The worst thing about the 2013 Federal election - apart from the obvious that the idiots won - might be that the Coalition ran on statements that really have no bearing to what they are actually doing, now that they are in government. It's hard to say who the worst offender is because they're all doing dodgy things on the public purse and Tony Abbott is the leader amongst this group of perk partiers. I'm sure when they called their party the Liberal Party, they didn't mean their attitude to the public purse for private concerns.
Tony Abbott in fact has been amazingly incapable of living out his own script where he would rush off to Jakarta in his first week (he didn't) and he sure as hell isn't going to reel in the deficit any faster than the ALP would have. Now we find Joe Hockey has gone and given a pile of money to the RBA - because they asked nicely - but this money is going to blowout the deficit this year.
The Hockey of ''budget crisis'' fame, the government debt warrior, the dry who never met a deficit he didn't hate, has turned into the half-trillion dollar man, spent all the $7.1 billion in policy savings he was trumpeting just five days ago and blown out this year's deficit by $7 billion beyond Labor's best efforts. And the financial year is young.
Overshadowed by the commission of audit announcement and boosting the debt ceiling from $300 billion to the magic half-trillion is the former fiscal Scrooge playing Santa Claus down at the Reserve Bank. Will Joe Hockey raid the RBA for a dividend with which to shave the deficit? What a foolish and wrong-headed question I posed here on Monday - Joe is giving the RBA $8.8 billion, which, obviously, blows out the deficit by the same amount.
Not content with that Joe Hockey is scrapping the Mining Tax
‘‘The minerals resource rent tax (MRRT) is a complex and unnecessary tax which struggled to raise the substantial revenue predicted by the former government,’’ Treasurer Joe Hockey said in a statement. ‘‘This failed tax imposed significant compliance costs on one of our most important industries, while damaging business confidence which is critical to future investment and jobs.’’
While many of the measures linked to the tax will also be scrapped, the coalition government will keep the increase in compulsory superannuation from 9 per cent to 12 per cent, currently paused for two years.
Mr Hockey said the government was still considering the issue of the ‘‘onshore administration’’ of the petroleum resource rent tax.
The draft laws repeal a range of Labor policies including the SchoolKids Bonus, the business loss carry-back, accelerated depreciation for motor vehicles, geothermal exploration provisions, the low income superannuation contribution and the income support bonus.
The bill also gets rid of the reduction in the small business instant asset write-off threshold.
So if you're a small business owner and voted Liberal (because you're a self-interest-driven knob), this is the bit where you should be complaining that the Liberal Party is looking after the big end of town again, and selling you down the river all the while claiming to represent you in government.
Walk-off HBP sent in this link where Penny Wong explains just how mendacious this Coalition lot have been.
Details about asylum seeker arrivals are being withheld – apparently the entire nation imagined the Coalition’s announced tow back the boats policy. Despite promising severe regulation of foreign investment, the government is now proposing to rush through free trade agreements. Now Joe Hockey has announced the details of their commission of audit, a well-used Liberal tactic to make drastic and punitive cuts to services, kept secret before the election.
Not only is this a government that isn’t doing what it said it would do; it doesn’t want to tell Australians what it’s really doing.
Over the last few years, Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey were unrelenting in their scaremongering over the state of the nation’s finances; Australians were told that “there is now a budget emergency”, and, worse, that Labor was “drowning the nation in debt”.
But, now in government, the Liberals tout some debt as “good” and the “budget emergency” appears to have disappeared. So much so, under the Coalition, the nation can now apparently afford a $500bn debt ceiling. So much for the “budget emergency”.
Just pause for a moment and imagine the extent of Hockey’s hyperventilation had a Labor treasurer proposed such an increase.
The new treasurer has flagged higher infrastructure spending funded by government borrowing – that is, by debt – and the assistant infrastructure minister, Jamie Briggs, blithely suggests thinking “more broadly” about using the Commonwealth balance sheet.
Of course, when Labor borrowed to invest, Abbott and Hockey declared a “debt crisis”, but now they are finally being honest that some borrowing can be smart.
Well, yes Ms Wong, they lied. And they still won. It makes for much misery.
How Does Greg Hunt Live With Himself?
It's a mystery how party politics can change a man's convictions so he is willing to argue white is black for the sake of party unity. As we all know by now, Greg Hunt is entirely willing to do or say anything for the sake of holding power.
Environment Minister Greg Hunt has hosed down suggestions of a link between climate change and increased bushfire intensity, saying he had ''looked up what Wikipedia'' said and it was clear that bushfires in Australia were frequent events that had occurred during hotter months since before European settlement.
Yes, the Minster for the Environment gets his facts from Wikipedia, and not from the scientists in his own department. Of course, given that this is an administration without a Minister for Science, it is entirely believable that he had nowhere to go but Wikipedia given his lack of faith in such things as facts.
The epistemological problems of quoting Wikipedia seems to have escaped the minister as his own entry descended into a farce.
"He [Hunt] is notorious for using Wikipedia to conduct research on environmental issues on Wikipedia despite having access to a vast bureaucracy staffed by some of the finest and most dedicated minds in the nation, like some total turd. Critics concede that his 1990 Honours thesis on the necessity of a carbon tax was probably more academically rigorous than the manner in which he comports himself as one of the most powerful people in the country, but others defend their characterisation of the Environment Minister as an utter weiner."
I know I quote Machiavelli a lot here but it has to be said that Niccolo Machiavelli made the important point that contempt is the greatest enemy of the Prince, and here we have a politician held deeply in contempt. At this point you wonder if the Coalition has anything positive to enact or do to help the environment. It looks pretty unlikely based on the last 6 weeks since the election.
The Abbott Government has been a bus crash and they haven't even sat in Parliament properly yet.
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