Rudd gets booted.
Cartoon: David Pope.
In what the press seem to feel is tumultuous and all the other guff that is involved in dumping him Rudd, yesterday’s turkey has become today’s feather duster. Goodbye and good riddance.
Much of the press this morning seem to put the emphasis on the ‘historic’ nature of Julia Gillard becoming the nations first female PM. For some reason ‘historic’ seems in the eyes of the media as equating with good. This is about the silliest idea, well one of the silliest things we can be asked to believe. In 08 the US got all caught up in the possibility that history could be made by electing the first black President.
That hasn’t worked out very well for them. After sweeping the polls and winning overwhelming majorities in both houses, in eighteen months the Democrats look likely to lose both in massive shows of voter anger, while the administration desperately tries to grandstand and play the race card in order to survive.
Historic is irrelevant, quality is the important thing. Watch for, “the opportunity to make history by electing our first female PM,” when the election comes around.
Gillard has given a fairly manicured performance in interviews today, which is to be expected. The press is still too bemused to ask serious questions so probably for the time being we will find out little. We can expect some improvement, as there is an indication that the whole of the ministry will now be doing the thinking instead of Rudd’s gang of four.
The great big mining tax is still on the table as is ration and tax, although the latter is on the backburner for a while. The government has suspended its anti-mining advertisements and ill advisedly the mining industry has agreed to stop its anti-tax ads. Mining has been offered the chance to negotiate with the government to reach a consensus, and seem to have been sucked in.
There is absolutely no moral justification for an additional tax on mining profits; they should be treated in the same way as those of any other industry. Natural resources are no more the ‘property of the people’ than is air, sunlight, or rain. Miners need to reject any concept of a Resource Rental Tax, make it clear to both sides, and stick to it. Rational economists have dismissed the fallacious concept of resource rental long ago as a myth.
Probably the most important improvement the ascension of Gillard will achieve is hopefully some improvement in the opposition. Tony Abbott cannot rely on Rudd’s unpopularity to sweep him into office, and he and the opposition will have to come up with policies that will offer a real alternative to the government.
At this point in time they have not done this. After defeating Ration And Tax in the Senate they looked the goods, but then in a fit of stupidity turned around and backed a new form of emissions tax.
Abbott seems to concentrate on the idea that the way to offer an alternative is to push for the same things as the government, only different in some way. The utterly stupid concept of taxing our most profitable businesses extra to provide a Rolls Royce parental leave scheme at up to $150,000 per year is an indication of this. They have actually come up with something worse than Rudd has inflicted. As it stands now the only real difference between the government and the opposition is on the mining tax.
The productive sector work for themselves, and in so doing improve the lives of everybody. Currently all that the big two parties are offering is differing degrees of looting to feed the avaricious desires of federal, state, and local governments that are out of control.
The Liberals have to start aiming at reducing the size, scope and cost of government and offer an alternative to the current growth of big government or get out of the way.
The only party that is consistently opposing the growth of government and offering viable policies to reverse it in this country is the Liberal Democratic Party.
That hasn’t worked out very well for them. After sweeping the polls and winning overwhelming majorities in both houses, in eighteen months the Democrats look likely to lose both in massive shows of voter anger, while the administration desperately tries to grandstand and play the race card in order to survive.
Historic is irrelevant, quality is the important thing. Watch for, “the opportunity to make history by electing our first female PM,” when the election comes around.
Gillard has given a fairly manicured performance in interviews today, which is to be expected. The press is still too bemused to ask serious questions so probably for the time being we will find out little. We can expect some improvement, as there is an indication that the whole of the ministry will now be doing the thinking instead of Rudd’s gang of four.
The great big mining tax is still on the table as is ration and tax, although the latter is on the backburner for a while. The government has suspended its anti-mining advertisements and ill advisedly the mining industry has agreed to stop its anti-tax ads. Mining has been offered the chance to negotiate with the government to reach a consensus, and seem to have been sucked in.
There is absolutely no moral justification for an additional tax on mining profits; they should be treated in the same way as those of any other industry. Natural resources are no more the ‘property of the people’ than is air, sunlight, or rain. Miners need to reject any concept of a Resource Rental Tax, make it clear to both sides, and stick to it. Rational economists have dismissed the fallacious concept of resource rental long ago as a myth.
Probably the most important improvement the ascension of Gillard will achieve is hopefully some improvement in the opposition. Tony Abbott cannot rely on Rudd’s unpopularity to sweep him into office, and he and the opposition will have to come up with policies that will offer a real alternative to the government.
At this point in time they have not done this. After defeating Ration And Tax in the Senate they looked the goods, but then in a fit of stupidity turned around and backed a new form of emissions tax.
Abbott seems to concentrate on the idea that the way to offer an alternative is to push for the same things as the government, only different in some way. The utterly stupid concept of taxing our most profitable businesses extra to provide a Rolls Royce parental leave scheme at up to $150,000 per year is an indication of this. They have actually come up with something worse than Rudd has inflicted. As it stands now the only real difference between the government and the opposition is on the mining tax.
The productive sector work for themselves, and in so doing improve the lives of everybody. Currently all that the big two parties are offering is differing degrees of looting to feed the avaricious desires of federal, state, and local governments that are out of control.
The Liberals have to start aiming at reducing the size, scope and cost of government and offer an alternative to the current growth of big government or get out of the way.
The only party that is consistently opposing the growth of government and offering viable policies to reverse it in this country is the Liberal Democratic Party.
It is hard to understand why looting to feed government is anyhow worse for the victim then looting the same person for the "needy"(LDP policy). It is still looting and still loss.
ReplyDeleteThe LDP supports replacing all current welfare with a negative income tax that provides a basic standard of living and assistance to the working poor.
ReplyDeleteThe tax is considerably lower than existing scales, and the negative element will pretty much replace the current welfare system with its massive bureaucracy. Its a pretty good start, and while it may still conform to the libertarian or objectivist definition of 'looting' is a hell of a lot better than what we have.