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Yeah, the front page of the Telegraph for the past two days has been spruiking the idea. It's a matter of time, given both sides want to do it whenever they're in government, and both oppose it when they're not. At least they want to do something half-decent with the proceeds.
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Jun 11, 2014 10:52
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I had a look in my wallet today but all my money had been recycled.
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Jun 11, 2014 10:55
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IIRC the Government made less from the Telstra sale than they would have received in dividends by now right? Does that include factors like how the government wouldn't have had to then pay Telstra to replace its assets with NBN stuff?
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Jun 11, 2014 12:00
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Don't forget Howard's gold. The 167 tonnes pushed the world gold price down to an 11-year low, returning just $2.4bn for the gold that was sold via a single broker engaged without a tender. It'd be worth around $4.5 billion more at today's prices.
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Jun 11, 2014 12:07
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Senor Tron posted:IIRC the Government made less from the Telstra sale than they would have received in dividends by now right? Does that include factors like how the government wouldn't have had to then pay Telstra to replace its assets with NBN stuff?
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Jun 11, 2014 12:19
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Pred1ct posted:When will voters learn to tell governments to gently caress off when they try to privatise assets? The new waeslewords are 'asset recycling', watch for more recycling to come. There is now a false equivalence that governments apparently cannot raise money without selling the house. Governments will just laugh and say they know better if the uppity proles say anything about it. Didn't this already happen in QLD?
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Jun 11, 2014 12:21
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Those On My Left posted:Ken Smith has just announced he won't support the expulsion of Geoff Shaw. He's only getting suspended and fined. 11 sitting days suspension, which means Shaw is out till September. Only 11 days between now and September? Lazy fucks.
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Jun 11, 2014 12:33
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Pred1ct posted:I didn't see this posted yet - Baird want's to sell off 49% of the 'poles and wires' of NSW electricity network. Please stop privatising things, especially profitable things, you idiot tories.
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Jun 11, 2014 12:36
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Daily Telegraph says it'll save heaps on electricity bills, and that we pay union workers (associated with NSW Labor leader John Robertson) too much. And that price rises in privatised states have been heaps less than in NSW.
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Jun 11, 2014 12:40
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Edit: ^Victoria is screaming out for linesmen now after neglecting maintenance for so long. I'd take a wild guess they're earning more then their NSW counterparts now.Senor Tron posted:IIRC the Government made less from the Telstra sale than they would have received in dividends by now right? Does that include factors like how the government wouldn't have had to then pay Telstra to replace its assets with NBN stuff? They probably assumed that privatising would result in fiber and what ever else because private companies run better. In reality it depends on the industries. Communication when you're opening up competition, can make sense. Public transport and other monopolies, less so. Electricity is the great example. Victoria pretty much had ten years of no maintenance due to privatisation and now is playing catch up with big expenses. Infrastructure that the public really relies on should really stay in public hands if for no other reason that it can go without making a profit to assists its customers.
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Jun 11, 2014 12:41
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Doctor Spaceman posted:Daily Telegraph says it'll save heaps on electricity bills, and that we pay union workers (associated with NSW Labor leader John Robertson) too much. And that price rises in privatised states have been heaps less than in NSW. Ah yes, let's all pay more for electricity in the medium term (see Victoria) while at the same time paying the actual workers less.
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Jun 11, 2014 12:45
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I was curious as to how they were misrepresenting things. I naturally assumed they were, but they made a decent enough case that I couldn't pick it apart just by looking at it and thinking for 5 seconds.
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Jun 11, 2014 12:45
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There's something to be said about our desire to compare the federal budget to a household budget, and the fact that we want to privatise the poo poo out of everything while simultaneously sitting on investment properties forever. But I'll be damned if I can make it work.
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Jun 11, 2014 13:21
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Auspol! Enjoy the fake troll account of a man who is pro-capital, 1pro-environment and pro-legalised pot, whilst anti-islam, anti-immigration, and anti-oil company! https://www.facebook.com/john.citizen.98871174?fref=ufi It's like all your worst Greenie dreams came true. Can't wait 'til he turns up at your local branch meeting.
