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adamantium|wang
Sep 14, 2003

Missing you
First Dog:

https://twitter.com/BLeakEksplayned/status/833436755151962116

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Starshark
Dec 22, 2005
Doctor Rope
I get so mad about beards.

Doctor Spaceman
Jul 6, 2010

"Everyone's entitled to their point of view, but that's seriously a weird one."

From what I understand the EA the government has been pushing has a very minimal overall payrise in exchange for a reduction in other benefits and longer hours. The ATO staff have repeatedly rejected it, because it ends up being a paycut per hour.

The government have been rather poo poo about the whole process and didn't even start negotiating a new EA until the old one expired, because they (and especially ericabetz) hate the CPSU.

Knorth
Aug 19, 2014

Buglord
Why are those cartoon people white?

Oh wait, 3017 AD, got it

Knorth fucked around with this message at 23:22 on Feb 19, 2017

Mad Katter
Aug 23, 2010

STOP THE BATS

Wait, is the point that burning stuff to make energy is outdated stone age technology?

The Before Times
Mar 8, 2014

Once upon a time, I would have thrown you halfway to the moon for a crack like that.

Doctor Spaceman posted:

From what I understand the EA the government has been pushing has a very minimal overall payrise in exchange for a reduction in other benefits and longer hours. The ATO staff have repeatedly rejected it, because it ends up being a paycut per hour.

The government have been rather poo poo about the whole process and didn't even start negotiating a new EA until the old one expired, because they (and especially ericabetz) hate the CPSU.

The angle from the media seems to be "ATO STAFF DON'T WANT TO WORK AN EXTRA NINE MINUTES"

Doctor Spaceman
Jul 6, 2010

"Everyone's entitled to their point of view, but that's seriously a weird one."

The Before Times posted:

The angle from the media seems to be "ATO STAFF DON'T WANT TO WORK AN EXTRA NINE MINUTES"

Yup, it's specious loving bullshit.

Zenithe
Feb 25, 2013

Ask not to whom the Anidavatar belongs; it belongs to thee.
Imagine the spin if a group of workers decided they could go home 9 minutes earlier than usual.

This loving media.

JBP
Feb 16, 2017

You've got to know, to understand,
Baby, take me by my hand,
I'll lead you to the promised land.
An extra week of work per year with no increase to pay that has not been agreed to by negotiation.

Joe Everyman is going to be furious at these workers.

SHALASHASKA HAWKE
Nov 10, 2016

No child soldier in poverty by 1990

The extra minutes were dropped very quickly by management. It's essentially a reheating of these issues from 2015 with the addition of some management memos about "community expectations" and the subtraction of all factual worth.

Cartoon
Jun 20, 2008

poop

quote:

Perhaps an enlightening exercise, then, would be to mention another candidate who lobbied furiously for the role: Sasha Grebe! Grebe, a former toiler at the Australian Wheat Board, has been job hunting for months and will be smarting he was passed over for this plum gig. Thorburn must have met him in person.
Lol. A quick reminder the AWB was embroiled in the wheat for fuel scandal that was bandito level commerce.

quote:

"The move to a [7.5 hour] day brings the ATO in line with most other APS agencies and can be used as one of the biggest sources of genuine productivity to justify other improvements in the EA," the document said.
This is such poo poo. A couple of things:

That 4:51 is entirely notional. The ATO works flextime which is a much bigger productivity gain than nine minutes could ever be.
The instant you hear productivity being used as the primary argument along with protracted union negotiations you know there is poo poo tier management going on.

poo poo tier management strategies of choice are:

Reduce head count. Because less people to do the job means less output which means reduced revenues because... Oh clearly I haven't thought this through but doesn't matter it will meet my KPI so we are doing it anyway.
Reduce wages/Increase hours/erode conditions. Peons who are being made to suffer will have such low self esteem they won't be looking around for another job any time soon and this will make them work at least as hard as they are now. Leading companies that DO NOT follow this ethos are: Google, Autodesk (etc.) you know, failures.

While we talk about poo poo tier management:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-20/government-interested-in-carbon-capture-tech-frydenberg-says/8284682

quote:

Josh Frydenberg flags changes to allow CEFC to invest in carbon capture and storage AM By Eliza Borrello Updated about 10 hours ago

Federal Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg has revealed the Government is considering lifting a ban on allowing the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) to invest in carbon capture and storage.

