanna, stop with your bullshit. The majority of goals come without added cost (excluding relocating of public employees but its fairly evident that many of the CAT are happy with such a cost)
The only additional cost spoken about is added water infrastructure, which is one of the few things I actually want the government to pay for.
Its completely vague, speaks far too much about bodies, groups and politicians, and is somewhat incoherent on a specific goal but it speaks about deregulation and was leaked before the election. Dammit women let Gillard talk complete BS about it, no need for your assistance. Even as devil’s advocate you did a pretty crappy job.
Also
How is it explicitly “tilting the playing field”? By using the natural advantages of the geography? Should we dig up the minerals in WA and then bury them in Tasmania to level the playing field there? Or perhaps remap the states so that we are all of equal size?
Adam Diver
7 Feb 13 at 8:50 pm
Budget Paper No 3 2012-2013 Budget
Part 3, Table A
I don’t know if anyone has quantified direct commonwealth expenditure in different states and territories.
Grey
7 Feb 13 at 8:52 pm
The hysterical Labor petition that Julia and her child are promoting:
Gab
7 Feb 13 at 8:55 pm
What a threat
Oh no, if this threat is not taken seriously, the Coalition will lose the ACT for a generation and there will be an endless string of alliances between the GruenReichers & the Liars Party.
Wait a minute…
Token
7 Feb 13 at 9:01 pm
Adam Diver, please explain why the fact that a few posters on this thread are happy to pay extra taxes to punish public servants is sound policy?
Also, while you may be happy to spend money on ‘water infrastructure’, whatever that means, unless and until someone explains what that entails and lays out some numbers, including a cost/benefit analysis, I am not. And that goes for the roads, buildings, power, telecoms and all the rest that would have to be funded by somebody as well. Are you suggesting that companies will pay for all this stuff? If so, how come they find FIFO with very high wages cheaper?
Differential tax rates plus extra public expenditure in remote areas is tilting the playing field, unless you believe that unicorns are going to provide the money and not taxpayers (including businesses) from the rest of the country.
Oh, and people (including public servants) can’t be forced to live in a certain place – it’s called civil conscription and is unconstitutional. So they are going to have to be attracted in other ways – I wonder what that might involve?
I can’t believe that people on this site would support anything other than deregulation as a way of stimulating economic development, with public expenditure responding to, not trying to lead, same.
It’s just a Labor-style Stimulus Package by another name.
johanna
7 Feb 13 at 9:09 pm
The labor crazies, Emerson and Bradbury seem not to know that zonal tax has been around since around 1948.
Anyway, here‘s the transcript of the “interview”, childish as it was, which Sinclair mentions in his post.
Gab
7 Feb 13 at 9:16 pm
If we’re against tilted playing fields, precisely when are the state and federal governments going to stop spending all the infrastructure money on the cities?
Even if it is ’tilting the playing field’ it’s doing so in a strategic way. The cities are crowded, and the cost of building stuff skyrockets because you can’t knock stuff down easily.
Have some vision people. Just over 100 years ago Los Angeles was a dusty village next to the ocean with no water. Now it’s one of the largest urban centres in the USA. Some people planned to get the water there, they planned the city to expand, and expand it did. It might not be to everyones taste, but there’s no arguing that building water supply and selling off land can create economic prosperity. LA went from 9,000 in 1880, to 50,000 in 1890 to 100,00 in 1900, and by 1910 had 300,00 people in it. Why? A 375km long pipeline of water. If a bunch of guys can do that at the turn of the last century, surely a group of Autsralians can manage that at the start of this century. To top it off, they paid for most of it with municipal bonds.
And the argument against this? ‘we can’t relocate public servants’. Boo fricken hoo you lazy overpaid whiners, you’ll go where the taxpayers tell you to go.
brc
7 Feb 13 at 9:20 pm
A city in a more remote location would be a really well paid job and owning a home for a young family that wouldn’t get such opportunity now. Surely that’s a good thing to encourage.
candy
7 Feb 13 at 9:27 pm
The way the Construction industry is in Australia right now ( the last 32 months) we could use a few more growth areas.
And don’t think ” the tyranny of distance ” will stop the Tradies, We go where the work is, always have.
jumpnmcar
7 Feb 13 at 9:38 pm
Emerson was pretty disgusting in QT today. Scathing and belittling, sneering and sniping – must be Labor’s version of being positive – at Abbott, calling him “Troppo Tony” directly. I guess he couldn’t come up with his own insult, had to use Simon Benson’s instead.
