Last Tuesday 04/10/2011, watching "our" ABC's 7:30, reporting on the Canberra Tax Forum summoned by the Federal Government, I've heard this:
"STEPHEN LONG [reporter]: There was indeed an extraordinary consensus at the Tax Forum, on the left and the right, that at least for the long-term jobless, the unemployment benefit is too low, and some of the comments would have been the last thing the Government expected.
"JUDITH SLOAN, ECONOMIST: I do think that issue about the gap between the Newstart Allowance and the other pensions is an enormous one.
"STEPHEN LONG: Professor Judith Sloan said the low payments hit older workers hard, as they're unemployed for three times longer than the average.
"JUDITH SLOAN: We have to understand that the dole, unemployment benefits, Newstart, was there as a short term transitional payment, but if people are unemployed for a long period of time, the issue of adequacy really becomes important - and, indeed, their ability to successfully find employment becomes important. There is going to have to be something done.
"STEPHEN LONG: Let's put those views in context. Professor Sloan's no bleeding heart. She's a prominent libertarian economist: free market leaning, dryer than dry, a champion of labour market deregulation. If she's saying the Newstart Allowance is inadequate, demeaning and doesn't help people get back to work, sit up and listen. Comrade Jeff Lawrence, president of the ACTU, was amazed by his unlikely bed fellow." (See here).
I must admit, I was every bit as shocked as Mr. Long: don't get me wrong, the so-called Newstart Allowance (aka dole) had been kept at misery levels since forever: "If you had an unemployment payment and rent assistance, after you paid your rent you would have $16.50 a day for everything else and looking for work," said former OECD economist Peter Whiteford of the Social Policy Research Centre, UNSW. (See here)
So, that isn't really news. What surprised me is that experts like Prof. Sloan finally learnt of it.
But the surprise was short-lived: "Community Services minister Jenny Macklin said she understood the concerns but hoped delegates understood 'the budgetary issues that we face'."
That's the thing with tough Government decisions: these guys have such a hard time making your life shit. You've gotta understand her.
No More Mr. Nice Guy
So, Tuesday big business was so nice to ask loudly but not forcefully for a higher dole (and pushing quietly for corporate tax cuts), while the Government was taking tough decisions.
By Wednesday things changed a little:
"ANDREW ROBERSTON [reporter]: With debate today centring around personal taxes, Dr Henry [former Treasure secretary] said they should be fair. Business lobby groups that yesterday called for a cut in corporate tax rates today argued for a cut to personal income tax rates too.
"GREG EVANS, POLICY DIRECTOR, ACCI: 'Well, ACCI welcomes the proposed reduction in the company tax rate; it is a significant area of unfinished business that we need to more closely align the top marginal rate with the company tax rate'.
"ANDREW ROBERSTON: Unlike the company tax discussion, though, debate about personal tax wasn't completely along ideological lines. Investment banker Mark Carnegie argued strongly that the top 15 per cent of earners should pay 15 per cent more tax." (See here)
Well, they didn't change, except for this:
"MARK CARNEGIE, MH CARNEGIE & CO: The number of individual winners in Australia is shrinking all the time. The economic rents of capitalism are shrinking to a smaller and smaller group of people. Unless those people are willing to stand up and say, 'We will shoulder some of the societal responsibility', we will be facing the sort of nightmare that Europe and the US has at the moment."
Who would have guessed, an investment banker talking about inequality is unusual enough. But talking about economic rents and on top warning about social unrest? Holy Mother of God! I am discombobulated, but I imagine Chris Berg must be speechless,
Then came the talk about the tax-free threshold (which I already mentioned here):
"The Treasurer, Wayne Swan, said the government's first priority was to lift the tax-free threshold to $21,000, which would deliver every wage earner a modest tax cut and free 1.2 million people from paying any tax. It would be worth about $500 for someone earning $60,000. [Not quite woo-hoo but better than nothing, you'd say].
"The threshold, now $6,000, was scheduled to rise to $18,200 next year and $19,400 by 2015 as part of the compensation arrangements associated with the carbon tax. [What?!]
"Although Mr Swan said the increase to $21,000 would occur 'when we think it is affordable to do it', it is likely to be implemented before the next election. (...)[D'oh!!] (See here)
And, there's a little detail: they will increase the tax-free threshold to $21K (eventually, you'll understand), but will also eliminate the low-income offset... Moda Fukami!!! (that's supposed to be Japanese for "d'oh". Don't ask me; I don't speak Japanese: Homer and Bart do).
And now we see how pressing those "budgetary issues that we face" really are:
"ANDREW ROBERSTON: The forum ended with the Treasurer announcing a working party to investigate reform of business taxes [aka tax cuts].
"WAYNE SWAN, TREASURER: The purpose of that business tax reform working group is to bring together business leaders, tax experts, unions. It will be supported by the Treasury." (Emphasis added)
Mind you, the idea is to have experts and technocrats discussing serious matters, for the greater good, in a calm, cool and sober atmosphere, away from the prying eyes of those who, like us, have little to contribute to the discussion, and whose only role is to pay taxes.
But you understand, don't you?
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Anyway, keep voting Labor or the Coalition: I'm sure they'll do the right thing... after they deal with those "budgetary issues that we face".
In the previous post on the "Moving to Oz" series I made a first Australian connection to a phenomenon that has been reported in the US: higher unemployment levels could be enabling employers to raise job requirements (skills, experience), which slows down job growth and lowers wages. This phenomenon has been disingenuously interpreted as "skills shortages" or "unwillingness to work".
In this post I will comment on two related developments taking shape in Australia. Regular readers have seen one of them (the Newstart Allowance) mentioned here repeatedly. I intend to show it's connected to the "unwillingness to work" slander.
The other, however, is new.
