As I said in another thread, without policy change it is irrelevant who leads the LP. A lot of whining and whinging on these threads but no acknowledgement that BS is in front on policy that matters to voters.
The results in QLD is a real concern for the LNP as is Braddon. No hiding behind that. Plus 30 trailing newspolls say curtains as well. And policy direction needs changing and if nothing is done now the LNP will be a shambles after the next election because I doubt whether Porter, in particular, or Hastie will hold their seats. Frydenberg is the other for me who could make a good leader with Corman as Deputy (if they can move him down from a Senate seat), but of late he has been put under the bus on energy policy by MT - btw, you wouldn't invest in a coal fired power station in Oz noting the sunk investment cost (over $1 billion for a 600 MW power station) and long investment recovery times (more than 10 years in most cases) especially when you have government's openly saying they don't support coal so why would you invest (unlike China who is building them at a fast rate, but I can't recall a coal fired power station been built in Oz last 2 years and no wonder in part why energy costs are increasing when you don't have a mix of fuels for energy use - yes there is a role for renewables as well as coal and gas in an energy mix - in your planning arsenal).
But changing personalities won't help the LNP, they also need to change policy focus and we never debate that here. As untrustworthy as BS is the ALP is in front on some key policy measures that IMO take precedence in the minds of voters than other policies.
The ALP is in front on policy.
1. The corporate tax cuts are a joke, especially when people haven't had decent wages growth for years and tax cuts to the low and middle income earners will have a greater impact on GDP than the laffer curve nonsence put up here by so many. Oh guess what te\he ALP by saying they will remove the corporate tax cuts is code for personal tax cuts, a vote winner.
2. The imputation issue - what imputation was about was that dividends paid by companies to SH from after tax income would not be taxed twice. You do realise dividends are taxed twice in every other country in the world except NZ, so understand the term not taxed twice, not meaning not taxed ever (in the company tax arrangements prior to distribution) like you want here if the income was given to someone who didn't pay tax. That was its objective, not what Howard did in his ever ending charade of coursing structural deficits in the budget when the GFC came and all of a sudden revenue as a % of GDP collapsed as his giveaways came home to roast - https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au...-undid-his-protege-tony-abbott/14189940001389
(In other words Oz has a revenue and a spending problem and giving out company tax cuts to blow another $65 billion debt is a joke when Laffer is a failure). Oh before comment on the garbage tax competitiveness, the fact we have imputation means the effective tax rate here is less than 20%, compared to the USA at 21% before including State income tax there and taxing dividends twice there as well. And don't blabber Singapore - well I'll take any of you seriously there only when you can show me a big LNG/iron ore mine in that country - they are tax thieves and Oz should punish multinationals by actually enforcing tax laws, infact create a turnover tax for revenue going outside Oz to tax havens and if multinationals say we will leave Oz say pss off to Africa and try your luck there where the Govt demands equity stakes in your projects LOL.
Companies just don't like paying tax today and many pay didley squat and don't actually want to pay any tax and some will always want o reduce tax to $0 so company tax cuts are not the answer to getting back the policy ground. The Laffer curve could work if the govt had other triggers that made the excess profits moved to productive investments but it is too gutless to move in that area - that is closing offshore tax minimisation loopholes and unproductive investments such as NG. As Packer once said I don't like paying tax full stop - that is it is irrelevant what the rate is for some. So cutting taxes will not lead to the growth the govt anticipates that will balance the budget LOL unless it addresses other issues which it is too gutless to address.
Both 1 and 2 are going to give the ALP a war chest to build policies on.
Many here somehow think that without a change in policy settings the LNP can win under a right wing leader (TA or Dutton for example) which just demonstrates too me just how out of touch the right here truly are like last time around when many of that sway posting here thought the ALA will win countless seats LOL. So how is the LNP going to take back the policy ground back from the ALP. Yes something many of the right here are ridicously clueless on because they say "I worked hard in the 60s and 70s and paid my way".
Well the 60s are different, the income to house price ration then was less than 2 time income, not the 5 to 10 times it costs you for an average home, read average and understand its meaning beause times have changed. Someone stayed home to look after the kids because one income was enough, these days you need two incomes just to meet mortgage payments and cost of living and that is also why people are having less kids (too expensive) and a lower birth rate leads to guess what folks a higher migration intake (something many here also whine about).
Tax cuts to middle income families will do more for GDP growth than anything else - by saying no to company tax cuts and addressing some of these ridiculous concessions - given the stagnation in wages and escalating housing/costs of services is a winner IMO for BS. The only issue is will the tax cuts be used to pay down debt on the mortgage, which I think they will, meaning not much stimulus in the economy (but I would expect most low income earners to spend the bulk of any tax cuts). Unlike tax cuts for multinationals which just leads to more money been syphoned offshore LOL. I don't mind MT's tax policy but it is to in the distant future and he would have been better off further loading the cuts to $140000 and further raising the bar on where first tax be paid (because those over $140,000 IMO will still benefit from the change in scales).
Don't post the top 1% pay x% in tax - you do realise the top tax rate starts at $180,000 btw and those on say $200,000 are not millionaires because they in effect only twice average income - average income in Oz is about $85,000 - btw still a good wage but not millionaires club if they have a few kids and say a $500,000 mortgage in Sydney albeit better off than most, because they are mainly PAYG workers and anyone those of them who have a $1 million mortgage in Sydney and a couple of kids I doubt would call themselves rich btw- the rich have trusts in the Cayman's LOL.
