GST rise - should Turnbull honor Abbott's promise?

Yeah, no doubt overseas investment is important. On small business, my experience is whenever there is a contraction, the first thing to go are small businesses. My thinking is you need the big money going around before small business can takes its footing. Obviously there are numerous variables but on the whole it would seem intrinsically linked to broader economics.

In terms of education, I'm talking tertiary. TAFE have apparently increased its international student participation and Universities always have but is growing probably as a consequence of the lower Australian dollar.

As for domestic school education I'm not sure it's either a left or right issue. Children are taught to respect one another, their planet and encouraged to be independent. So I'm not sure what you mean that it has slipped too far right. What do you suggest the education system do to swing it back to the middle or where ever you think it needs to be that relates to Australia's economy.

 

Without small business, big business would have a free for all and the losers would be us the consumer. Small business is the only regulator of corporations. Without them we are at the mercy of collusion on a scale you will struggle to imagine. Take Woolworths for example. They are putting their hand into everything, the same as Westfarmers. Once they remove the smaller competition they can divide the spoils and rich get richer. As far as contraction goes it would appear that in our current contraction it has been big business, mainly resources, that have crumbled. Everything is linked to broader economics because we are in a global economy.

I misunderstood your education comment. I see now that you actually meant exporting in terms of importing students, not actually exporting our system, my bad. Lol. Too literal on this occasion.

TV i actually said our domestic education had slipped too far left, not right. I disagree with you in the fact you stated they are learning respect for one and other, i believe it is the opposite, i don't believe they know respect not even for themselves, but this is a broader subject that may have as much to do with society as it does education.

What we need is for teachers to actually be allowed to do what they are supposed to...... Teach! Not sit at a desk and write reports to satisfy those at the top who over scrutinise curriculum to make sure they are delivering the exact political outcome they have envisaged. Education should be free of politics.

But this is way off topic.

 

What I mean by small business being the first to go is they shut down completely. Harvey Norman, Rio Tinto, BHP and the like keep surviving but with less revenue. Sure, dividends will be lower for shareholders, but these small mum and dads business close down, kaput. No amount of defibrillation will bring them back to life. Where I live, shopfront vacancies increased fairly noticeably around GFC.
There is a real dilemma for consumers though in terms of the little corner store. People just aren't going to throw away money unnecessarily. For instance, a little corner store will charge $5.50 for 2 litres of milk, whereas you can save $2.50 by going to Coles or woollies. You add a few products together and you would be paying extraordinary amounts for just a few items. It's not the corner stores fault, due to no wholesale buying power and restrictions. At the end of the day, the consumer isn't and generally can't afford to throw away a lazy $100 to keep someone in business. It's far beyond the consumer now you would think. As you say, there are many and varied small businesses that aren't just about groceries. Project builders dominate the domestic construction industry. The old master builder cannot compete, although quality of craftsmanship is what is keeping many surviving only in the top end market though. 25 or 30 years ago you just wouldn't touch a project home, the workmanship was extremely poor, but obviously there have been many improvements since but still don't compare to MB I must say.

There is no issue diverting a conversation on a thread a little: On education there is no scrutinising over curriculum. Curriculum is broad and delivered with "perspectives" and promotes higher order thinking. Students can come to their own conclusions on any issue. I remember issues such climate change a few years back and even recall an assessment task on CSG mining for one of my relatives children, which I was caught up in a conversation about. There are people who have different opinions such as, teachers, parents and media. Ultimately its about students sifting through this information and forming their own conclusion. So I'm not sure politics is a huge part. If respecting all different kinds of people from varying backgrounds is political then sure, it is political.

As for respect, I'm not sure too much has changed either way. As you get older slippery you become more set in your ways.....lol. I've had to recheck myself on this one and reflect on the past. I forgot about so many issues growing up due to living in a mature world for so long. If anything the whole of society has become less tolerant. My thoughts anyway for what it's worth Slippery!

 

nothing more to say:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-17/almost-600-companies-did-not-pay-tax-in-2013-14/7036324

Regards

 

Yes your link says it all. $40 billion in tax paid by 1,500 companies. BHP was the biggest tax payer paying $4 billion and Rio Tinto paid $3 billion and that is just in Australia.
We do not need to increase taxation, the public service needs to spend less.

 

Am,
in a vast country like ours with little population we need a lot of money for almost everything, infrastructure to start with. Less spending is not always the answer, if you want to keep things going.
It would be nice to see how much profit BHP and Rio made (in Australia of course), and compare that profit with the taxes they paid.
Regards

 

$146 billion went on welfare in 2014 - 15. 50% of households recieve more welfare than tax they pay. This is were we must start cutting back along with needless government spending. The tax burden on the few who do work and receive little or no welfare is already too great.

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Companies pay 30% tax on every dollar of profit. You cannot legally get out of it.

 

I think he wants us to pay our police officers and politicians etc less....politicians are on too much money so we need to give our year 8 dropouts who are happy to work for a pittance a go. Who needs nurses, who needs teachers and who needs the defence force. Who needs all those paraprofessional jobs to keep these people afloat within their industries. Get rid of them all! They're all parasitical bludgers who do nothing for our country but spend our bloody money.

 

Do you have anything intelligent to contribute to the discussion?

 

Sorry, I was just having a little chuckle....My little nephews says that to everyone when he can't understand the conversation between adults. Honest. But he says: Don't yous have something intelligent to say.....anyway, it just reminds me of that. He couldn't understand the conversation either, it was obviously going well over his head!