The old news on Newstart (aka dole)
Today Peter Martin and Dan Harrison (Fairfax Media) report:
"Revealed: Dole Recipients Too Poor to Buy Food, Medication or Heating"
I'd recommend this piece to readers (right-click on the link abovee to open in a different tab). The chart is fully interactive and it shows the percentage of individuals in each category that need to go without an item. To put it graphically: the dole recipient's red-blood stain is larger than for any other group.
For some details: "one in 10 Australians on the dole are unable to obtain a substantial meal each day, one in eight are unable to buy prescribed medicines, and one in 20 cannot heat their homes".
What's alarming is that those results, however, correspond to research commissioned by the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs.
Produced in 2008, the report, unusually, apparently was never published neither by the Department, nor by its authors, "Peter Saunders and Melissa Wong from the Social Policy Research Centre at the University of NSW".
And it was not considered in the review of social welfare, because the dole was intentionally excluded from its terms of reference. Why was it excluded? I leave that for you to guess.
The Martin/Harrison report comes after last week ANZ's CEO said,
"Welfare payments could be cut to encourage workers to move to labour-starved, booming mining states like WA as part of a radical rethink of how Australia overcomes its increasingly high-cost economy, ANZ chief executive Mike Smith said yesterday".
After shopping centre billionaire Frank Lowy and Rio Tinto's Tom Albanese, Smith was last year's highest remunerated CEO in Australia, with AUD10.86 million. (See here)
Smith's total compensation, expressed on a weekly basis, was approximately AUD209K. The Newstart Allowance is currently AUD245 a week.
The new news: News Ltd, the Dogooder Press
Bill Shorten (Employment minister) and Wayne Swan (Federal Treasurer), both Labor MPs and former trade unionists, have been approached in the previous days for comments on this. These were their reactions:
Shorten understands that it would "be difficult to live on AUD249 (sic)", because he's got a young family and finds it hard enough to make ends meet currently, on his AUD330K a year. (See video here)
At the other hand, Swan did not answer personally, but "a spokesman for Mr Swan said: 'The treasurer's record of protecting low income Australians speaks for itself,' pointing to pension increases and creating 800,000 jobs". (See here)
Clearly, the spokesman didn't think he needed to include the Newstart Allowance or the single parent allowances among the "pension increases".
But if Swan didn't want to talk about this, the subject did not go unnoticed. At 16:25 (EST) today (August 30), these were the results on the search "it's a hard dole life", on Google News:
Right click to enlarge
As can be seen in the screen capture above, the Murdoch press seems responsible for the vast majority of the items.
If I were a suspicious fellow, which I am not, I'd say the Murdoch press is taking advantage of Labor's obtuse, self destructive, neoliberalism, to further rubbish whatever little chance at a re-election the Gillard team may have, and that at no cost for the Coalition, whose chieftains unusually have kept under the radar.
Labor is rightly depicted as betraying the unemployed, and the Coalition is bound to bank on the backlash. And, to be honest, Labor deserves it. They are intent on being economic rationalists; like Mike Smith, for instance.
That's why they will reduce us to hunger and sickness and misery: we are like cattle who need to be prodded to enter the slaughterhouse. It reduces whatever little market power workers have against capitalists.
Or why they are intent on bringing in foreign workers, who are seen as merchandise, to be "imported" (believe it or not, overseas readers, the term is actually used by right and left wing indiscriminate immigration advocates, apparently oblivious of its implications). At best, they will further lower already falling wages; at worst, they offer an easy target for racists, a useful lighting rod against otherwise legitimate discontent (see previous post).
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Labor may or may not get Smith's vote, but they can forget about mine. And so that my intentions are clear: I will never, ever, vote for the Coalition or for any racist bigot. This is their democracy, not mine.
By the way, if you are unemployed or on low incomes, you must read the comment thread to this version of the Martin/Harrison report, to see what your fellow Australians think of you. Remember that when the pollies come to ask for your vote.
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So that I am not accused of being unfair, Health minister Tanya Plibersek (Labor) announced this afternoon that "the federal government will pour $4 billion into a dental package to provide millions of children and millions of adults on low incomes or in rural areas access to government-subsidised dental care". (See here)
Opposition leader Tony Abbott, always original in his pronouncements, accused the Gillard government of "spending like drunken sailors" or something equally clever.
There’s class warfare, all right. But it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning -- Warren Buffett.
As reported here over a week ago, the Morrison government is again launching an offensive against the organised trade union movement. John Setka and the CFMEU are the pretext du jour chosen to justify their eternal class war on workers on behalf of capitalists.
Just today the alliance of coal-mining big business and their political cheerleaders achieved another victory against workers
In Australia people have the right to speak their mind freely: "All Australians are entitled to freedom of speech, association, assembly, religion, and movement". (See here)
If this applies to all individuals, in general, it also applies to Fairfax Media's Michael Pascoe, in particular.
Therefore, Pascoe has every right to write this:
"The social welfare lobby rightly claims that the present level of the dole is not enough to survive on - missing the point that it isn't meant to be". (See here)
It may be completely idiotic, but nobody can stop him from expressing it.
One, however, can try to limit the damage such idiocy can cause.
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Consider the "social welfare lobby" remark. Just last year, in the trumpeted Canberra Tax Forum, Judith Sloan was quoted by ABC News as saying:
"JUDITH SLOAN, ECONOMIST: I do think that issue about the gap between the Newstart Allowance and the other pensions is an enormous one. (...) "JUDITH SLOAN: We have to understand that the dole, unemployment benefits, Newstart, was there as a short term transitional payment, but if people are unemployed for a long period of time, the issue of adequacy really becomes important - and, indeed, their ability to successfully find employment becomes important. There is going to have to be something done. "STEPHEN LONG: Let's put those views in context. Professor Sloan's no bleeding heart. She's a prominent libertarian economist: free market leaning, dryer than dry, a champion of labour market deregulation. If she's saying the Newstart Allowance is inadequate, demeaning and doesn't help people get back to work, sit up and listen. Comrade Jeff Lawrence, president of the ACTU, was amazed by his unlikely bed fellow." (See here).
