Is Swanny the first Treasurer to put out a weekly Economic Note? I can’t believe that his advisers think that his weekly instaments of turgid, vapid, misleading and self-serving sludge does him any good.
But each week, we are treated with another little homily. This week’s is right up there.
This year we will deliver on two vital planks in our plan for Australia’s future: the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the Gonski reforms to lift Australia’s school performance. These are reforms that will ensure each Australian can realise their individual potential and get the opportunities they deserve, and will also boost the whole country’s productivity and its ability to make the most of the Asian Century.
In three months time I will be handing down this Government’s sixth Budget which will ensure these significant reforms are funded in such a way that they are sustainable well into the future. As the PM said in her Press Club speech the week before last, we will be focussed on finding the right structural savings, always underpinned by fairness.
Hmm, he thinks, I got the NDIS, Gonski and the Asian Century all into the one paragraph. Well done, if I don’t say so myself.
And as for these ‘right structural savings’, underpinned by fairness of course, I wonder whether these will be like the previous list of savings, which were mainly tax increases and includes the cut in the company tax rates that did not eventuate (AHAHAHAHA) and the flood levy (AHAHAHAHAHAH).
Here’s the government’s list of savings it says it has already made:
- 70% increase in tax on alcopops- Increase in Luxury Car tax – Increase in tax on North West Shelf gas project by extending it to condensate. – MRRT – Fringe Benefits Tax (tighten exemptions) – Increase in the Passenger Movement – Australia Post – special dividend – Increase in Visa application charges (2x) – Superannuation – reducing the concessional contributions caps – Reducing income tax exemption for overseas workers – Reducing concessions for Employee Share Schemes – Increase in excise and customs duty on tobacco – Increasing GST revenue through compliance program – ATO compliance program – dealing with the cash economy – Increase in tax on fuel ethanol – the Flood levy - Increasing Car Fringe benefits tax – Phase out of Dependent Spouse Tax Offset – Removing minors’ eligibility for low income tax offset on unearned income – Increasing Revenue through Tax compliance — reporting taxable payments (again) – Abolish the Entrepreneurs’ Tax Offset – Do not proceed with the company tax cut – Do not proceed with standard deduction – Deferral of higher concessional contributions cap – Do not proceed with 50 per cent discount on interest – Ending of Tax Concessions for Green Buildings – Further reform of living-away-from-home allowances and benefits – Superannuation – Increasing Tax on high income earners – Changes to the Net Medical Expenses Tax Offset – Better targeting of the employment termination payment tax offset – Increasing GST Revenue – compliance program – two year extension – Increasing Heavy Vehicle Road User Charges - Increasing Passenger Movement Charge (again) – Dividend payments from Australian Reinsurance Pool Corporation – Australian Federal Police – Partial Cost Recovery of Airport Policing – doubling of the withholding tax on Managed Investment Trusts
As I have already noted, expect more joyous ‘savings’ to be announced, such as:
Increase in CGT rate
Decrease the Health Fund Rebate
Abolishing negative gearing
These are all seriously stupid things to do, so there is no doubt lardarse and the goose will implement them.
Kicking in from 1 July, of course.
The goose must not be allowed to deliver another budget.
These loathsome clowns have to be forced to an election before they get the oppordunidee.
Rabz
10 Feb 13 at 4:09 pm
A new government’s list of savings:
Gillard and Swan will stop listing savings. Save eye strain.
Gillard and Swan will stop talking. Save all that Oxygen.
Gillard and Swan will not allow anymore printing. Save trees.
stackja
10 Feb 13 at 4:20 pm
Increasing a tax is a “saving”?
It’s lucky the Labor Party didn’t run the treasury in ancient Rome.
I’m pretty sure their heads would have been stuck on lances and adorned around that city’s streets as little monuments of what happens when you’re stupid with other people’s money, although they may have called in the taxidermist for Swanny, for a more permanent monument.
(Very much admire your writing style, BTW, Judith.)
Ant
10 Feb 13 at 4:33 pm
You obviously haven’t been paying attention, Ant.
It’s been SOP for these mongrels since 2007.
Rabz
10 Feb 13 at 4:37 pm
Increasing a tax is indeed a saving – it saves them from having to cut spending.
Owwwwwhhhh! My brain hurts from that comment…..
