Hello Matt72, Thank you for your thoughts on Kevin Rudd and the Rudd Government's performance regarding tax and super. By the way I did not vote for either Labor or Liberal last election and I notice that your comments excluded the GST. Is it like Monty Python, comrade; "Dont mention the GST!"
You are quite correct in your remark that we have free enterprise system here, albeit of sorts, and not communist regime, yet the way that we as shareholders of Australian companies are flogging our assets to Chinese entities that are fronts for Chinese Communist Party is alarming. Your commentary does not comment on this brute fact and how we as Australians can protect our precious resources. Take the current Arrow Energy Shell/Petrochina deal for example. Perhaps it's acceptable to you because it goosed the share a buck or so!
We may not be Communists yet but the way we're going, one could be forgiven for thinking that we are Communist sympathisers.
Kevin Rudd is quite right when he says that we own our resources and not the multinationals who, de facto, lay claim to them. Our only problem is how do we, as a country, maximise the returns from these assets to benefit all Australians and not a few shareholders who would flog their granny to the Chinese for a quick Yuan! Imagine if China owned these resources and we needed them as bad as China? Crikey Mate, they'd be asking noodles!
As a free enterprise advocate I assume that you would agree that the owner of these resources has a right to get the best market price for them?. I believe that this is precisely what Kevin Rudd is attempting to do on our (the owners) behalf.
Also as a free enterprise advocate, I'm sure that you favour user pays rather that socialised forms of payments. This is what superannuation is all about; that those capable of earning pay a share of their salary into a tax protected savings scheme so that the State does not have to keep them in their old age. Super is simply part of a wage packet and it only happens to be expedient for the employer to pay super into the employees nominated fund rather that leave it to the employee to do so. Like miners who think they own our resources, employers think that they pay our Super instead of merely being the deposing agent. Super is simply part of our pay packet and our entitlement by law.
In summary, if we cop the status quo and flog our resources cheaply to Chinese State entities we we may very well find ourselves controlled by them later, incapable of owning shares in them and,in a hundred years time , left with holes in the ground like "Birdshit Island" and nothing to show for it.
We should follow the lead of Saudi Arabia or Norway who have managed their natural resources in a way that benefits all their citizens and not just a capitalist few. By the way, Saudi Arabia and Norway ranks in the top 4 countries in the world with respect income per capita and Australia does not.
I wonder why? Maybe we should dial a friend!
The Rudd Government is in the early stages of, as Gough Whitlam put it, "claiming back the farm" and it is about time. While the 40% super tax may seem hostile and harsh at present it is simply a starting point and as we all know good trade unionists start with an inflated log of claims and later settle for a modest wage increase. And so, comrade, it is with this 40% ambit claim which I'm sure is only the start to a fair and equitable settlement. We'll be all "Waltzing Matilda" again with the miners in no time flat. No worries!
Moorooka Mick
PS: My super has lost almost 7% since Kevin's super tax announcement but as they say in the classics, mate "no pain, no gain!"