Unless Pascoe intends to expose Sloan as an undercover operative for the "social welfare lobby" infiltrating business lobbies, I think this is another of Pascoe's "Ooopsie daisy" moments.
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Which brings me to the second bit of Pascoe's opinion: the dole is not meant to survive on. Okay, Pascoe, if it is not meant to survive on, what is it meant to do? Say, the opposite of surviving? Let's see... to die?
To better achieve that goal, then, it is best to have no dole at all. The boss hands you a dismissal letter, and while you stand there in shock, he/she pulls a gun and shoots you point blank in the face.
Although sometimes I wonder, I don't really think even Pascoe would mean that.
But I do think that, if the dole is meant to do something, it is to allow people to survive on. If not, what on earth is it good for?
It may be legal to say otherwise, but, boy, it certainly sounds stupid.
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In fact, the sheer lunacy of that posture is best exposed when one considers that the holiest of the holy men of Libertarianism and economic rationalism advocated a universal basic income:
"The assurance of a certain minimum income for everyone, or a sort of floor below which nobody need fall even when he is unable to provide for himself, appears not only to be wholly legitimate protection against a risk common to all, but a necessary part of the Great Society in which the individual no longer has specific claims on the members of the particular small group into which he was born." (See here. My emphasis.)
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So, Pascoe, go ahead and express your opinions freely. But next time, for the love of God, use your brains.
PS, I'll leave the gratuitous "job snob" insult for another occasion.
Unlike similar sites overseas, in Australia comments to online pieces are usually pre-moderated: if you break the house rules, you are not published.
Well, I imagine yesterday must have been a busy day for the comments moderators of Fairfax Media. Have a look at this screen capture (apparently showing only op-eds/politics):
Click for a larger image
In my experience, highly commented pieces get something between 200 to 300 comments. You can see that there were two "entitlement" pieces above this range (one of them more than doubling it!).
Anyway, in my belief that one learns as much from the comments, as from the pieces themselves, I read most of the 377 comments to another of Peter Martin's pieces in the business section (not listed above): "The Painful Truth about Trying to Live on $35 a Day".
I'll pick a few of them for further comment.
After going into them, I'll point to a very good post by Matt Cowgill. If you are capable of rational thinking and believe most people are like you, you can skip the rest of my post: I dwell on irrationality.
Otherwise, you should read this first, and then jump to Cowgill's blog.
We Are Legion
The first comment:
" 'the single Newstart allowance now barely meets the median rent of a one-bedroom flat in Melbourne and Perth' "Since when is it expected that the unemployed 5% of the population should enjoy a standard of accommodation that is higher than that of 50% of the working population? The dole should be enough to cover the very bottom 5-10% rental range not the median rent. "Kaz | Online | 09:49AM" (See here. You will need to click on "More comments")
"Kaz" is commenting on Martin's statement that in Perth and Melbourne, unlike Sydney, the whole of the Newstart Allowance plus Rent Assistance ($304.95 per week) would be enough to cover the median rent of a one-bedroom flat ($300 per week).
What caught my attention is that "Kaz" does understand the notion of median: in the case of rents, it means if the median rent is $300, then half the rents are less than $300, half are more, as correctly implied.
So, "Kaz" has some basic statistics knowledge. This, however, does not imply ability to reason: "Kaz" doesn't realize that paying $300 in rent would leave nothing for other expenses.
In its defence, one could argue that perhaps "Kaz" was angered, did not think properly and wrote too quickly. Fair enough.
But there's more: by implication, "Kaz" appears to believe that "dole bludgers" should move to cheaper accommodation. While "Kaz" does not say this explicitly, it is a recurrent theme and is said clearly by others:
"They should only get enough to cover rent in an outer suburb, 3 meals a day at home and rates. If they want anything more they should work for it. The survey above asks working people how much they live on a day. We deserve the luxuries because we work for it. "Tim | Sydney | 08:04AM"
But real estate agents/property managers have a fiduciary duty of care to landlords. To rent a place they require applicants to prove their income. That's what they are paid for. If they don't, they could be sued for lack of due diligence.
So, if you're not employed, basically you can't just move to another rented place. Unless your Mum and Dad agree to take you back, you're stuck in your place, paying what you were paying before you got sacked.
That might be news to both "Tim" and "Kaz", but it was said explicitly by many in that thread (the first I found was StBob | Melbourne | 08:55AM).
I could say more about "Kaz" and "Tim", but let's leave things at that.
The point is not to single two bozos out and ridicule them, even if they deserve it (and these two really do). The point is that these are basic failings in elemental logic, a lack of common sense and ignorance of how basic things work (like what one must do when applying for a place for rent).
That so many people fail so abysmally in this account, does not bode well for public debate on this matter, because the problem is much more complex than that.
Consider this:
some commentators appear to be deliberately lying (see bbb | Prague 08:22AM and check here or here, to open tax calculators and make your own mind);
some welfare cheating may be real (JSP Worker | 04:23PM), but how much of it (Margaret | Canberra 02:42PM), and what to do about it (Depressed | 01:34PM and 02:56PM, also see here)
people talk about "dole bludgers" milking the system, but what about job agencies? See here. Are they actually helping job seekers to get a job? And also P | 11:53AM.
a system of welfare payments that could not have been better designed to foster pettiness among welfare recipients: "WOW, the unemployed get paid MOAR [sic] to sit on their asses than I ever did to GET EDUCATED... what a system!" (Newstop | Sydney | 11:21AM); "Why shouldn't mothers WITH A JOB be paid some of their salary when taking time out to have a baby. Much better option than the baby bonus that hands out cash to any bogan that has a baby" (Money for working mothers, not dole | Sydney, 10:56PM). Note: I am assuming these two comments, however petty, are genuine opinions. As bbb's case shows, they may be just lies.
a welfare system that seems designed to throw you into poverty before paying you: Phillip Green | Frankston 03:12PM.
a welfare system where "customers" appear to be kept uninformed of their entitlements. See the discussion related to PBS, and health care card, where even supporters of welfare payments ignore that there is a health care card!
