hooman posted:

Holy poo poo that picture.

"Tony Abbott is a crying woman and terrible, just like known terrible, crying woman Julia Gillard"

I don't even know how the gently caress that is considered even partially acceptable.

PaletteSwappedNinja posted:

They don't need to sell it, they're going to get away with it and everything else with minimal resistance from anyone.

Freudian Slip posted:

how truly fukt we are

quote:

Breaking news
Commission of Audit calls for higher payments for services and cuts to welfare
Commission recommends pension age be raised to 70, the introduction of the NDIS should be slowed
Commission wants bulk-billing co-payment of $15 doctor visits

quote:

Commission of Audit report released by Federal Government
By political correspondent Emma Griffiths


A raft of potentially explosive spending cuts to government services and payments have been recommended by the Abbott Government's Commission of Audit.

Family payments, child care, health care, education, unemployment and pension payments, aged care and the National Disability Insurance Scheme are all among those areas in the firing line.

The audit also recommends swingeing cuts to industry assistance and the public service and a radical shakeup of the way all governments tax and do business.

Since it was set up in October, the commission has focused on the 15 biggest Commonwealth spending areas and found the long-term outlook for the budget is "ominous".

Its 86 recommendations, detailed in more than 1,200 pages, address major structural changes that the commission says could save the budget tens of billions of dollars a year and achieve a surplus of 1 per cent by 2023-24.

Commission chief and former head of the Business Council of Australia Tony Shepherd says the best course of action for the Government is to "act now, act incrementally, act fairly".

He has advised against "sudden shocks" for people, but says the Government "must bring future spending commitments in line with our means."

"Let's spend the taxpayers' money as though it were our money," Mr Shepherd said.

"Let's spend it carefully and frugally."

The commission says in its report that it has "not undertaken detailed costings of these recommendations" and says portfolio-by-portfolio reviews should yield "significant additional savings".

The Government has already said that some of the suggestions will be adopted, some will require more analysis, and others will be knocked back.

But the Government's full response will not be outlined until the May 13 budget is handed down.

Families

People with children would be hit with cuts to Family Tax payments, with FTB Part B abolished, and Part A subject to tighter eligibility tests.

Around 60 per cent of families, mostly single parent families or those with one parent staying at home, receive FTB Part B, which pays a maximum of $4,241.

But the commission says it is "not well targeted" and is a "significant" disincentive for mothers to work.

The other payment, FTB Part A, costs the budget around $15 billion a year and is paid to around 70 per cent of families.

The commission says the income cut-off should be lowered to better help "those in need".

Childcare and parental leave

Childcare payments, currently the Childcare Benefit and Childcare Rebate, are proposed to be merged and means-tested.

However, the commission recommends the payment be available for types of child care not currently covered, including nannies.

That would be funded by savings made to the Prime Minister's signature wage-replacement paid parental leave scheme. The commission wants to lower the threshold to average yearly earnings – currently $57,460.

Yesterday, in a major backdown, Tony Abbott confirmed he has already decided to lower the cap from his preferred $150,000 annual wage to $100,000.

Health

The health system is currently "not well-equipped" to deal with Australia's ageing population and rising costs, according to the commission.

It says high income earners should be forced to take out private health insurance to cover basic health needs, in place of Medicare, with no access to the private health insurance rebate.

The widely reported Medicare co-payment is also on the commission's wish-list, but at a higher rate than has been mooted: $15 per visit and $5 for concession card holders, instead of the $6 fee for high-income earners.

It wants cuts to the $19 billion Medicare Benefits Schedule, which includes hundreds of medical services, for example pathology.

Free medicines would also be a thing of the past, with broad changes recommended to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

The commission says co-payments for medicines should be increased by $5 and for concession card holders a $2 fee should be imposed when the safety net limit has been reached.

Learn or earn

Schools spending from the Commonwealth should be capped at 2017 levels from 2018 and beyond, according to the commission, with all policy and funding responsibility handed to the states.

