Interesting article on democracy in the Age today:

www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/when-wealth-becomes-king-democracy-is-a-poor-subject-20120617-20hzv.html

Thought that surely he could have explored the influence of corporates and lobby groups on shaping policy that is then spun and sold to the voters... so really we have 2nd hand democracy, if you can call it that.

Still, he writes a good article.

K Dawg says "Make caps on political donations circa 10k, and all candidates have to list all their donors in a fact sheet before elections".

Also, ban any politician from being able to gain employment with any company / group that participated in government tenders / projects directly with the government or received industry specific funding or assistance from the Government.... pretty much wipe out all the state government candidates......

Imagine the level playing field..... it would be terrible right, every one running has an even chance to some degree..... because they are limited in the funds for running ads... also they should regulate TV time, which should be the same amount of time for all parties.....

[b]sn saidI recall that Western Australian citizens voted against extended trading hours.

All big business did was push for "special trading zones" and big brother gave it to them.
Probably plenty of other examples out there that someone else can tell about.

stephen

Yup, I remember that, I also voted against it , I lost count of how many times I heard business leaders and politicians inform us how we still really needed and wanted extended trading. Such a pity they didn't ram Daylight Saving down our throats. Still, it's not all bad, we may get another chance to vote again on Daylight Saving in around 15 years time given that it was around 18 years or so between Refferendums. J

Australia is seriously long over due for a bill of rights.......

At the moment, we have none, bar human rights charter from UN implied.....

But then again, Australians prefer to be consumers first, citizens second.... so who cares right....

The current state of the nation is that government is run as government. Money is there to be spent and no one has to answer for the return on investment or the impact on the bottom line. The big problem with this is we see people running in government, most of which have never run a small business let alone a corporation. The government is a business, in fact its the largest business in Australia. Would any company allow someone with no experience free reign over their company for 4 years with no accountability? They'd be lucky to get the job, never mind 4 years. First thing I'd like to see is for the prime minister to be handed a employment contract with measures based on his/her promises on a year to year basis. They need to meet at least 80% of their promises or they lose their job. Business isn't any different, why should government be?

The second thing we need to do is bring in business minds to run government. The current head of transport/social welfare/etc have no experience in their field. This results in policy that is unsustainable.

Let me give you an example. In business we make decisions that impact on our bottom line. When we impact on our bottom line, we impact on the profitability. While government is not there to make profit, it does need to do enough to make sure it maintains the incoming revenue or it could find itself in trouble. The problem with current model is its not a viable business model. When your business is driven primarily by business and personal tax revenue, you need to do your utmost to ensure that business continues to do well and individuals have the incentive to do well to ensure they pay more tax. When the incentive for business or individuals to do well is devalued, then tax growth is stunted which in turn impacts on the government's bottom line. This is the nature of the current situation we find ourselves in. At the moment, the government is seeking to punish those who do well and incentive those who don't with increased tax breaks. Whilst its great to provide tax breaks to lower income earners, we also give them no incentive to live according to their means or do better. On top of this, we're providing incentives for those at the bottom to remain there so we're creating a model where we're minimising the profitability of the government. I.e. we're making it more affordable for those who can't afford to have kids and less affordable for those who can. A good example of this is the recent talk of means testing childcare rebates. At the moment, the assumption is that if a couple is earning $200K per year, the revenue is split evenly, but what if there is disparity? I.e. One earning $60K and one earning $140. If we remove the childcare benefit, its no longer viable for one person to work and as a result, we see one member not returning to the workforce and the whole country suffers as a result. This is due not only to the loss of tax revenue for one of the members not returning to the workforce, but also due to their drop combined earnings which see's them have access to numerous other rebates they would not have had access to with their combined earnings. To gain $7K in revenue on a childcare rebate we've actually lost $20K in tax revenue. The problem with this however is not only have we lost $20K in revenue, but we've lost $40K in spending in the economy and this impacts on the country as a whole because if that person was working, they'd be spending an additional $40K on childcare, clothing, food etc, all of which impact on whether people are employed, profits are made, and GST which is additional income for the country. If you have 10,000 people doing the same, you've suddenly lost $400 Million in spending and if the figure is as high as 100,000 you've now lost $4 Billion. How many jobs have we just lost to save a measly $7000 per couple? It makes no financial sense but unfortunately the current people in government don't seem to have the experience or knowledge to realise this.

To put it into perspective, if I ran a business and tried to screw over my biggest customers, you can almost guarantee they would go somewhere else. Government seems to think that because people are tax payers that they can't go anywhere else but in reality they can. Business can push their operations offshore where its more cost effective (loss of jobs, company revenue etc). Tax payers on the other hand have less choice, but it doesn't mean they have no choice. One person can choose not to work as an example, or we could lose a skill to UK.

evlPanda said...
Too right. They run it like a business that prints ...its own ...money. Oh wait!
(I know: technically separate but go with me)

Printing money isn't that simple but I'll let you go with it. This is more about accountability for how they spend it rather than spending it. If they waste $200 Million, no one gets fired. Waste $200 Million at a corporate and you'll be out on the doorstep.

evlPanda said...