Cowgill's Post
Having said all that, I recommend this post by Matt Cowgill. He deals with numbers and does so comprehensively; for better or for worse, I deal with ideology.
Well, after a long hiatus, let's bring a long story!
As the Australian and global economies are already out of the woods, as we all know, it's time to resume growth.
This is the Business Council of Australia (BCA, "CEOs of 100 of Australia's top companies" [1]) uninterested advice:
"The federal government has committed itself to fiscal discipline and a high-productivity future. The Budget must include a plan to reduce the level of government involvement in the economy. It must shift the focus of revenue and spending to support business growth, job creation and workforce participation." My emphasis [2].
The reader might remember the Rudd government has vaguely stated its intention to keep federal budget bound to 2% real increases. Well, this is the commitment alluded, and the BCA is asking for a change in the way government money is raised and spent, to flesh out the Rudd government commitment.
What kind of changes is the BCA talking about?
"The BCA endorses the government's strategy to return the budget to surplus via expenditure constraint and savings rather than higher taxes". My emphasis [2].
Now, the Federal government is yet to reveal the detailed contents of the Henry Tax Review report, which not surprisingly, deals with taxes. Extra-officially a proposal to reduce income tax has leaked to the media. The shortfall in revenue, according to what has transpired, would be covered by a tax on natural resources rent (a.k.a. a tax on mining). With the statement above, I'm sure the BCA doesn't mean they want this "tax on mining" to be scrapped.
However, the BCA has made clear what taxes should be reduced, and what should increase:
"The essence of the BCA's position is that tax reforms arising from the Henry review should reduce the reliance on corporate income tax (and capital income taxes more broadly), increase the reliance on the least distortive taxes (notably consumption and property taxes) and not increase taxes on labour income". My emphasis [3].
Among those "least distortive taxes" is the GST.
So, if the Budget is (A) to be on surplus [4], but (B) new or increased corporate taxes are not desired, this suggests that government spending must also be cut, not simply "constrained" as stated above (unless the idea were to plug the deficit just with an increased GST).
If you've followed this far, you might be asking: "Okay, then, to cut government spending where?"
Well, the BCA suggests several places:
1. "Progressively increase the qualifying age for the age pension to 67 years was a step in the right direction - more difficult decisions of a structural nature like this will be required". Although the BCA does not specify a more appropriate retirement age, it does state that "as a purely illustrative exercise, it is estimated that the traditional retirement age of 65 years would need to increase to 73 years by 2049 in order to ensure that the age dependency ratio at that time is equal to its current proportion of 5 people of working age for every 1 retired". My emphasis [5].
2. "To meet its expenditure commitments, the government should consider ways to tighten eligibility and apply means testing to some of its larger payment items (…)".
3. "(…) And subject unspent stimulus funding to a re-assessment against other fiscal priorities and Australia's future needs".
4. "In this context, funding in a mixed public and private system represents a key lever for shaping and directing the health system". My emphasis in all items [6].
The first item requires no further comment, as it is self-explanatory,
In regards to the second item, as human memory is a risky thing, I will remind the reader that last year, as part of its stimulus package, the federal government relaxed the eligibility criteria for unemployment benefits (Newstart Allowance), without increasing the fortnightly amount paid.
This way, an unemployed homeowner couple with combined assets exceeding $11,000 and up to $252,500, is able to claim up to $411.50 each partner per fortnight. But in this case, as the asset amount exceeds $11,000, the payments may be delayed. And payments are reduced by at least $0.50 by each dollar income the couple might have in excess of $62 per fortnight (say, interests on savings) [7].
The third item is also quite self-explanatory, but I will make a little comment: the idea is to cancel works for which the federal government has already allocated funds, but whose execution has not started.
The fourth item is by far the vaguest. Regardless, I am sure it has nothing to do with the sudden Opposition intention to privatize Medibank Private, should they win the next federal elections. [8]
Although the document under analysis is a Budget Submission, and thus should deal on fiscal policy issues, the BCA goes further with items unrelated to federal budgets, such as "the need for ongoing structural reforms to our system of workplace relations and enhancements to our education and training base". [9]
As before, I will draw the reader's attention to the extraordinary coincidence between this statement and Mr. Abbott's intention to restore the system of individual work contracts.
Concluding remarks
The BCA Submission is interesting, for what it contains and for what it leaves out.
In spite of its recommendations against new taxes, it leaves out the ETS, called by Mr. Abbott the "new great tax on everything". Does this mean the BCA considers the ETS is definitely dead? Or they don't mind this specific "new great tax on everything"?
To increase the retirement age, as suggested, unless made effective immediately, will do nothing to reduce spending in the near future, which is the scope of a federal budget. But it comes at a price that no government would be happy to pay in an election year.
How much savings can tighter eligibility criteria for Newstart Allowance bring? Hard to say, but it shouldn't be much: if the employment situation is improving as much as ABS statistics say, unemployment benefits should be falling already, automatically.
The BCA doesn't specify what kind of workplace reform is required, unless one were to assume that Mr. Abbott's words reflect the institutional opinion of the BCA. Still, given that the Australian economy has performed as magnificently as we had been led to believe, there seems to be little point in reforms: it ain't broken, so don't fix it.
Interestingly, the BCA has not made any pronouncement about public sectors lay offs (an obvious way of saving), as the opposition, in the person of Mr. Joyce, has.
Similarly, other than it needs to be cut, little detail is given about the BCA position on health spending, so it's risky to comment on this. Does the opposition Medibank proposal fit in with the BCA Submission?