It wants university students to pay more for their education, calling for "increasing the average proportion of costs paid by students from 41 per cent to 55 per cent".

People between the ages of 22 and 30 with no children who have been on unemployment benefits for a year should be required to move to areas with more job opportunities or lose the payment, the commission argues.

Growth in the minimum wage should be contained, by establishing a benchmark of 44 per cent of average weekly earnings.

Retirement

Changes to pensions are central to the commission's proposals. It calls for the age pension – the budget's single biggest item at $40 billion – to be indexed to 28 per cent of average weekly earnings instead of the current link to the higher average weekly earnings of men.

The commission says the rationale is an "anachronism" given the major role women now play in the workforce. As previously reported, it wants the age pension eligibility age raised to 70, by 2053, and says the change would not affect anyone born before 1965.

The disability support pension and carers payments would also be subject to tighter eligibility rules.

Acknowledging the "significant risks involved", the commission has also recommended the Government examine the option of outsourcing the government payment system currently administered by Centrelink.

The age at which someone could access their superannuation – currently set at 60 - should also be increased to five years before the age pension age, according to the commission.

It wants fewer people able to access the seniors health care card by including superannuation payments – for the first time - in the eligibility test.

The commission also argues the full value of the family home should be included in the means-test for aged care support.

NDIS

The National Disability Insurance Scheme, which passed Parliament with bipartisan support and to wide acclaim a year ago, is also set to be wound back.

The commission says it must be introduced more slowly than the July 1, 2019 date set by the previous Labor government. It also wants it implemented by "exercising budget control to ensure long-term financial viability".

Public service targeted

A key theme running throughout the report is the need for cuts to the public service to avoid duplication and to allow the private sector to step in.

The commission says if all of its recommendations are adopted, 15,000 public servants would lose their jobs.

It wants wholesale changes to the number and role of government bodies, reducing the number of existing major government bodies from 73 by cutting seven, merging 35, consolidating 22 into departments and agencies and privatising nine, with a further 26 to be reassessed.
Taxes

One of the more startling recommendations from the commission is that the Commonwealth allow the states and territories to collect income tax to "make them more responsible in their own sphere".

It gives the example that the current rate of 32 per cent could be cut to 22 per cent, allowing the states to raise the gap or set their own level in a "state income tax surcharge".

If adopted, it would allow a US-type scheme of tax competition between states with a guarantee that taxes would not rise overall.

quote:

Fakeed™ Butler ‏@fakeedbutler 4m

Breaking: loving boomers dodge yet another bullet pic.twitter.com/OSwE0pOQli

BCR posted:

I think they'd get half of it. And thats the point you ram through as much as you can to follow your agenda. And this is before the Great Recession really kicks in.

adamantium|wang posted:

adamantium|wang posted:

Quelle loving surprise

e:

Doctor Spaceman posted:

How does that work though? People born in 1983 will turn 70 in 2053.

adamantium|wang posted:

ABC article: The health system is currently "not well-equipped" to deal with Australia's ageing population and rising costs, according to the commission. 

Seams posted:

this is what happens when you appoint a bunch of idiot hell fuckers to 'fix' the budget

webmeister posted:

Interesting article from yesterday's Herald that I haven't seen posted:


http://www.smh.com.au/comment/how-fat-cats-are-advising-us-on-the-richpoor-gap-20140430-zr1qz.html

Sir Rabia Tirnova posted:

I've heard several great things about this book. I'm no economonist, despite working for a bank, but I am really interested in sitting down and trying to wrap my head around it.

Seams posted:

I need a break from being mad. Can somebody post this article?
http://www.crikey.com.au/2014/05/01/rundle-wingnuttery-and-racists-the-last-gasp-of-a-dying-right/

quote:

Dang nabbit — there I was all gearing up for a tour of the intercontinental assorted wingnuttery of the Right this week, a perfect grand slam, when Gerry Adams was hauled in for questioning over the murder of an alleged “informer” in 1972. Gerry Adams, the proud Irish freedom fighter and peaceful Sinn Fein memb- ah, who am I kidding? He’ll probably wriggle out of it.