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Jun 11, 2014 13:22
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You Am I posted:There was mention this morning that Smith was getting cold feet, I guess Naptime told him to simmer down unless Smith wants to be known as the one who got the Liberals out of power. Surprised that Smith gave a poo poo considering he hates Shaw and Smith is retiring after this current term. To be honest, I'm really not sure how to feel about this. Shaw's misconduct was pretty awful but expelling a democratically elected member from parliament is pretty much the harshest measure the parliament has available to it - the only harsher measure that I can think of is imprisonment. I tend to think he should have been expelled but am honestly not 100% sure.
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Jun 11, 2014 13:30
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Cleretic posted:There's something to be said about our desire to compare the federal budget to a household budget, and the fact that we want to privatise the poo poo out of everything while simultaneously sitting on investment properties forever. But I'll be damned if I can make it work. 'Australians are economically illiterate and easily led, and will rush to vote for whomever pretends to be the most like them - no matter how inauthentic the veneer' BrosephofArimathea fucked around with this message at 13:34 on Jun 11, 2014 |
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Jun 11, 2014 13:30
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Those On My Left posted:To be honest, I'm really not sure how to feel about this. Shaw's misconduct was pretty awful but expelling a democratically elected member from parliament is pretty much the harshest measure the parliament has available to it - the only harsher measure that I can think of is imprisonment. I tend to think he should have been expelled but am honestly not 100% sure. I get the impression people would rather just wait for the election rather than risk doing something unpredictable.
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Jun 11, 2014 13:35
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Nuclear Spy posted:
So is this still going ahead? What's the plan here?
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Jun 11, 2014 13:37
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Adelaide Goons
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my stepdads beer posted:Please stop privatising things, especially profitable things, you idiot tories. On this topic, the thread might enjoy this episode of Rear Vision: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rearvision/infrastructure-australia/5374876
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Jun 11, 2014 13:39
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AgentF posted:So is this still going ahead? What's the plan here?
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Jun 11, 2014 13:44
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Doctor Spaceman posted:I get the impression people would rather just wait for the election rather than risk doing something unpredictable. Unpredictability is fun, and it's been genuinely delightful to see the Libs poo poo themselves over this. Also, Shaw is a real piece of work and I don't sympathise with him at all. So from a very base, vindictive point of view, I was really hoping for him to get expelled. Also, it would've been great to see the poo poo hit the fan if Labor had won the by-election simply because it would have exposed a really dumb flaw in Victoria's constitution. But from a more principled, less political position, I'm genuinely not sure whether he should've been expelled. I tend towards thinking that he should have, but am not sure.
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Jun 11, 2014 13:48
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AgentF posted:So is this still going ahead? What's the plan here? I'll be there!
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Jun 11, 2014 14:02
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In remembrance of Rik, I'm watching the New Statesman again and rediscovered this gem. The budget speech played out in the past: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdgXzH1trWc&t=340s
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Jun 11, 2014 14:38
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quote:Treasurer Joe Hockey has lashed out at critics of his first budget, saying claims his policies are ''unfair'' were reminiscent of ''class warfare'' from the 1970s. In other words: moochers, looters and parasites.
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Jun 11, 2014 16:06
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Age pension contributes to the culture of welfare  It seems weird, aren't pensioners normally more of a sacred cow (at least in rhetoric)?
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Jun 11, 2014 16:08
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Doctor Spaceman posted:Age pension contributes to the culture of welfare Hell he went after the Service Pension aka ARE TROOPS, apparently the way to fight a class warfare argument is to make it you vs everyone else.
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Jun 11, 2014 16:17
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Higher education and healthcare has never been free so why should it matter if we triple prices?
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Jun 11, 2014 16:34
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We need to help lifters and penalise leaners. This is best achieved by lowering the medium wage and slashing conditions.
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Jun 11, 2014 16:38
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Nibbles141 posted:We need to help lifters and penalise leaners. This is best achieved by lowering the medium wage and slashing conditions. Can't lean if there's nothing to lean on.
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Jun 11, 2014 16:42
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So the public are angry and horrified at this budget and their response is to pretend its some political thing from the 70's? Thats some serious projection going on, and especially when they couldn't care less about participation and responsibility unless its their mates and their money.