Given that new taxes or increased corporate, capital and personal income taxes are off limits, I suppose this leaves the Federal government with few options, other than to raise the GST rate.
As with cutting down Federal spending in social security in general, this would be risky in an election year. More importantly, however: it may be counterproductive.
Combined, an increase in GST and a reduction in the already meagre unemployment benefits (considering that workforce underutilisation runs at about 13-14%), could impact aggregate demand, at a moment when the RBA has indicated its intention to continue its policy of rising interest rates, while the global economic outlook remains uncertain.
But, then again, as we all know, we are already out of the woods and now we can forget about demand management and concentrate instead in supply management:
"The BCA endorses the importance of pressing ahead with microeconomic reforms needed to enhance the SUPPLY SIDE of the economy". [10]
[4] To the chartalist readers: as I'm trying to merely report what is there in black and white, I'll abstain to go into the subject of whether governments issuing fiat money need to cover their spending or not.
Imagine a capitalist who, needing two new workers, publishes an advertisement asking for applications. After receiving 470 applications for the two positions, the capitalist feels disappointed. Unemployment benefits are to blame, the capitalist says, because they are too generous. More people should have applied.
What would you say about that person? Would it make any difference if the capitalist were skinny or bald?
Let’s add details. Although the capitalist pays the wage rates prevailing in the labour market for the two positions, that industry pays the lowest wage rates. Say, the legal, prevailing median and average weekly wages in that industry are the lowest in the land. Would that explain why many other workers, perhaps less desperate than those 470, did not apply for those two positions?
Further suppose one were to reduce unemployment benefits or even eliminate them altogether, so as to increase the number of applicants, in accordance with the capitalist’s wishes. Would that improve in any way the situation of the 470 original and more desperate applicants?
That capitalist needed two additional staff. Let’s say another 470 applicants were pushed to apply for those two positions. Would him/her hire any more employees because the number of applicants doubled?
Let’s stop here. Think well your answers to those questions before going any further. Take your time.
Crikey, the web-based magazine, released two days ago the leaked Coalition talking points. (See here. Includes link to the PDF document).
Labelled "confidential - not-for-distribution in this format" and current as at July 1, 2012, the 138-page cheat-sheet "Coalition Speaker's Notes" teach Coalition drones politicians how to answer those pesky questions pesky journalists ask.
Say, journo John asks Coalition politician Paul: "What changes will you make to IR regulations?" (See page 64, PDF document)
Paul only needs to spew something like: "The Coalition will always work with the independent umpire, Fair Work Australia... yadda yadda ... We will be upfront and honest with the Australian people and take any changes to the Fair Work Act to the Australian people. Our policy will be problem solving and pragmatic, not ideological." (Emphasis added)
John, the journo, could ask: "What about unfair dismissal?" Paul replies: "We learnt our lesson at the 2007 election, any changes that need to be made will be problem solving and pragmatic, not ideological". (Emphasis added).
As the lovely and pesky Jacqueline Maley (Fairfax Media journalist) explained it:
"They [talking points] are the reason all politicians sound the same and repeat themselves endlessly. They are the reason politicians can never give a &!%$* straight answer to a straight question." (See here)
Indeed.
Look at the bright side of it: journos and public alike can save their time! We already know all the answers.
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So, that's where our dear beloved politicians' "deeply held convictions" come from and how they make a living.
Thank goodness, it's not like they are struggling, either. With last week pay rise,
"Prime Minister Julia Gillard's salary rises by $14,430 to $495,430, meaning she is earning a whopping $129,064 more than she was a year ago - or almost $2500 extra a week. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott receives a $10,267 increase, taking his annual salary to $352,517. "Mr Abbott is an impressive $91,834, or $1766 a week, better off than he was one year ago." (See here)
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But, surely there's more to a politician's life than money: they're constantly at each others' throats, for Christ's sake!
Well, not that constantly:
"Wayne Swan shrugged it off as 'normal process' as he banked his $101,762 gain, taking his annual pay to $390,627, almost double that of the British Prime Minister's $205,000. Swan does represent a working family, after all. "And Tony Abbott expressed his gratitude - 'I never forget that the taxpayers of Australia pay my salary' - as he collected his extra $91,834. The Opposition Leader is now entitled to $352,517, while the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, must make do with $275,000. "Abbott likes to champion the interests of what he calls the 'forgotten families'. His, gratefully, will not be among them." (See here and here)
So, that's bipartisan consensus on austerity and fiscal conservatism, for you.
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But, never fear, the Labor Gillard government remains determined to demonstrate its fiscal conservatism: the Newstart Allowance (aka dole) was kept at AUD489.70 (maximum per fortnight, single, no children), even though it has long been acknowledged that Newstart is a national embarrassment (see here) and that it "has fallen from 46% of median family income in 1996 to 36% in 2009-10 - or, from a little way below a standard relative income poverty line, to a long way below" (see here).
And the incoming Coalition government, promising to be even more fiscally conservative, "will 'break the cycle of idleness and habits of apathy' that can develop among those on welfare". (See here)
To that end, and following the shit-sheet, the Coalition will strive to reverse a terrible trend: "The number of penalties for breaches of mutual obligation requirements has fallen from 32,000 (2007-08) to 19,406 (2008-09). Since July 2009 there had only been 12,283 penalties and only 4,353 involved the most severe penalty of loss of benefits for 8 weeks (Estimates 10 Feb 2010)". (See page 66, PDF document)
If I were you, dole bludgers, I'd buy some personal lubricant, a pack of condoms and learn to relax my sphincters...
But I'm not you! Good people don't lose their jobs, do they?! It wouldn't happen to us... Right? Anyone..?
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And there's more good news! Labor will demonstrate its credentials as economic managers and solve the problem of productivity, too!
