22 October 2013

Here comes the Commission of Audit

| johnboy
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The Australian has the word on Business Council of Australia chair Tony Shepherd being appointed to rip the guts out of the public service and sell the furniture to the vultures.

JOE Hockey has unveiled a surprise increase in the debt ceiling to $500 billion as he announced a Commission of Audit into government finances with sweeping terms of reference that could produce a massive rewrite of federal-state relations and usher in a raft of privatisations.

The Commission of Audit, announced by the Treasurer and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, will be chaired by Business Council of Australia president Tony Shepherd.

The four-person panel will comprise chairman of the NSW Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal Peter Boxall, former Treasury Secretary Tony Cole, former Western Australian bureaucrat Robert Fisher and former Howard government minister Amanda Vanstone.

The Commission’s Secretariat will be headed up by Peter Crone, the Business Council of Australia’s chief economist and director of policy.

It’s going to be ugly and some well connected chaps are going to make like bandits.

Better start saving for the fees on the oxygen you breathe.

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Robertson said :

3/ Keep the carbon tax. It generates income and boosts productivity.

Keep drinking the Kool-Aid.

These Commissions of Audit might be a worthwhile exercise if they weren’t ideologically driven and with 90% of the findings already predetermined.

Ray Polglaze4:31 pm 23 Oct 13

Robertson, Could you give a reference for your claim that:

“when they decided to re-assess people living on disability handouts in the UK, 39% were found to be fit for employment, 36% chose to drop off the benefit rather than be assessed, 17% were found capable of assisted work, leaving just 7% genuinely disabled people”?

I wonder how they will go on the ABC/SBS.

I was surprised at how many channels and what have you they have when I was dragged screaming into setting up a digital recorder.

thebrownstreak692:47 pm 23 Oct 13

Robertson said :

10/ $35billion for “families with children”, aka, either middle-class welfare, or, subisiding bogans to breed. Get rid of it and instead increase the tax-free threshold, move the brackets up, and reduce income tax in the lower bracket.

I’d like to see the tax rates flattened a bit, but the tax free threshold increased. This would have the effect of reducing the tax paid by low income earners, and would encourage people to earn extra money. Obviously some thought would need to be given to ensure tax receipts were still sensible within the context of collecting revenue.

I have a few bits of free advice to give the commission:

1/ Axe the entire $5billion private healthcare rebate. There is no rational reason to keep it. Axing it will improve productivity and efficiency in the healthcare industry.

2/ Keep the mining tax. While our resources are still capable of generating some income (and in the absence of Australia generating any income through actually making anything), let’s keep a share of that for government spending.

3/ Keep the carbon tax. It generates income and boosts productivity.

4/ Un-privatise everything. Now the various privatised ex-government assets are massively devalued from having been milked by (many foreign-owned) corporations, we can buy them back more cheaply than they were sold for, then the government can work at restoring their value as income-generating assets.

5/ Tony Abbott’s retrospective compensation to victims of terrorism. All these people already received free healthcare courtesy of the taxpayer. People should live on their own two feet without expecting government handouts (according to Joe Hockey) so, cancel this particular budget outcome and save many millions of dollars.

6/ $50billion to be paid to the states in the upcoming year. Cancel. State governments have demonstrated they are corrupt and can’t be trusted to run education or healthcare. Just stop funding them and let them wither away into irrelevance.

7/ $1.5billion “natural disaster relief”. People should stand on their own two feet and not expect government handouts (according to Joe Hockey). Let them buy insurance instead of relying on government handouts.

8/ $50billion being given the old-age pensioners over the year. What’s the point?

9/ $23billion for people with disabilities. The vast majority of this is being rorted. When they decided to re-assess people living on disability handouts in the UK, 39% were found to be fit for employment, 36% chose to drop off the benefit rather than be assessed, 17% were found capable of assisted work, leaving just 7% genuinely disabled people.

10/ $35billion for “families with children”, aka, either middle-class welfare, or, subisiding bogans to breed. Get rid of it and instead increase the tax-free threshold, move the brackets up, and reduce income tax in the lower bracket.

HiddenDragon11:16 am 23 Oct 13

JC said :

HiddenDragon said :

For all the talk about the importance which this Government attaches to small business, this is looking, at the outset, like a big business exercise.

What on earth made you think an Abbott Government thought small business was important? Look at some of their policies, they were very small business unfriendly. With the backing of the big end of town, Abbott and Co are only going to be looking after two groups, themselves (to get re-elected) and the likes of Murdoch, Reinhart etc.

Which particular policies are “very small business unfriendly”?

“His Commission of Audit is looking like a subsidiary of the Business Council of Australia. It will be chaired by council president Tony Shepherd and its secretariat will be run by council director of policy Peter Crone. It will be examining what fields the Commonwealth should abandon, what it should contract out and what it should privatise. These are topics on which it already has views.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/joe-hockey-will-blame-it-on-predecessor-20131022-2vz9t.html#ixzz2iUkaX5oo

HiddenDragon said :

For all the talk about the importance which this Government attaches to small business, this is looking, at the outset, like a big business exercise.

What on earth made you think an Abbott Government thought small business was important? Look at some of their policies, they were very small business unfriendly. With the backing of the big end of town, Abbott and Co are only going to be looking after two groups, themselves (to get re-elected) and the likes of Murdoch, Reinhart etc.

What was that about Dracula and the blood bank?

HiddenDragon11:13 pm 22 Oct 13

For all the talk about the importance which this Government attaches to small business, this is looking, at the outset, like a big business exercise. On which, these comments from Jennifer Westacott of the BCA might provide some encouragement for those who’d be happy to see Ministers’ Offices return to a more “traditional” role:

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2012/s3595307.htm

I wonder if Amanda Vanstone will eat anyone?

Will make MOG look like the “it’s a small world” ride at Disneyland….

Slash and burn, chaps. Please slash and burn.

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