Back to the wingnuts. In the United States, the big story over the past two weeks has been the rise and fall of a Nevada rancher named Cliven Bundy, who set a new record for being first a hero, and then a liability for the US Right. Bundy — the surname was surely a warning — is a cattle rancher who grazes his herds on federally owned land in Nevada. Twenty years ago he stopped paying fees (which he had paid for years) after some rule changes. The US government’s Bureau of Land Management pursued him through court judgments in their favour for two decades — Bundy making money off the cattle all the way through — before eventually moving in to confiscate the herds.

That’s when a stand-off developed. Bundy and his family, and a number of supporters, armed to the teeth, refused to budge. Bundy began giving daily press conferences and announced that he did not recognise the United States government — only that of Nevada, a sovereign state. This is a position similar to that of the growing “sovereign citizen” movement: people — OK, angry white men — who reserve the right to only obey the laws they recognise as constitutional. Such anarchism would be anathema to a Right who believe in the rule of law, you would think.

You would think, but as Bundy began giving daily press conferences in glorious wingnut gonzo style, he was feted by the Right — in particular by Sean Hannity, Catholic-pageboy-tonsured Fox News anchor, who praised Bundy as a “patriot” (for Nevada, presumably).

In the National Review Online, obsessive anarcho-conservative Kevin Williamson compared Bundy to Gandhi, for standing up to tyrannical power — even though the power Gandhi stood up to was the one that the people who founded the (non-existent) US stood up to.

Bundy’s daily pressers continued for days, on various topics — eventually only local press and the omnipresent New York Times was there. Thus it was that the Grey Lady got the goods, when, on Tuesday last week, Bundy began musing about race relations.He had been driving past a “Negro” housing project in North Vegas and:

“… in front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids — and there is always at least a half-a-dozen people sitting on the porch — they didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for their kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for their young girls to do.

“And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do? … They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom.

“They got less freedom.”

Oh noes. If Bundy had been an Obama organiser under deep cover, he couldn’t have done more damage. A lot of crap remarks can be explained away by the Right — but the desirability of slavery ain’t one of them. Fox held out for a while then cracked, Hannity denouncing the remarks as “beyond repugnant”, while lamely remarking that he had supported Bundy’s stand, not the man himself. NRO’s slow backing away from the man — he was not like Gandhi, his situation was — is a delicious read.

But then, reversal! Bundy’s remarks had been edited! Those nefarious liberals again! When the full tape was played it revealed that Bundy had said Mexicans are good family people. So that was all right, then.

Quite aside from the ludicrous inconsistency in celebrating a right-wing anti-statist — while still moaning that Obama would never have been President if the American people had known about his history with Weatherman bomber Bill Ayers — the rush to canonise shows an increasing desperation on the part of the Right. I mean what part of armed sovereign citizen giving shotgun sermons in the desert doesn’t set off alarm bells?

“Magical thinking has become the norm, as has a near-hysterical white skin victimology.”

But though they are cruising towards a good mid-term result, deep down the Right know that their chance of winning the White House in ‘16 — or ‘20 or ‘24 — is remote. Magical thinking has become the norm, as has a near-hysterical white skin victimology. Hence they doubled down on “political correctness” when LA Clippers basketball team owner — a saurian white guy named Donald Sterling (pictured) — was caught on tape berating his (young, Asian) girlfriend for bringing a black man to a game. There being one or two black men in the team, this looked suspiciously like a plantation model of sports ownership. With Sterling’s friends defending him (including black superstar Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), the Right decided this was an issue of … privacy, and had to begin yet another series of articles with “X is a racist but …”. That worked — until NBA players threatened what US papers called a “boycott” (i.e., a strike), if something wasn’t done. Within an afternoon, the LA Clippers were on the market, and Sterling had been banned from games for life.

