Crikey readers had a crack at divining the thinking behind the government’s contentious tax cuts for high income earners. Bernard Keane writes that, based on a Grattan Institute report, it’s an unfunded mess that will need to see massive spending cuts elsewhere to survive. Meanwhile, readers discussed Kerry O’Brien’s searing speech at the Logies, and the sudden popularity of the Coalition’s “mandate” rhetoric.
On the government’s unfunded tax plan
Lee Miller writes: Seems obvious that the plan is to induce mass poverty. For what purpose I wonder. Are we expecting another world war when men joined up to just get a pay packet? Or do all the landed gentry need downstairs staff? I’m sick of all this BS about the wealthy and the great trickle down nonsense. If that worked we’d be seeing the benefits long before now.
On Kerry O’Brien’s call to arms
Denise Marcos writes: Kerry O’Brien’s speech was uplifting and cautionary. I pined for the era when 7.30 was a “report”, not merely a time of the evening for perfunctory coverage of politics and overly polite engagement with a prime minister. It was refreshing to once again hear balanced and fearless commentary from O’Brien. Tom Gleeson continued in that vein making the Logies relevant after decades of fluff and commercial bias. Gleeson did not ruin the Logies as some media lightweights allege, he afforded them a new credibility. TV Week — and the industry — should be grateful.
On the Coalition’s ‘mandate’
Peter Schulz writes: The whole point of parliamentary democracy is to curtail the absolute power of executive government so that it cannot make laws unilaterally but needs to convince a majority of representatives in the democratically elected parliament that the legislation is a good idea. The advantage for the party that forms “government” is that it has greater (although not absolute) control of which bills are presented to the parliament for consideration — not that it dictates how the parliament votes.
Noel Turnbull writes: The fussing about mandates actually started with Quintin Hogg (Baron Hailsham) who claimed that a recently elected UK Labour government had no mandate for various policies. It was actually code for claiming the government was illegitimate. Significantly he never used the word when Tory governments introduced policies they had not campaigned on.
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I don’t remember the Liberal spruiker Scott Morrison campaigning on the three layer tax cut. I remember him talking about the “ALP’s Death tax” and the “ALP wanting to take all your money”.
I remember the “Death Tax truck”. I remember broadly the ALP policy on franking credit refunds, which I thought would not have survived even the Federal Court, since it had the effect of confiscating property.
I thought the spruiker made more announcements about ALP policies, that is false announcements than he did about Liberal policy. How any mandate developed in this mess escapes me.
The Cri-InQ would do the nation a great service by examining daily papers for say one month before 18 May and summarising what if any policies were in season, so to speak. Ourý enfeebled response to the spruiker stealing the election with false announcements left me bewildered for a few weeks. We don’t place a high premium on democracy in Australia, presumably because we got democracy fairly cheap: no wars of independence, repelling invaders; our ancestors stole from the occupants and killed many of them over many years. I think that price has yet to be paid but that is not this election.
Nothing of value here?
Tax cuts were in Parliament with ridicule of the trickle down claim.
I pray the ALP and independents refuse at least stage 3 cuts, the gifts to wealthy. I prefer ALP suggestion of bringing stage 2 forward as well.
I think legislating cuts now which come into effect after 2 elections is foolhardy. The Libs know it will fall to the ALP to reverse the cuts as we will be in a hole by then. Without the mining infrastructure boom which carried the Howard era through and the actual export of mining outputs which just happened to hit high spot prices recently the Aus economy would have been in recession for much of the last 20 years.