Comments (2)

By Les Scammell, February 7, 2011 11:05 am

Tony Abbott, Australia’s wanna be prime minister. I am sure there is more whine coming out of him than there is coming out of the Barossa Valley. Not to worry, it seems the knives are out and the vultures in the wings are just waiting for their moment to pounce. We have already seen Joe Hockey come out and flatly accepts that Tony Abbott’s email to liberal supporters was wrong.

Tony Abbott

While I am accusing Tony Abbott of whining non-stop and being totally negative, it seems to be trending through the whole coalition. Everytime they open their mouths it is to utter negative opinions on everything the government does. The problem is, occasionally they are right, but with so much negativity coming out of the coalition, we are becoming deaf to it all.

Let’s look back – the insulation scheme did have problems – but the majority of people who had their homes insulated, did so with few if any problems. The school projects – 95% of those were completed without any problems at all. The 5% that Abbott concentrates on were not really government issues as such. The focus should have been on businesses that saw both of these programs as an open invitation to rip off taxpayers – it was these business owners who should be the target of Abbott’s anger – but then, they are coalition supporters.

Tony – we don’t want to listen to your whining all day about what the government is doing wrong. There are some things the government is doing right, and it’s time you admitted it. When the government is in the wrong, then we’ll listen to you. As it stands now, the general consensus is that you go back to pre-school and learn to stop whining.

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By Les Scammell, January 31, 2011 11:29 pm

I am going to declare my hand before proceeding – I am a labor supporter, always have been. When it comes to Julia Gillard, I am sitting on the fence at present. She has some very good attributes, but one very bad attribute – but then, she is a politician first. The one thing she wont do is listen to what others have to say, then make changes if their thoughts are logical.

The flood levy is one very good example. The levy in principle is, in my opinion, a good idea. The implementation is not what we need however. Why I disagree with Tony Abbott and co is very simple – he want to cut extra from the budget rather than implement a levy. I don’t know if he is really being sincere in this respect – Howard introduced a levy of 0.2% to help pay for the gun buy back scheme – I think this flood levy is on a par with that.

Back to my original point about cutting into the budget further, the problem I have with this is that, being Australia, final costs are always a lot more than originally estimated. What is now $5.6 billion in costs will most likely be $8 billion or more come the final reckoning. If those figures do blow out, that is when we will need to trim more from the budget. Trim it all now, and there is no room to move when we need to.

I said the flood levy was a good idea, and in principle it is. However, It is probably a little too much, but more importantly, being done for the wrong reason. Australia is a land of drama – we have floods, tropical cyclones, wild bushfires and even the odd earthquake. We need a permanent national disaster fund and this should be funded across a number of levels. First, a permanent levy at around 0.2% or even 0.25%. I agree with the targeting of higher paying incomes although $50k seems a little low. I would suggest starting at around $75k-$80k with the second tier cutting in at $150k with that levy at 0.5%. businesses should not be exempt, however I think this is where highly profitable companies can afford to pay – perhaps a 2.5% levy on all businesses that record $100 million plus per year profits.

Funds in this national disaster fund would accumulate until needed and would only be used to pay for infrastructure rebuilding and repair. It could be managed by an independent board, funding infrastructure on 1:1:1 basis – $1 for every $1 spent by both the Federal Government and the State Governments.

This levy is, as I suggested, a good idea. However, it is flawed in its rationale and in its life span. Of course, I am not an economist or politician so I just think logically.

Comments (5)

By Les Scammell, November 28, 2009 12:41 pm

It’s a sad day in politics when politicians start using Twitter and Facebook to help them make decisions. That is the case in Australia at present as one major political party goes into total melt down. Australia only has two major political parties, the ALP and the Liberal party. The ALP currently holds power and it seems will continue to do so for quite some time – at least until the Liberal party can get their act together.

Joe Hockey, a probable candidate to take over as leader of the party at some time in the near future, is now using Twitter and Facebook get feedback on climate change issues – specifically a bill before parliament that will bring in a carbon credit system together with a carbon emission reduction goal. This legislation has torn the Liberal party apart – hence Joe Hockey’s use of social media.

He has been a staunch supporter of current leader Malcolm Turnbull and the his efforts to broker a deal related to the new legislation. He is now trying to find an out for this support and is using Twitter and Facebook to help him. At the end of the day he will say that public support is not behind Malcolm Turnbull or the government so he is going to reverse his stance.

That’s pretty weak. First, Twitter and Facebook are not representative of the Australian population. Second, unless someone actually counts every response, we only have his word for the end results, and finally, people use situations like this to gain an advantage. I would love to know how many new followers he received over the last few days and how many of them offered the advice he wants to hear.

This is politics and we all know how two faced they can all be. Tony Abbott was one of the biggest supporters of this legislation a couple of months ago. In fact he was quite up front in promoting it and urging the Liberal party leadership to support it. Guess what, when things got tough he was the first to jump ship and swap sides – and then throw his hat into the ring for the job of party leader.

Am I cynical – you bet. This hasn’t nothing to do with the environment the new legislation – this has just been the issue used to create a disturbance in the party room to force the removal of Malcolm Turnbull. He is his own worst enemy. He is too aloof, too much of a control freak, and just not likable enough to get away with it like Kevin Rudd does (he is also a control freak).

As for Joe Hockey – surely he is not a political suicide freak. Anyone who takes on the leadership job now is on a hiding to nothing. The Liberals will get badly mauled at the next election – only a year away now. If I was Joe, I would step away and let Abbott take the job. Let him take the bruises, and, like every other losing party leader, lose his job after the next election. Then he can step in and rebuild the broken party. Turnbull needs to do a Howard. Howard lost the job of opposition leader and sat back and let everyone else do the hard work. When the time was right he stepped back into the limelight and the rest is history.

Where to know for the Liberals. I guess they will all be heading to Twitter and Facebook to find out who the public wants to see as leader. They may as well – they can’t make a decent decision themselves!