If they fail, especially catastrophically, they should be fired. Just like all the investment bankers that ...got bonuses ...when they caused the Global Financial Crisis. Oh wait!

Actually, thats the american system where the people advising the government were actually under the employ of the banks. Talk about a conflict of interest. The auditors that advised the banks of the risk were fired and replaced with people who toned it down. How someone didn't go to jail for the GFC is a mystery to me. Irony - the same people advising the government prior to the GFC are still advising Obama.

I don't agree with what happened with the banks. I don't believe the banks should have been bailed out and I don't believe the guys who took $160 Million bonuses should have walked away unscathed.

evlPanda said...

Government is not in any way shape or form a business. Government is there to redistribute wealth. Think about it. This is not a scary, conspiratorial secret, it is actually the well known foremost function of government.

...but I have to agree it is fn weird to see ministers put in charge of a topic they know nothing about.

Government is not there to redistribute wealth unless we're living in a socialist environment (Gillard was actually socialist at Uni so perhaps that is not a surprise).

evlPanda said...

Saffer said...
Government is not there to redistribute wealth...

(in the form of services) If not, then what? Profit?

Redistribution of the wealth is very different from providing basic services which everyone is entitled to. For example, providing free healthcare is different to providing a baby bonus. Government may be not for profit, but they need to make a profit (surplus) to cater for times when they need to invest in infrastructure. They also need to consider the profitability of their policy or it impacts on their ability to spend. I.e. if they create a policy that results in a 1 billion loss of tax revenue, that loss impacts on their spending or they go into deficit so policy has to make some economic sense. I.e. no point in raising company taxes to 80% if companies move their operations offshore and they lose more than they gain. Its a balancing act. Unfortunately the people currently doing the balance don't seem to have the ability to think about the impact of their decisions so they're making decisions which have ludicrous long term impacts for minimal gain.

Lets use the example above:

Government wants to give lower income earners additional childcare rebates, so they decide to means test childcare rebates for higher income earners to "save" $600 million and allocate it to lower income earners. Result of the policy is that in families with higher income earners, they actually result in second family members leaving the workforce and they actually make a $400 million loss plus they now committed an extra $600 Million to lower income earners so in effect, the new policy has cost them $1 Billion. They have to recoup their losses by raising tax rates and now everyone is impacted anyway (even those without kids). What they have also done is lost a massive portion of their workforce (which results in costs for workers to come into australia and fill roles that could be done by Australian's who are no longer working), lost tax revenue, lowered the average family income, paid out more in rebates and all because of one policy that was supposed to save money instead of lose money.

Here is an overview on what government should be doing.

www.answers.com/Q/What_are_the_main_purposes_of_government

Maintain Social Order= Provide ways to solve conflicts
Providing Public Services= Those services essential for community life and for protecting public health and safety
Providing Nation Security= Protect people against the threat of attack by the other nations or from internal threats such as terrorism
Making economic decisions= Reduce the causes which would make needed goods and services scarce in society

Governments also protect life, liberty, property and the persuit of happiness. The preamble ot the Constitution also includes some government's purposes.

There should be NO:

Baby bonus
Family tax benefits
First home buyers grant
Senior tax offset
Senior Concessional super tax treatment
Mature age tax offset
Health care rebate
Child care rebate
Negative gearing tax deductions for residentual housing

All these things prevent market forces which the so called capitalist believe in.... until something is wrong in their industry..... demand is down, so a buyers grant comes out..... no body believes in the free market anymore....

If its too expensive to have a child, then you don't.

If its too expensive to buy a 4 bedroom house with home theatre room, you don't, you buy a two bedroom unit in an average area. Already built.
If its expensive having a family with the cost of living being so high, you budget, don't go on lavish holidays, down grade the size of your house, spend more time with the kids rather than working to keep up a level of living that is beyond the budget.......

If you want to use domestic housing for investing, you shouldn't gain a tax deduction. A house is a home and should be treated as such. If I want to treat women as commodities does that make them so? There should be no tax advantage in taking on debt, when there is no tax advantage given for saving and being sensible. Why should tax payers subsidise investments of others?

Saying that, I believe in free markets, and also fair markets. I disagree with the Business School of Economics model where business play unfairly to win and control markets. Businesses should compete based on product and service, not by pricing out competitors and taking over them with anti competitive practices which run rampant in this country.

The governments role should be to create a fair playing field, no special treatment, no payments for children, high cost of living.... if that is happening it means they HAVE ALREADY FAILED to create a level playing field in the market place. They allow banks to swallow smaller banks, reduce competition, which results in eventual increased prices......

People are looking for cures (payments), when the cause of the expensive living, is the market place, is simply not fair, and our government as ALREADY FAILED in this area.....

I could not be bothered to read the loooooooooooooooooooooooong posts without breaks! So..........................

I got married
I am taxed heavily and live in a dictatorship

Democracy should be feared and avoided.

Just ask a Saffer