The US wasn’t the only place where they couldn’t get race right. Across the pond, the wacky UK Independence Party is on course to become the No. 1 party in the vote for the European Parliament, a body it wants the UK to withdraw from. They’re polling at 38% (turnout is about 20-25% — in some areas as low as 10-15%), with Labour on 27%, Con 18%, and Lib Dems 7%. Such a result would be an embarrassing absurdity for the UK-EU elite, and it has been built on UKIP’s ability to draw in socially conservative Labour voters — many of them once quite leftish (and therefore deluded about UKIP’s Thatcherite intent) — but decidedly not-racist.

So it’s been with increasing glee that everyone has watched as UKIP’s campaign has self-unravelled. First there was the poster campaign featuring a “British builder” scared about his job — who was an Irish actor, working as an immigrant — and a young woman “ordinary voter” who had decided that UKIP made sense — because she was their events organiser (and days later, the victim of a circulated revenge sex tape). The would-be feature candidate of a five-minute TV slot had to be suspended after saying that all Africans should kill themselves, another candidate said that Ed Miliband wasn’t really British — his father was Polish — and was only here to take an Englishman’s job — and everyone’s favourite was Andre Lampitt, who said black comedian Lenny Henry should go back to a black country. Henry was born in Dudley, in the Midlands — in an area called the Black Country, for its industrial heritage.

All crazy in a very British way, with none of the US hysteria — just suburban and village souls quietly going obsessively mad in Little-Sodding-On-The-Crutch, until they get national media exposure and it all goes pear-shaped, innit? The hysteria was all in the political class, which decided — with days to go until the election — to go in hard on the party, and its Toby Jug leader Nigel Farage, who got a roasting on TV for employing his German wife as his secretary when a Brit could do the job (no one ventured the line that since duties include wanting to have sex with Nigel Farage occasionally, the job counts as having unique prerequisites that cannot be locally sourced). The call was on to portray UKIP as racist and sinister — which as usually gormless Labour former deputy PM Jacqui Smith observed, seemed designed to speed uncertain Labour/UKIP voters faster than ever to Farage’s party. The only problem for UKIP in all of this was that it actually had to sack candidates faster than it could find their replacements.

But for all the embarrassment of UKIP topping the European Parliament polls, Labour will not be sorry. UKIP’s support is still Tory heavy — a 10% vote across the board in 2015 will turn the Tories into a one-term government. The obvious reason why in their very different ways, these hysterical race scares are kicking off everywhere — our local bubbling burko, Andrew Bolt, having been quieted somewhat — is simply that the world they want to hold off is inexorably winning. As we get closer to a time when the idea of a white national ethnicity makes no sense in these countries, the temperature rises until the lid can’t be kept on. Craziest, best moment: has-been politician, has-been candidate, has-been commentator Sarah Palin telling the National Rifle Association “water-boarding is how we baptise terrorists”.

By their acts ye shall know them. Which might also apply to Mr Adams.

GRundle posted:

Sir Rabia Tirnova posted:

I've heard several great things about this book. I'm no economonist, despite working for a bank, but I am really interested in sitting down and trying to wrap my head around it.

Amethyst posted:

Yeah I'm interested to know if this is a good read for someone without a strong economic background.

Other posted:

ColtMcAsskick posted:

This government is really getting me down

adamantium|wang posted:

ABC article:

Endman posted:

I don't want to live

Endman posted:

I don't want to live here any more.

GoldStandardConure posted:

If they get rid of the PBS and gut the public health sector, you probably wont live here much longer.

WebDog posted:

Amethyst posted:

Yeah I'm interested to know if this is a good read for someone without a strong economic background.

BCR posted:

Selling the Holden you owned and used for business, and getting a push bike on lay-by forever.

It got the point across that asset sales bad, but I'm not sure it's a great allegory.

Freudian Slip posted:

Only two more minutes till the full report is released and we can know how truly fukt we are