Louis Hissink
10 Feb 13 at 4:49 pm
Ant and Rabz you obviously don’t understand that the money we get on our pay packets are a largesse from our government. They are making savings by not letting us keep as much of their money! I hope that straightens out that little point for you.
Fred Furkenburger
10 Feb 13 at 5:00 pm
Thanks, Fred.
Rabz
10 Feb 13 at 5:01 pm
Add two more: Cancellation of the Chronic Disease Dental Scheme on 1/09/12 (no replacement until 2014?) and the removal of most menopausal medications from the PBS.
What, me worry?
10 Feb 13 at 5:24 pm
He’s not even bright enough to be humiliated by his stunnning record of failure.
Tracey
10 Feb 13 at 5:44 pm
That’s the problem with poor ole’ Swanny. He is so profoundly and congenitally stupid that he doesn’t have the brains to even understand how stupid he is.
Anyway, only a few more months now before the poor deluded souls of Lilley finally despatch him to his well deserved obscurity as nothing more than a historic curiosity as the stupidest person ever to hold a treasury portfolio in any western democracy; ever.
My only problem with this outcome is the grotesquely inflated defined taxpayer funded superannuation the fool gets to leave with.
Greg James
10 Feb 13 at 6:55 pm
Quite so. Instead he’d end up languishing in gaol for the remaining duration of his utterly pointless existence, if I had my way.
Rabz
10 Feb 13 at 7:09 pm
Judith were you one of the Commissioners looking at the Lifetime Care and Support Scheme when it was having hearings and taking submissions?
Tintarella di Luna
10 Feb 13 at 7:14 pm
ABC News has just given a big free kick to the Green Gonski Juggernaut (bus), using it and a lot of green-clad rent-a-crowd passengers to support some grandstanding by former pop singer and epileptic impersonator, now education authority, Big Pete Garrett.
blogstrop
10 Feb 13 at 7:16 pm
This government is clinging to the NDIS as its saviour and yet what these pricks have done is create the most bloated bureaucracy peopled by every lazy leech you can find to fill the spots on what they call the NDIS Launch Agency (or is it NDIS Lunch Agency)
What they are bringing in IS NOT the NDIS which was recommended by the Productivity Commission.Gillard wants to own the reform but won’t pay for it. It’s the same as the Gonski reforms they won’t pay for ‘em — they want the states to pay because these uckfays have spent all the dosh.
This is the mortician’s dummy today leading a protest on Gonski to get O’Farrell to pay for it. This is their strategy now — what next health? Oh yeah Tanya Makes-me-sick has done such a sterling job with that one.
Tintarella di Luna
10 Feb 13 at 7:28 pm
No
Judith Sloan
10 Feb 13 at 7:30 pm
” I give a Gonski ” ??
What advertising guru came up with that.
What ?, Gonski = rats arse?
Gonski = shit ?
I’m struggling to grasp the reasoning for this.
jumpnmcar
10 Feb 13 at 7:35 pm
You missed one.
jupes
10 Feb 13 at 7:39 pm
Sounds Wong doesn’t it? K D is one of the main offenders.
H B Bear
10 Feb 13 at 7:44 pm
Yeah, I’m far to refined to write “flying fuck” on the interweb.
jumpnmcar
10 Feb 13 at 7:47 pm
Six years without delivering a surplus and three record deficits is a hell of a legacy.
I suppose Goose Swansteen would argue he served under two of Australia’s worst Prime Ministers. He’d be right too.
H B Bear
10 Feb 13 at 7:47 pm
The changes to net medical expenses is truly pathetic. I had $8k in medical costs and was shocked to find that I only got a tax discount of 20% of $4,000…. $800. It used to be a 100% tax offset of medical expenses over $1500. Which would reduced my taxable income by $6500
I guess labor get away with this because their voters don’t pay for their own healthcare.
All of labors savings are:
-increasing tax, or
-not implementing a social payout you promised (but forgot you didn’t have the money for)
How are they going to raise money for the next budget?
Munro
10 Feb 13 at 8:50 pm
Under NDIS, what constitutes a “disability”.
Substance abuse induced indolence?
Chronic work allergy?
Leigh Lowe
10 Feb 13 at 10:23 pm
NDIS and Gonski are duds. Why oh why are the Liberals following Labor into this awful trap with the NDIS? It won’t address half the nation’s disability problems.
Andrew
10 Feb 13 at 11:34 pm