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Jun 11, 2014 16:44
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turns out City of Melbourne has more extreme Housing density than Hong Kong at the moment: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/11/melbournes-housing-density-more-extreme-than-hong-kong-council-says quote:In a grim report card on new housing in the city, Melbourne city council's draft housing policy has found that dwellings in new developments are too small, lack adequate natural light, ventilation and privacy, and are pricing out poor and middle-class families. I'm sure no one will guess why this happened! quote:The council pinned the blame for shrinking apartment sizes on tax structures that favour investors, who bought 85% of new apartments, over the interests of renters. But at least the council is proposing to make 15% of all new developments in urban in growth areas be put aside for affordable housing. Not sure if that will happen (I'm guessing not a chance in hell) but one can hope. Melbourne city council do seem at least somewhat decent, as Australian government goes at least, as far as I can tell. dr_rat fucked around with this message at 16:51 on Jun 11, 2014 |
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Jun 11, 2014 16:47
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Nah, they're saying that the critics have thinking decades out of date.
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Jun 11, 2014 16:50
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Doctor Spaceman posted:Nah, they're saying that the critics have thinking decades out of date. That's the projection part, because their own thinking is rooted in whatever excited them as student politicians, probably Thatcher, it goes right back to then. It's the kind of argument they think they can win, not the one they actually need to have.
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Jun 11, 2014 17:05
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ewe2 posted:That's the projection part, because their own thinking is rooted in whatever excited them as student politicians, probably Thatcher, it goes right back to then. It's the kind of argument they think they can win, not the one they actually need to have. I was thinking about linking it back to their student politics days, but some of them (Hockey, Pyne and Morrison notably) were students in the mid/late 80s. fake edit: wait, Morrison is younger than Pyne?
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Jun 11, 2014 17:09
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These aren't people who have too much interaction with the real world. At least some labor members come from union backgrounds, Hockey doesn't know what life is like for a factory worker living on $600 a week.
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Jun 11, 2014 17:31
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Re: privatisation, I remember hearing a story from some guys who used to work on (I think) the F-111 program in the RAAF. Sometime in the late 90s / early 2000s they privatised the support contracts for the planes. Whoever the contractor was immediately poached all the RAAF engineers that worked on the planes with the incentive of an immediate 20% pay rise. No-one could figure out how the privatisation idea got through: supply costs are the same, the contracts had been written to ensure the same level of support, labour costs were 20% higher, and the contractor was no-doubt making some bank. Turns out the cost benefit analysis for privatisation included all the costs of training engineers from scratch on the ledger of the government. In some cases this is pretty goddamn expensive, especially for some of the electronic and avionic systems that need to be retrofitted to a 1960s airframe. So despite the fact that the fleet was scheduled for retirement in less than a decade, the cost benefit analysis stated that personnel costs for the Commonwealth included all education and lifelong training costs, and was something that private enterprise would have to look after in order to continue to fulfill the contract. Of course the contractor didn't bother with training any new engineers and just pocketed the difference. From memory it came back to bite them in the arse a bit, as the pigs ended up flying a lot longer than originally planned. A lot of the dudes doing avionics were well into their sixties when the airframe was retired, although I guess that with the extension of the life of the fleet the government would have to renegotiate the contract on pretty unfavourable terms: you're not negotiating from a position of strength when you no longer have the expertise to maintain them yourself.
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Jun 11, 2014 17:53
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It's a case of letting friends get their cut. It's no surprise that when out of government they end up in exuctive positions at these companies. Much like when government jobs are slashed and they just end up contracting the work out and paying more, it's letting some company get a cut at the expense if taxpayers.
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Jun 11, 2014 18:00
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Not always. Although it's easy to think of the Libs as moustache-twirling cartoon villains, a lot of them truly believe that they're doing the right thing for Australia. Almost no-one wakes up in the morning thinking "I'm an evil person, let's see what dastardly things I can do today!".
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Jun 11, 2014 18:06
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Labor has done it too. There's no doubt there's thinking of "who do I look after to get something cushy after politics".
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Jun 11, 2014 18:09
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Tirade posted:Almost no-one wakes up in the morning thinking "I'm an evil person, let's see what dastardly things I can do today!". I like to imagine that this is true and Scott Morrison wakes up every morning thinking "You know what, i'm a gigantic piece of poo poo and I hope somebody will come along and put me out of my misery because i'm too gutless to do it myself"
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Jun 11, 2014 18:43
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