Oz Election Thread #4 - Gillard's Labor

Still not convinced that improved health services will mean droves of Melb and Syd siders will make their way to the country. A much more coordinated approach is required ....

I think this was what Crean was getting at when he was talking about packages rather than wish lists coming from regional areas. So have a timetable for infrastructure improvements, service availability rising AND incentives for businesses to relocate (as well as the usual suspects of educating the local work force etc). Which felt logical to me except I would have thought that sort of planning was best done by govt, in consultation with communities (and their wish lists).

The idea that the government should provide jobs for university graduates close to home is a little weird - the government isn't the major employer of graduates, particularly not in some fields, and the Charles Sturt Universities of the world have a lot of graduates who aren't locals and have no intention of sticking around after the piece of paper is handed over. And many of the locals see the piece of paper as a ticket to a big city, or at least a change of scene. Particularly in Oz - it never ceases to amaze how much we move around, and how whenever you move your neighbours are also from somewhere else.

Ask yourself Olgs - what would make a move to Wodonga appealling to you? What would be your Wodonga wish list?

The other thing that stuck out in Q&A was the general consensus that the NBN is a good thing, in fact the only place I consistently hear that NBN is not a good thing is out of the mouths of coalition pollies.

On Insiders I heard the idea floated that that Labor is setting up Tony for 'overreach', get the carbon tax in, rollout the NBN, and come next election when Australia is still in one piece with a decent employment rate, low inflation, telehealth and the sky hasn't fallen in the election script writes itself....

Ooh thanks for the list, you sort of confirm my point, that most city dwellers live in cities because they like cities

just improving regional centre's services doesn't make them the same as cities.

Big cities aren't built they grow, often painfully, over a long period of time.

Did you watch Four Corners last night? Aurukun/Noel Pearson/Welfare Reform/"Direct Instruction"

So judging by the lack of activity the budget is of no interest?

a) How much Hockey is turning into a joke because of the imprimatur Abbott's given him to just go in negative - don't worry about evidence or reason or logic (a bit like what he's got Turnbull doing on the NBN)

b) That the 150K is rich thing the media has tossed up is a joke borne of the 'out of touch' bubble they live in with the pollies as evidenced by

http://mattcowgill.wordpress.com/2011/05/11/what-is-the-typical-australians-income/

Why not target the wealthy, too?
May 12, 2011

THE government will get more work out of those who are on welfare benefits. What about imposing tougher rules on negative gearing for investment property, especially established housing, and the 50 per cent capital gains tax exemption? Both redirect many millions of taxpayer dollars to the wealthy, without any work being required from them. They also distort the housing market, making it nearly impossible for Australians to buy their first home.

The use of trusts to generate tax-free income is another rort open to the wealthy. These are primarily tax avoidance/reduction mechanisms. Then there are government contributions to the healthcare of the wealthy through the private healthcare rebate and government funding of private schools without an obligation on them to take a fair share of children who are academically challenged. It is time the rule that ''from each according to capacity, to each according to need'' should be applied.

Trevor Hoare, Boolarra


Simply PR spin

THE majority of long-term unemployed are disabled and have a limited capacity to work. The training being offered is short-term and piecemeal, rather than teaching skills that are relevant to modern workplaces. There is no real support from employment service providers as each worker has up to 200 unemployed cases on his or her books. This is a purely a PR exercise, hitting the most disadvantaged.

Matthew Parker, Emerald

Hard sell for good policy
May 13, 2011/the AGE


Illustration by Spooner[/size]

Labor should be given some marks for trying to rein in government largesse.

DESPITE the outcry from the opposition and in sections of the media, the Gillard government hasn't slain the sacred cow of middle-class welfare by its cuts to family benefits in Tuesday's budget. It has merely nicked its tail.

From the reaction, you'd think there was blood everywhere - a classic example of how a modest (and in this case responsible) initiative can quickly explode to unsettle a government.