Ask those two fearless ex trade-unionists, terror of bosses and infamous in right-whinger legend as "union thugs" (yes, believe it or not!), Martin Ferguson and Simon Crean:
"The boost to pollies' pay packets comes two days after ministers Martin Ferguson and Simon Crean told reporters in Canberra that current union wage demands should be granted only if productivity output was assured." (See here)
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Do people in Australia know the meaning of the word "fool"?
Okay, sorry. That's a hard question. So, let me give you a clue: grab a mirror.
Update:
08-07-2012. Checking on some older posts, I've found some bitter-sweet things. For one, I actually predicted (April 20, 2012) that the Coalition would adopt the tried-and-tested policy of "flogging the dole bludger": see "Moving to Oz (III) or, 'it's a class hatred thing' ". It's always gratifying to see that one is right, although the prediction fulfilled is not one that makes me happy. Besides, it's not like one needed to be a Nostradamus to make that prediction.
But, never fear, you can exorcize those evil spirits by chanting in a trance-like manner: "There will always be jobs". That and enough faith you and you alone will keep your job should do the trick.
Besides, even if you lost your job, you can always apply to Joe Hockey's new Newstart Allowance...
Another matter the COALition government is readying itself to tackle is industrial relations/labour laws. Unlike the “Morrison” tax cuts -- virtually their only proposal -- they never said a word about IR in the election campaign. In fact and to the best of my knowledge, with the partial exception of Georgina Downer, Liberal candidate for the seat of Mayo (South Australia), the COALition carefully avoided that subject. (It was a sensible decision, too: Downer lost to Centre Alliance’s Rebekha Sharkie.)
When Parliament reconvenes next month the first order of business will be the “Morrison” personal income tax cuts. In fact, a legacy of Malcolm Turnbull, the “Morrison” cuts were proposed slightly over a year ago -- when Turnbull was PM and Scott Morrison was federal Treasurer -- together with a bill cutting corporate taxes. Given the numbers in Parliament at the time, Turnbull had to dump the corporate cuts and months later the COALition dumped him and the Treasurer was promoted to PM.
The personal cuts weren’t particularly popular either. Labor opposed that bill then. But Labor lost the election. The COALition won. Parliament numbers changed.
During the elections, other than opposing every single proposal Labor put forward, virtually the COALition’s only proposal was the personal cuts.
So, what should be Labor’s stance on that issue now? Should they oppose that bill? Should they support it?
Do you remember the table showing new temperature records from the previous post? This table:
South Australia, January 2019 Town Temperature ======================== Adelaide 46.6ºC Ceduna 48.6ºC Leigh Creek 46.9ºC Minlaton 45.7ºC Port Augusta 49.5ºC Port Pirie 47.8ºC Whyalla 48.5ºC
After six weeks the McCormick strike is over … and the workers won!
Not happy with having denied their essential workers any pay rise the last five years, this year – after having its workers working throughout the Victorian lockdowns – McCormick wanted a repeat. But not even that was enough for McCormick: they also wanted to slash working conditions.
The talk of the week was the Economic and Fiscal Update delivered jointly last Thursday by federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and federal Minister for Finances Mathias Cormann.
The main figures? Here goes, courtesy of The New Daily:
As part of the National-Liberal Coalition's plan to give Australia a small government, the next federal treasurer, Joe Hockey ("conservative, centre right, libertarian") has announced the Coalition's plans to make the Australian Taxation Office less efficient.
In his address today to the National Press Club, Hockey decried the ATO's attempts at being efficient: the next Coalition government will conduct an inquiry into the handling of tax disputes. Once the inquiry finds that the ATO is only trying to fulfil its legal duty of making sure extremely rich tax payers actually pay their taxes, the Coalition will break up the tax office, "so that its policeman functions are separate to its responsibility for administering the tax system". (See here)
"Small businesses work hard for their money and should not be bankrolling government", Hockey said (see here). "Taxpayers are not the enemy. They should be respected".
In a video message to the Australian Mines and Metals Association conference in Melbourne delivered last week, Australia's richest small businesswoman, Gina Rinehart, pleaded that "miners and other resources industries are not just ATMs for everyone else to draw from". (See here)
It's nice to see Rinehart's pleas were promptly echoed by Hockey, almost to the letter.
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By sheer coincidence, during the last few days the subject of tax avoidance has been widely discussed in the media.
In Britain, Margaret Hodge, MP and chair of the Public Accounts Committee, told last week Google's northern Europe boss, Matt Brittin, that his company's behaviour on tax was "devious, calculated and, in my view, unethical". (See here)
"I think that you do evil", added Hodge.
The British equivalent of the ATO, Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs (HMRC) was severely criticized during those hearings.
Lin Homer, HMRC permanent secretary, said the law needs to be changed before Google can be compelled to pay more tax.
Hodge accused the tax authority of failing in its duty and said it should take a tougher stance with Google:
" 'We don't trust your judgment,' Hodge said. 'You have lousy judgment and the people making those judgments aren't fit for purpose'."
Luckily, the Coalition will make sure similar things do not happen Down Under...
Here we'll have no hearings on tax evasion: inquiries here are on those trying to stop tax evasion.
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But, in this most egalitarian country, not all pleas are equally heard. The Salvation Army released today the results of a survey, on 2705 users of the organization's emergency relief services.
Since the Gillard Government (labor, centre left) decided to shift 84,000 single parents to the lower-paying Newstart allowance, there was a 12% increase in the number of those seeking help from the Salvos.
The pleas to reverse the decision receive the usual answer, from both Coalition and Labor politicians: get a job. You know: Australia needs to cut its deficit by sending you into misery, while the richest small businesspeople must not pay taxes. It's a matter of respect.
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The incoming treasurer promised his Canberra audience that "tomorrow will be better" if the Coalition takes power next September.
"I believe that in my heart," he said.