Gab
7 Feb 13 at 9:44 pm
@candy : precisely. If you could get yourself a new house on the 1/4 acre block for a reasonable price like everyones parents and grandparents had, then why wouldn’t you move to where there was work, quality of life and chances to grow.
The reason there is so much FIFO work is complicated, and comes down to planning, fickleness of the mining industry, tax policy and environmental and native title regulations.
All these things can be changed. They are just stupid bits of paper sitting in canberra.
brc
7 Feb 13 at 9:47 pm
Could there be a leak from Coalition’s office – can only be m. Turnbull?
all the other ministers seem most loyal and supportive, a very cohesive group.
candy
7 Feb 13 at 9:50 pm
Not necessarily Cabinet. It could have come from the policy creation group within the party.
Andrew
7 Feb 13 at 9:56 pm
Maybe Andrew, but leaks from the Coalition are rare as hen’s teeth. Someone’s being divisive.
candy
7 Feb 13 at 9:59 pm
BRC says
“Why? A 375km long pipeline of water. If a bunch of guys can do that at the turn of the last century, surely a group of Autsralians can manage that at the start of this century. To top it off, they paid for most of it with municipal bonds.
And the argument against this? ‘we can’t relocate public servants’. Boo fricken hoo you lazy overpaid whiners, you’ll go where the taxpayers tell you to go.
Applayse and Agree especially to last sentence
Translate as – we forgot how to build jack and we just want our pensions and a quiet life of spin?
Aliice
7 Feb 13 at 10:07 pm
Mark Riley on Ch 7 news, in his voice over, described it as a policy that had gone “boom, boom, bust”. They showed the slapper, swanny and particularly emmo banging on.
On the ABC they were far more balanced asking if the govt had become the party of “no” or something similar. Very strange.
Tiny Dancer
7 Feb 13 at 10:09 pm
Pipelines?
Since the early ’nineties I’ve tried to interest anyone who’d listen that we ought to construct pipelines (and dykes, canals, reservoirs and dams) in order to pipe water from areas afflicted with floods to areas afflicted with droughts and, mainly, to prevent floods and droughts. Most would tell me it would be too expensive, costing thousands of millions of dollars. Had such pipelines existed, in this year alone, thousands of billions of dollars would have been saved in damages alone, without trying to calculate the cost in lost earning, lost businesses and lost lives.
I have also long proposed plans to make small towns (and, with separate inventions, private dwellings) fireproof; but, again, I’m told that it would be too expensive…
Deadman
7 Feb 13 at 10:21 pm
candy, there are already plenty of country towns where you can get a quarter acre block cheap. In fact, in some dying villages they’ll give you one for nothing.
The thing is, the reason it’s cheap is because these places lack what most people want – jobs, hospitals (sometimes even a GP), services like accountants and solicitors, education and shopping choices etc. Once a place has all these things – prices go up. The more of these things you have the more expensive it is.
So, of course people would move to a place with cheap housing and city amenities. Trouble is, by definition it can’t exist without massive subsidies.
johanna
7 Feb 13 at 10:27 pm
I think Johanna is imagining something like Simon Crean’s little boondoggle he has sold to the Chinese.
entropy
7 Feb 13 at 11:49 pm
Of course, not all proposals are demanding government money. This one only wants the current regulatory impediments removed. It will even build the dam.
entropy
7 Feb 13 at 11:52 pm
Actually, to be fair, the Georgetown i-fed proposal, even if the project itself is entirely built with private sector money, will still draw a massive amount of government money into the community. This is because the project will create 1000 permanent jobs where currently 300 people live. The families of those workers will require schools, hospitals, utilities, new roads and other forms of transport.
entropy
8 Feb 13 at 12:00 am
The other amusing thing about this ‘preliminary’ discussion paper and the attention it has received is that poor old Simon Crean has been busily behind the schemes building his legacy through the Office of Northern Australia. A big set piece is planned for Cairns in ….May, I think. It might be June.
Now it will look like a me too effort by the ALP.