In a $2 billion saving over four years, the budget extended an existing freeze on the indexation of the cut-off limits for eligibility to family tax benefits A and B, and imposed a freeze on the threshold at which the basic benefit A is reduced. It also froze the end-of-year supplements these provide to all recipients.

The cap on Family Tax Benefit A means that in 2012-13, the top 1.6 per cent (31,000 families) of the 1.9 million families receiving the benefit will become ineligible, as will the top 0.6 per cent (9000 families) of the 1.6 million families on benefit B.

The freeze on the supplement - which is $726 per child a year for Family Tax Benefit A and $354 per family for FTB B - will mean families on FTBA will initially miss out on an increase of $18 a year per child; families on FTB B miss out on $11 a year. By the third year, these losses would have trebled but only to a little more than a dollar a week.

In associated changes, 700 families will become ineligible for the baby bonus in the first year.

Unsurprisingly, Tony Abbott has leapt on the measures. It's easy politics - easier to prosecute than the government's response yesterday that getting to surplus in 2012-13 is vital.

The small percentages suggest that few of the old Howard battlers whose votes Abbott seeks will be affected by the threshold freeze. But many will fear they may be. The opposition believes it will strike a chord by casting Labor as attacking ''aspirational'' families, and invoking emotive terms such as ''class war''. It all also feeds into people's concerns about the cost of living, which MPs on both sides of politics report are coming through strongly.

Labor points out that when the government first froze family benefits thresholds in 2009, Abbott, then families spokesman, backed the change, saying, ''The opposition recognises the need for some savings.'' It's a ''gotcha'' quote. Nevertheless, Abbott's anti-means testing line wasn't just dreamt up this week. In his book Battlelines, he wrote: ''Over time, means testing family benefits has significantly worsened the financial position of middle-income families, with far-reaching social and economic consequences.''

More generally, he argued that as a result of changing Western mores, ''government policies are no longer pitched to support families with children as a self-evident good but to households with low incomes judged therefore to be objectively in need''.

There are two ways of looking at family benefits: as a universal entitlement that should be given simply as a recognition of the social value of bringing up children - so not ''middle-class welfare'' - or as payment that should be targeted to those needing help.

A respectable case can be made that the tax/family payment system should discriminate in favour of children at every level of income. Indeed, Treasurer Wayne Swan makes such a case for most income levels. But when there are so many demands on the public purse, the argument for adding a ''needs'' element is compelling. The needs-based approach to family payments is especially appropriate, on fairness grounds, when the government is adopting a tougher stand to those on welfare benefits as part of its effort to get more people working.

There is another means test looming that will be difficult for Julia Gillard - the imposition of a means test on the health insurance rebate. Worth about $2 billion in revenue, this measure has been rejected twice by the Senate but will be brought back to Parliament soon.

The Senate will be on side once the Greens get the balance of power on July 1. The question mark is now in the House of Representatives because, with the opposition voting against, the support of four of the six crossbenchers is needed for a majority. Most are keeping the government on tenterhooks.

Greens MP Adam Bandt would vote in line with his party's support. Independent Tony Windsor has previously voted against the measure; fellow NSW independent Rob Oakeshott has voted both against and for. Neither now has a fixed position.

Queensland independent Bob Katter, who voted against in 2009, could not give a definite answer about what he will do but is worried about cost-of-living imposts. Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie and West Australian National Tony Crook won't commit.

The in-principle argument for means testing this rebate is strong. We have a universal health system financed by taxpayers; it is hard to make a case for them also having to subsidise people, especially the better off, going private. That is people's absolute right, but one for which they should pay. One practical argument is that means testing could put more burden on public hospitals, but that is not compelling at the levels proposed.

But the politics of the rebate means test could be toxic for the government, because health is such a sensitive issue for voters.

Many blame John Howard for getting the voters used to excessive government largesse. Labor should be given marks for some limited attempt to rein it in. One suspects, however, that it won't be. The ruckus over the family payments is a sharp reminder of how politics often and inevitably can get in the way of sensible policy.

Michelle Grattan is political editor.

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/hard-sell-for-good-policy-20110512-1ekl8.html