The LNP are on the nose because they are dishevelled lot that don't want to do much to help out the so-called battlers and these to me are now anyone on less than $120,000 per year with a mortgage and a few kids. They are dis-organised and have policies that voters see as crap, fullstop. Then there is cut spending mantra but reduce taxes to already tax dodgers the LP like to blabber about (see Laffer comment below). Not a good look when multinationals are getting away with murder already. Again ALP is in front there policy wise.
To get some policy nouse back,for example a limit NG to say $40,000 regardless of how many homes anyone owns (i.e. that protects your mum and dad investors with one home) is not a bad differential policy basis to the ALP and remove the CGT discount on investment property but maintain it on productive investments (and that would be easy to sell because you never lose all your money on an investment property but can lose the lot on a venture capital investment and furthermore most people don't sell their investment properties by teh way as they hoard them in trusts etc). You need venture capital to take risks in Oz and that is why targeting CGT discount to productive sectors is not a bad choice but removing it on unproductive investments.
In other words, change in policy required by the LNP (with a new leader as the public has stopped listening IMO to MT) and fight the good fight, but I don't think the LNP is capable of that so a few years of the ALP should wake up the righties on HC of why they also are part of the problem when the ALP get in. And deal with Mediscare campaign because BS brought it up again, and the cuts in penalty rates is something that voters will have their minds on for a while, as was evidenced by MT's nice stroll and then pasting he got from those at that pub in Longman.
t doesn't matter who gets in, because todays politicians only believe in themselves. The LNP are probably the better of the two evils only in that the ALP doesn't understand that people on between $100,000 - $200,000 a year who are trying to get ahead are not wealthy as they like to paint the picture (given the average wage in Oz is around $85,000). If we look at the labour share of National Income it has gone backwards over the last 30 years and yet what ends up in capital is simply been sent overseas to non-resident shareholders mainly and that is a stupid way to be looking after the long term interests of Australia (at the time our budget worsens and our infrastructure falls apart). Labour is just as bad as the LNP in hitting the middle and working class IMO and that needs changing because people have had enough, and in part that is probably why the Senate is the way it is too. https://www.canberratimes.com.au/bu...ler-share-of-the-economy-20180803-p4zvcz.html
And vision, well Australia doesn't seem to have any these days. There is limited vision in Australia - none of teh parties have any. Imagine today's morons living in the past - there would have been no Dampier to Bunbury gas pipeline in WA (which in effect was the reason why the NWS project started in the first place , subsequently expanding to LNG and opening up the north west of WA to oil/gas) or the Goldfields Water Pipeline which opened up the Kalgoorlie region in WA and I am sure many of you can think of other examples. Yes they may have come at some point, but when they would have come is anyone's guess. And growth requires labour, capital and technology, so if capital is missing well that means in economic terms negative productivity growth arising a lot earlier and lower growth.
Sure the LNP have more than the ALP but the ones they are targetting are not capturibg the public's imagination IMO or they are selling the badly. Get some infrastructure planning that is visionary you fools.
Politicians in today's media cycle are only interested in the short term opinion polls as against providing long term solutions to Australia's growth through iconic infrastructure. They are all worse than each other, fighting for how much lower than can drive Australia into the ground the morons. None have a strategic vision for Australia. GDP growth in today's pollies life is about a false economy driven by a housing Ponzi scheme and immigration so the GDP numbers stay positive, but all Ponzis come to an end and what will Australia then do - nothing because the politicians today are inept and just compare todays lawyer/teacher qualified Parliament who know didely squat with yester years policiticians who new plenty and built iconic lasting infrastructure.
Anyway we have a bunch of people on HC happily campaigning to oust MT for an unvoteable TA and then complain at what BS might do to Australia when he becomes PM. I think MT needs to go and be replaced by Porter or Hastie btw, but policies must change. We also then have a bunch of people in the LNP who are that blind they cannot see why the ALP is in front - straw poll, who has the better housing affordability policy ALP or LNP and/or who is the most visible party in the space of tax reform, housing affordability etc and which party is self destructing in infighting.
This has all the making of a new sitcom when BS becomes PM in later years as I wrote a while back. I'll title it "Whatever Happened to Betsy". Here is the first episode goings on:
"Betsy is stunned on the appointment of BS. That day's misfortune begins with monarchist Betsy been bewildered that at her local fish and chip shop run by Mohamed Tran (a Vietnamese Muslim) that Mohamed has developed a severe liking for the song God Save the Queen as sung by the Sex Pistols, repeatedly playing it in the shop. He asks Betsy to do a karoeke rendition of the song with him whilst he cooks her fish n chips. Betsy is conflicted as too whether to go next door and buy a kebab from Mario Italiano, also a Republican, but her love for fish n chips can't keep her away and she orders grilled flake in quiet tormented disgust, whilst annoyingly singing along. The next day whilst drinking tea using her best china, Betsy is appalled that BS will be introducing a Bill to tax trusts, remove NG and the referendum question for the republic. She is further appalled with herself for finding out of this on the ABC news, but doesn't want to tell her friends because they will realise she watches the ABC and Betsy does like bagging the ABC. She posts her disgust on hotcopper and gets lots of thumbs up."
Duplicated from another thread post I did because sick and tired ofhearing get rid of MT and people here think that is the only thing that matters with voters. If the LP replace MT and go further to teh right it is curtains - look at WA to see how shredded the LP will get, but change leaders and compete properly on policy the LP might stand a chance.