A bit of poetic justice. I have a theory about what happened inthe run up to the 2007 election:
Apart from saying that the ALP would do the same thing as something desirable that Howard had just announced (a me tooism), Rudd was also able to beat the government on huge set piece stuff (eg reef rescue as opposed to reef plan) that pretty much had been negotiated by Howard with an ALP state who had then supplied all the details to the federal ALP policy team well before the announcement. Then Rudd would announce it as ALP policy before Howard……
entropy
8 Feb 13 at 12:11 am
Barnaby Joyce was superb tonight talking about the Northern Australia Plan. Main points:
~ The LNP is not about to “frog-march” people to the North of the continent despite what Labor says. Not forcing people anywhere but incentives will be created.
~ There is a need to proactively develop the North, if we want to avail ourselves of the opportunities of the North, “that’s where our coal is, that’s where our iron ore is, that’s where a couple of billion people are, that’s where the investments are happening, that’s where the NW Shelf is, and the richer we make Australia the richer we all become”. Agriculture and mining.
~ Not just Abbott. Many involved in the discussion and have been for some time. Matrix of portfolios involved. Regional Development, Water, Health, Treasury, Infrastructure etc
~ Development of the North is not an impost on Western Sydney as Labor would have you believe
~ We still have a zonal rebate scheme which was introduced in 1948 that Labor seems to have forgotten, and it is not unconstitutional as Labor claimed.
~ Some government funding but also via private enterprise
~ A draft discussion paper was leaked, not a policy document, as Labor stated.
Gab
8 Feb 13 at 12:16 am
Well, I have just learned something fascinating,which highlights the extent to which regional pork-barrelling corrupts even the tax system. Here is a map which shows the parts of Australia which are already eligible for concessions on the grounds of “remoteness”.
That’s right, more than 95% of WA, all of the NT, most of Queensland, almost all of S.A., about a third of NSW and – amazingly, the western part of Tasmania! That’s right, in Tasmania, where you can drive across the whole State in a few hours, people on the west coast are apparently living in a remote area and deserve special tax concessions. Poor old Victoria must be wondering how they managed to be the only State to miss out.
But it’s not enough, folks! No, the poor sods occupying the unlucky fragments where people have to pay the full rate should be giving more, yessirree. Why, they should be punished further for being forced to subsidise basket cases like the NT, Tasmania and South Australia through GST transfers, equalisation arrangements and tax rebates.
Heck, they should be grateful for the opportunity to donate to those unfortunates in Tassie who live a couple of hours drive from Hobart, and the miners on $180k salaries.
Regional development has always been a money pit of rorts. That doesn’t mean that regions should be neglected, or that development should be hampered by regulation. But to paraphrase Keating – never get between a regional politician and a bucket of money. The Premiers are positively chivalrous in comparison.
johanna
8 Feb 13 at 1:35 am
Entropy, it was obvious during the 2007 campaign and the year leading up to it that there had been collusion between the states, the federal Labor party and the unions – plus the media – to do damage on a number of policy fronts. The reef, the rivers water plan, work choices, the phony “fiscal conservatism”, the promises on interest rates, grocery watch, fule watch, computers for kids, global warming – all of it went out as if gospel with the blessing of the media, who added “it’s time” for Howard (the belatedly dubbed clever politician) to go.
It was certainly past time for him to hand over to Costello, and the Libs have nobody but themselves to blame for that major mis-step and the terminal nosedive electorally that resulted from too much haggling in the cockpit.
blogstrop
8 Feb 13 at 7:29 am
Victorians deserve it, Joanna. Self absorbed ninnies. But I jest.
You have a case with actual transfers like GST and other programs, but not tax rebates.
I disagree with the thought that not taxing someone as much as you may do otherwise is a subsidy. Eventually that line of thinking leads to thinking that it is the state that owns all the money and you should be grateful for any allowance it leaves you. It’s the same line of thought as the claim the diesel fuel rebate to farmers and miners is a subsidy. Given the original purpose of the diesel excise was a road user charge, it was the reason the rebate was created.
Entropy
8 Feb 13 at 7:56 am
The amazingly generous special tax concession (offset) you can claim as a single childless person living and working in Zone B is … $57 a year.
For Zone A, it’s $338.
It’s a tax offset, not some kind of free money. And if you get a remote area allowance, your zone offset is reduced by that amount. Meaning a lot of people pay full tax. So settle down. You’re not “subsidising” working zoners.