Anyway, after all you did say the public service needs to spend less and that's a pretty broad scope. I see you are saying less needs to be spent on welfare now and that's pretty broad as well. We have one of the lowest welfare budgets per GDP in the OECD by a substantial margin.

Tell us what public service expenditure specifically you would like to see cut or reduced, rather than us having to guess. And what parts of welfare expenditure would you like to see cut or reduced?

 

Comparing anything to GDP is just a stupid meaningless academic exercise. I notice the leftards do it constantly because it gives them a result that supports their false world view. But when we come back to the real world and look at statistics that actually mean something you will find Australia is at the top of the list for OECD countries.

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2014/11/27/2053392/welfare-spending-across-the-oecd/

In particular it is interesting to see in the above link that Australia provides more cash benefits to low income earners that all other OECD countries and less to higher income earners than all other OECD countries. This is at odds with the leftards constant whining about the 'rich' receiving welfare.

It is hard to be specific without combing through every government department but we could apply certain tests to every department right down to individual jobs.
'does this department/section/job produce a measurable result? If we got rid of this department/job would it have any meaningful effect on anything? Is this regulation (and all the administration associated with it) actually achieving anything meaningful or positive or are we just processing paper for the sake of it?'
Deregulation would save heaps. I think you would find the administration of regulation that we could do without costs awesome amounts. Governments for a long time now have gone the track of creating regulations purely for sake of having regulation and not to address any real problem or with any empirical evidence to support it. We get regulation simply because some public service retard thinks it is a good idea.
Government self promotion and advertising could be curtailed. I am amazed at the amount of glossy broachers there are adorning the walls of every government department you walk into.
And as I have mentioned before the foreign service I think could be drastically cut back.
As for welfare, I will get back to you on that one but I reckon we could strip billions out of it. 35% of the governments total income going out in welfare is just too much.

 

Yes we should stop paying the unemployed, why do we pay them for their LIFESTYLE choices, same with the crippled and disabled, cut their benefits too, they are useless to us, and the elderly, bludgers, just because they have spent half a century helping to build a nation, now they are hanging around wanting a handout. They should have saved up for their retirement.

Talking to Dad last week. He told me that he was getting more for a litre of milk 20 years ago then farmers are getting today, but then it is much more important for Coles and Woolies to sell milk for $3 a litre then for our farmers to make a living, after all we can always sell our farms to the Chinese to bolster our economy in the short term while we buy back the reconstituted "milk" from the Chinese in the long term.

 

He just did .... DO YOU?

 

It depends on what you are looking at in terms of GDP. The disparity is fairly significant. It's just that it exposes the rightards superficiality.

Couldn't find the information you were alluding to in link.

Who knows how many jobs can be flicked. Streamlining is and should be a constant evolutionary practice in ever changing workplace. There will obviously be savings but cutting more jobs from the public service is obviously going to impact on sectors and probably cost more in the long term is my thought. What will be the overall affect?


Will the ramifications of targeting welfare have reverberating impacts across the economy. http://www.glennmurray.com.au/think-your-tax-supports-dole-bludgers-think-again/ Wealthy members of society should be grateful that they live and function in a system that has allowed them to become wealthy and many are grateful and insightful enough to respect that. Infrastructures and systems have been developed over 100's of years. We are all operating on the back of collective yesteryear efforts and all bludged a free ride. It's a cycle that keeps everyone functioning and opening up opportunities by giving back to what gave us opportunity.

 

LRL, one dimensional thinking is always perplexing and sometimes frustrating. No one in their right mind buys a car by looking at just one side.

We are a Norco family. For a little extra you are getting quality milk and supporting local industry. : )

 

Yes well don't talk to me about Norco, a perfect example of Capitalism gone crazy, caused millions of dollars to be lost and forced hundreds of dairymen (including my father) out of business. Not Norco itself, but the north coast farmers, frankly, what they did 30 odd years ago was the most disgusting greedy grab ever, and it screwed them as well as others.

Actually I would say, if it wasn't for the North Coast farmers, I would be operating the family farm today.

 

Mate, WTF are you talking about? I never mentioned welfare in the post you are replying to.

WTF are you talking about? WTF has that got to do with my post that you are replying to? You don't do any shopping do you? If you did you would know that Coles and Woolies sell their brand milk for $2 a litre.

Try again LRL and this time try to make some sort of intelligent response to my statements. Please don't bore us with completely unconnected rants.

 

You are not making sense. It is clear that you don't know what you are talking about.

Try these links. If they don't work just google "welfare spending oecd" click on the ftaplhaville site.

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/files/2014/11/OECD-rich-vs-poor-recipients-of-cash-benefits-590x298.png

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/files/2014/11/OECD-means-tested-share-of-govt-social-spending-590x583.png

You are not making sense and you clearly don't know what you are talking about. Sounds like you just pull everything out of your arse.

 

Oops I made a mistake it's $1 a litre, I get my servants to buy my milk and do my shopping. I meant $3 for 3 litres

 

Yeah sorry, I made a mistake too. I was thinking of paying $2 for a 2 litre bottle which is what I usually buy.

 

Don't you love it??? Mention welfare and suddenly it only means unemployment benefits. Seems people forget about ALL the other forms of welfare. Why??? Because they cannot sound important or intelligent enough if they contemplate something a little more in-depth than unemployment benefits...

Trying to compare statistical information is simply the gullible way to align the understanding of those who are unable to find similarity in anything. As long as they can pick their statistics and ignore others that show the disparity of the claim statistics can be manipulated to support anything they wish. Clearly, they are unable to comprehend the problem without others giving them their opinion…