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I'm no cardiologist, so I don't know what his heart says or even whether he actually has one. But I have a functional brain and it tells me that these people don't give a fuck about us. It also tells me who they actually represent. And it ain't us.
In a previous post, I mentioned that it's unusual to hear people talking about the experience of being a lower-class Aussie.
Well, I intend to touch part of this subject in this post. I will argue that Australian society is not as egalitarian as it is commonly believed.
Before starting: these posts provide details explaining why I feel "entitled" to speak on this subject. They also work as a warning: I am expressing personal views.
But instead of commenting myself, I will try to present mostly quotations from others. They reflect my personal experience, so you are free to disagree.
My first quotation comes from a reply to a recent post at Peter Martin's blog. I've commented on this subject before.
Martin reports that the Newstart Allowance (the notorious dole), plus AU$ 60.10 of rent assistance, add up to $304.95 per week. This is insufficient to pay for the $420 median weekly rent on a one-bedroom flat in Sydney (let alone any other expenses) and barely covers rent, leaving nothing else, in Melbourne or Perth, where rents are lower ($300). (See here)
An anonymous commentator replied to Martin (April 17, 2012):
"(...) None of this is coincidence. These policies are the way they are because both sides of politics despise unemployed people. It's a class hatred thing. And Labor is just as mean as the Libs on this. Listen for the dog whistle next time the Prime Minister refers to 'working' families". (My emphasis)
"But that's just one person's opinion", someone could say. "Can one find evidence of the contempt or class hatred this person speaks of?"
Let me try. Take shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey, who recently revealed his plan to end the "age of entitlement" in Australia (see here). Interviewed in ABC's Lateline, by Tony Jones, Hockey repeatedly refused to specify what entitlements he had in mind (see here):
"TONY JONES: OK, let's just try a couple of things. The baby bonus in Australia, would you keep that? Would you keep that or would you look at it because it's not means tested?
"JOE HOCKEY: Well I'm not going to get into cherry-picking Australian initiatives from London. What I'd say to you is that we need to continue to be vigilant. Welfare represents around a third of the entire Australian federal budget. It is an enormous cost burden."
"So, there may be a doubt", is a potential objection. "Maybe the entitlements to be cut are the so-called middle class and corporate welfare?"
Everybody else may have doubts here. Hockey's fans, however, did not have much difficulty guessing what entitlements were those and expressed that clearly in the comments section of Annabel Crabb's latest piece in The Drum (see 19 Apr 2012 5:32:51pm):
"Ahimsa_Fruitarian: The welfare parasites are there because the welfare is paid easily and for free. If the gov't stopped unemployment payment to the long-term unemployed then most of them would get a job fast.Employers can also help to make more jobs if that becomes an issue by being allowed to reduce wages so they can afford to employ more (U think this sounds crazy?) Think about it - it also means more productivity per employer so items become cheaper to make and buy. Farmers would be able to afford to grow fruits that now they say are too expensive in labour (wages) to grow. This means Australian farmers cannot afford to grow the world's best species of fruit trees, so that proves our present system of wage rises and taxes to pay welfare parasites does not work." (Emphasis added)
"Ah!", I can almost hear it, "That's just an isolated extremist".
Maybe. But if that was an extremist, it's not alone. In fact it has plenty company.
"There was a chilling line in a Daily Telegraph piece on girl gangs back in 2008. Reporter Lauren Williams had a 2.30am chat with a Glebe teen called 'Carson' in the article.
" 'Carson' explained why she and her friends stole.
" 'If the government gave us more money then we wouldn't have to rob people,' she said, apparently satisfied she had delivered an impregnable justification for purse snatching, shop lifting and mugging".
After suggesting that dole recipients tend to criminality, Farr goes on to explain that the unemployed are not meant to be comfortable: "comfort" (i.e. having a roof over your head and some money left to eat) would deny them the incentive to look for a job. Like cattle en route to the killing floor, they need to be probed to overcome their laziness. [*]
If subtler and more articulate (Farr, after all, is a professional journalist) this is the same argument made by "Ahimsa_Fruitarian". So, it's hardly an isolated thing.
I could present more examples, but I will limit myself to one more quote. This is the Lord Mayor of Melbourne, Robert Doyle's 23-10-2011 opinion piece, entitled "Selfish Rabble Got What it Deserved". (See here)
Its title is self-explanatory, but by "what it deserved" Doyle was referring to this:
"Doyle's disgust was directed at the Occupy Melbourne protesters against inequality, not against the unemployed", will be the objection now.
True, that was his ostensible target. So, this means he was justified to use unnecessary force against peaceful protesters against inequality?
Further, as in Crabb's case, his supportive readers clearly understood that the message was not limited to the protesters:
"Rob of Melbourne (Posted at 12:29 PM October 23, 2011) "great work robert doyle you have the support of the 99% and the losers who think they are will quickly realise they are nothing more than dole bludgers with too much time on their hands." "too many passengers (Posted at 7:46 AM October 23, 2011) "why does the media give these oxygen wasters publicity?. cut their dole,and give them a job. Until then they have no right to protest" (Emphasis added)
"Again, these are isolated extremists."
Well, if "isolated extremists" pop up everywhere, they don't seem "isolated" any more.
But extremists or not, these are Coalition voters, supporters or at the very least sympathizers. Are the Coalition politicians absolutely irresponsive to them?
I find it dubious. According to these last comments, dole bludgers have no right to protest. This is part of Hockey's speech:
"So perhaps what we are witnessing [the European welfare state] is a chronic failure of the democratic process.
"A weak government tends to give its citizens everything they wish for. A strong government has the will to say NO!"
This at least means that Hockey, like Farr, is an advocate of "tough love". From here to deny dole bludgers the democratic right to protest is a small step, one that Melbourne's Lord Mayor (a Coalition politician, if I am not mistaken) was only too eager to take.
