Malcolm Turnbull’s state income tax thought bubble was promptly popped, but he’s still recycling the same talking points. In media interviews this week, the PM has called on the states to take more responsibility for the money they are spending and be more accountable to “their people”.
It’s hard to see where the Turnbull government is going with this one.
Voters expect the money they pay the Commonwealth in income taxes to fund their health and education systems and build infrastructure.
The state-Commonwealth buck-passing might make sense in Canberra — it’s true that the federal government does take much of the political risk associated with changes to the tax system — but to voters it just looks like quibbling. Today’s Newspoll found only 19% of voters agree with Turnbull’s plan to enable states and territories to collect income tax, while Crikey’s own Essential polling found 34% approve of it, with the remainder saying they oppose it or don’t know (we asked slightly different questions).
Turnbull has said, “It’s not a question of double taxation, it’s a question of whether you want to allow states to actually take greater responsibility for raising the money they spend, and so this is a question of responsibility.”
In fact, it’s a question of political risk. Turnbull doesn’t want to take the risk necessary to overhaul the taxation system — and he has just made his job a little bit harder by staking his government’s fortunes on a post-budget election.
At some point, he is going to have to face up to that challenge. As Tony Abbott learned the hard way, buck-passing looks fine from opposition, but it’s not prime ministerial behaviour.
“If we do have a revenue problem, I don’t have to do anything about it; because the states don’t want to raise taxes either!”,
Spivonomics is not going to cut it..is abrogation an actual policy position for education and health..?
“the PM has called on the states to take more responsibility for the money they are spending and be more accountable to “their people”.”
Presumably, if the ‘people’ are the states responsibility, then the Federal Government is accountable to no actual human beings.
That would certainly explain their general position regarding company rorting over people who pay taxes, namely that companies should be allowed to keep rorting and the people should be slugged harder, especially those not rich enough to park their money in Panama.
Suddenly the liberal party philosophy, and the right generally, is understandable, while being execrable. They aren’t here to represent the people. No wonder I was struggling to understand their position.
Suddenly, I’m thinking of Utegate all over again and remembering my surprise that MT proved to be so gullible and politically inept. He’s charismatic, to a degree; he’s been successful in other spheres, undoubtedly; he can speak in complete sentences which have the added bonus of being grammatically correct; he loves his dogs; I closely followed the Spycatcher legal stoush during which he was always tout impressionnant; he looks suave and prosperous which Australians seem to require in their PM, but here’s my question:
When is Turnbull going to replace Abbott?
Why are we still having discussions about what Talcum should be doing? He is rapidly becoming yesterday’s man…along with the rAbbott.
Crikey…you need to find time to read some of the newspaper blogs (NOT the OZ!)…where you will find that Talcum has become a figure of ridicule, and people are talking about baseball bats at the ready!
Time to start talking about what Bill Shorten IS doing…the next PM of Australia!!