ATO zone offset calculator here.
sdog
8 Feb 13 at 8:35 am
Hopefully Entropy made this clear, but to repeat: y’all are not “donating” $57 to each Zone B worker or $338 to each Zone A worker. They’re just paying a tiny bit less tax than they otherwise would.
sdog
8 Feb 13 at 8:43 am
Entropy and sdog – I fully understand how the argument about tax that you mention runs. But the corollary is that the tax regime should be equitable. It is not equitable to give high income earners a rebate just because of where they spend more than 183 days a year, while low income earners in much worse circumstances elsewhere miss out. And as I mentioned, the zones themselves are absurd, covering most of the continent including places which might have been remote 100 years ago but in this age of travel and communications, are not. Why is living in Darwin more of a hardship than living in Rockhampton?
The argument about the amount involved is also irrelevant. That’s exactly the rationale that governments (like our current one) use all the time to take something from one group and give it to another – you’ll hardly notice it. To which the response is – then why do it? Either it is worth something or it isn’t.
Anyway, this is a peripheral aspect of the discussion, but a good exemplar of what happens when regional politicians get involved with public finance, along with my example about military bases above.
Back when Bob Katter was still in the Coalition, he ranted at me on the phone for a good half hour because a constituent of his missed out on a sizeable grant under a regional program to which they were not entitled, according to guidelines approved by his Coaltion colleague, the Minister. He accused me of being a pettifogging, narrow-minded bureaucrat and several less savoury things because I refused to breach the guidelines and hand over the money (it wasn’t personal – I just happened to pick up the phone). Alley cats fighting over chicken bones found in a restaurant bin have superior ethics, and better manners.
johanna
8 Feb 13 at 10:56 am
Johanna
My plan is the abolition of most taxes and regulation for the NT at a “state” level, and to cut it off from Federal largesse in exchange for the abolition of some Federal taxes.
I don’t see how that is Keynesian or industry policy – otherwise the States can’t compete and we should, on theoretical grounds, force Norfolk Island into our socialist tax and medicare system.
The only questionable part is the relocation of military bases – which I have left open to objective decision making.
.
8 Feb 13 at 11:09 am
Johanna, a better set of ‘remoteness’ maps are here.
And given that we allow the benefits of land improvement to flow to the cities, I can’t see there being any sustainable objection to doing a small bit to those who work the hard areas.
Impose a decent land tax regime first, then come back and complain about a $58 tax offset.
DriftForge
8 Feb 13 at 11:25 am
Grey, why the hell would I want to wreck a hydro dam?
We don’t have anywhere near enough of them, and they can also generate power.
God, you talk some rot.
Winston SMITH
8 Feb 13 at 11:27 am
Haven’t travelled to the west coast from Hobart then?
Not particularly up with current rates for miners in Tasmania either?
DriftForge
8 Feb 13 at 11:33 am
Dot, as long as it is along those lines, and does not involve setting up military bases just to artificially boost the local economy, that would be fine by me.
Of course, if you did that Darwin would be a ghost town in six months. Without droves of federal and local public servants holding up the economy, they and many businesses would have to leave.
johanna
8 Feb 13 at 11:37 am
Johanna
Look at the Federal fishing regulations and the proposed fishing regulations.
The Arafurua and Timor Seas are very much alive.
It is absurd we don’t have a large commercial fleet there.
What’s more, the Green’s plans would end any commercial viability. On top of the NT Government ending Barramundi fishing – imagine how much private sector activity can exist if this gets up -
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-06-14/australian-marine-reserves-maps/4069666
I hope Minemakers get the Wonrah project up and running before the NT and Federal Governments regulate the private sector into oblivion.
.
8 Feb 13 at 11:46 am
Yep, absolutely ridiculous, dot. The Greens want all commercial fishing to cease, and they are not keen on recreational fishing either. Think of the poor little fishies! They also want to ban imports from any country they don’t like something about, which is pretty much all of them.
Labor governments, State and Federal, are utterly spineless and will happily sacrifice a whole industry for a quick headline about how much they Care for The Planet.
Mung beans and chips, anyone?
johanna
8 Feb 13 at 12:02 pm
There won’t be any chips, Johanna.
Infidel Tiger
8 Feb 13 at 12:07 pm
Quite right, IT. Silly mistake on my part. Maybe “mung beans with mung beans on the side, anyone”?
johanna
8 Feb 13 at 12:18 pm
Coober Pedy
Coober Pedy
Coober Pedy
kae
9 Feb 13 at 11:01 am