It's time to face reality: it's not just the unemployed or the protesters. Watch the current affairs shows at channels Nine and Seven, listen to the talkback radio shock jocks, or read the so-called "right of centre" newspaper columnists. It's the "queue jumpers" (i.e. asylum seekers), the already mentioned "dole bludgers" (also "job snobs"), the "welfare queens", the "Bogans" and "Lebs", it's the low paid workers and the trade unionists ("union thugs"). Some years ago it was the "Wogs", "Chinks" and the "Abos".
If you are a poor Caucasian don't fool yourself into believing you are better regarded. (Overseas readers: Bogan is Aussie slang; basically, poor white trash). They won't call you that when asking your vote; they'll call you "battler", "aspirational Australian", "working families". But, deep down, they still see you as a Bogan, and you know it. So, let's quit pretending.
Chances are the objection now would be: "It's not right to bundle 'dole bludgers' and 'working poor' together".
Let me ask you, why not? Nowadays nobody is immune to graduating from "working poor" into "dole bludger" overnight. No one is more at risk than the working poor; but not even the so-called middle-class is free from that risk. In essence, if you work for someone else, you are one step away from turning into that most despised creature: the "dole bludger".
Don't get me wrong: I am a fucking wog and include myself in this "precariat" underclass and I do work, part-time (I lost my second part time a month ago, or so). I walk over a very thin line and any push could send me to the wrong side. So, now you'll understand that I use the pronoun "we" to refer to you and I.
In this sense, race and religion are the icing on the cake. It may make some of us even more hated and despised. But we all are already hated and despised! It's a "class hatred thing", as Martin's anonymous commentator put it.
And race and religion are used to divide us: to deliberately pit Bogans and Lebs against each other, for instance. (See here)
Having said that, does it mean every non-poor Australian (make no mistake, born here or "imported") hates and despises us? Clearly, that's not the case. There are genuinely egalitarian Aussies, perhaps most Aussies.
But this prejudice is by no means uncommon. It's not unusual at all among well-off Australians, whether locally born or "imported" (and the higher up the food chain, the more frequent it is). And, as far as I can tell, this applies regardless of religion, age, education, gender, sexual orientation.
That's why the Coalition will use this prejudice to get votes, while Labor either won't do shit about it, or might even join the bandwagon. Mark my words.
They will sell the view we are parasites, knowing full well that it's not a hard sale. So, for them, we are the parasites, not the miners who don't pay taxes, not the executives who get astronomical bonuses and tax concessions; not the equity fund that sold David Jones and ran away without paying taxes; not the swindlers from the "colleges"/"immigration agents" who took money from Indian students and forced them into slavery with their "permanent residence" courses: all of them deserve what they get, and, boy, do they get a lot! It's us who don't deserve crap.
The weather forecast? Incoming rhetoric thunderstorm in the months ahead: "Aussie battlers" this or that (even Abbott's or Hockey's battlers, for Christ's sake!), "aspirational Australians", "working families", pensioners vs "dole bludgers", "welfare queens".
Just watch the current affairs shows or listen to the radio in the coming months, count the number of times they mention those words and how many times people will mention that Fortescue Metals Group did not pay corporate income taxes until this year, and remember what I just said.
In fact, and to be fair, even some in our so-called Marxist/anarchist left are not immune to this (trust me on this).
Whether you are thinking about moving to Australia or already living here, the sooner you understand this, the better for you.
Notes:
[*] I suppose this would surprise Farr, but his account of unemployment ignores that perhaps unemployment exists because bosses sack people and then, well, don't want to fill the positions left vacant.
Others have argued abundantly, and much better than me, about this. Pick at random pretty much any of Bill Mitchell's posts, for example.
Updates: 22-04-2012. Okay, I'll cheat. I'll add one more quote. But it's for a good reason: it's very funny.
Fairfax Media's Tom Reilly (October 10, 2010) on our youngest billionaire, Nathan Tinkler:
"Clearly none of his cash has been spent on media training. When The Sunday Age called him on Friday about his interest in the Bathurst team, Tinkler exploded. " 'You're a f---ing deadbeat, people like me don't bother with f---ing you,' he said. 'You climb out of your bed every morning for your pathetic hundred grand a year, good luck'. "Angered by a previous story about his horse racing interests, he added: 'There's a tall poppy syndrome; you would have heard of that because you hang around with the deadbeats and the losers who have done nothing with their lives'." (See here)
If Tinkler looks with contempt at a journo, whom he thinks earns "one hundred grand a year", imagine what he would have said of people, like yours truly, who'd see a "hundred grand a year" as winning the lottery!
On top, Tinkler, who supposedly was once an electrician, has been mischievously described as a "bogannaire" (a portmanteau of bogan and billionaire).
Paraphrasing the TV add: "a professional soccer team, $X million. Good humour:, priceless!"
Separated at birth? Tony Abbott [A] Boris Yeltsin [B].
From the creative genius behind "Centrelink Fake Debts", comes the new farce comedy "Centrelink Random Drug Tests": as part of a trial, from next January the unemployed recipients of Newstart Allowance in the Canterbury/Bankstown area of Sydney will be forced to pass random drug tests as a requisite to get the dole (AU$ 267.80 a week, single/no dependents rate). To have an idea of how much that fortune buys, check the availability of boarding-house rooms for rent in Bankstown, courtesy of Domain.
There is a historical reason for that perception. Although the term “welfare state” is no longer fashionable, the Australian Labor Party was key in its adoption here, and its governments established its general institutions, including public health (under Medicare). They also created the main welfare payments. The age pension, for example, dates to 1908, during the Fisher Government; the unemployment benefits (currently called JobSeeker) was product of the Chifley Government in 1945. More recently, in 2013, it was under the Gillard Government that the National Disability Insurance Scheme was created.
So, unsurprisingly the Albanese Government launched the Robodebt Royal Commission last year.