Key points:

CEFC currently prohibited from investing in carbon capture technology or low-emission coal-fired power plants
Frydenberg says Government interested in changing rules to ensure energy stability
Opposition would oppose changes, says market "not talking" about new coal-fired plants
The technology involves capturing carbon dioxide from a power plant and burying it underground in a bid to reduce emissions.

"Carbon capture and storage is an important technology," Mr Frydenberg said. At the moment the CEFC, the Government's green bank, is not allowed to invest in it. But amid the Coalition's renewed support for coal-fired power, Mr Frydenberg said that could change. "We're going to look at all our options because of the challenges that we face, namely to ensure energy security [and] energy affordability, as we transition to a low-emissions future," he said. Shadow Energy Minister Mark Butler said it would require the kind of legislation Labor would strongly oppose. "This would be an outrageous act of vandalism against a successful financing mechanism for renewable energy, for energy efficiency projects and for genuine low-carbon technology," he said. "It's no real surprise, I guess, because the Liberal Party has never really supported the CEFC. "It tried to abolish it for three years and now seems committed to making it a finance mechanism for the coal industry, which is unable to attract finance from the private sector."

Government interested in low-emission coal-fired plants

Mr Frydenberg said he was also interested in investment in high-efficiency, low-emission coal-fired plants. Currently they are not green enough for the CEFC to invest in, but Mr Frydenberg has flagged changing the rules.

How does CCS work?

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) traps up to 90 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions produced from the use of fossil fuels
The carbon dioxide is then transported by pipeline or ship for storage
It is usually stored in an underground geological rock formation
The aim is to prevent large quantities of carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere
Source: The Carbon Capture and Storage Association

"The Government could issue a new mandate to the CEFC which would then inform its guidelines and would make possible an investment in a high-efficiency low-emission power plant," he said. "We're looking at all our options because we're intent on stabilising the system. "Right now we need more baseload power. Cleaner coal is one of those options together with gas fired power, as well as ensuring more storage capacity for intermittent sources of generation, namely wind and solar. "Our focus is on stabilising the system and not allowing a repeat of what happened in South Australia [with blackouts] to happen anywhere else in the country."(Repeating a lie that almost everyone knows is a lie but more importantly J Frydenberg knows is a lie)

But Mr Butler said the market was not interested in the kind of plants Mr Frydenberg was suggesting. "It doesn't reflect the reality in the electricity industry. No-one in the industry is talking about the reality of building new coal-fired power stations," he said.

And of course this directly contradicts what J Frydenberg said on 17 January:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jan/24/no-plans-to-cut-renewable-energy-target-josh-frydenberg-says

This statement was provoked by widespread concern that uncertainty about the future of the RET was stymieing investment. 'Never let ideology stand in the way of sound business' lol.

Solemn Sloth
Jul 11, 2015

Baby you can shout at me,
But you can't need my eyes.
Victoria already lost a solar plant due to uncertainty over Abbott and the renewable target. Open for business!

bowmore
Oct 6, 2008



Lipstick Apathy
having a beard is one small way to reduce waste

I would blow Dane Cook
Dec 26, 2008
https://twitter.com/OzStomper/status/833079945089818625

JBP
Feb 16, 2017

You've got to know, to understand,
Baby, take me by my hand,
I'll lead you to the promised land.
Waiting for my parents to die is a more effective use of my time wrt housing.

ungulateman
Apr 18, 2012

pretentious fuckwit who isn't half as literate or insightful or clever as he thinks he is

JBP posted:

Waiting for my parents to die is a more effective use of my time wrt housing.

:agreed:

open24hours
Jan 7, 2001

quote:

https://theconversation.com/australia-needs-to-reboot-affordable-housing-funding-not-scrap-it-72861

Federal government ministers have cast a cloud over funding for social housing and homelessness services, leading to speculation that the National Affordable Housing Agreement (NAHA) may not survive the 2017 budget.

Treasurer Scott Morrison and Assistant Treasurer Michael Sukkar point to the recent Report on Government Services, which shows the number of public housing properties has fallen, as evidence of the NAHA’s “abject failure”. Sukkar said:

We believe it’s crucial that every dollar of spending on affordable housing programs increases the number and availability of public and social housing stock. Clearly, this objective has not been met.

It should be no surprise that Australia’s social housing has been largely static for 20 years. Everything we know about the system tells us it is not funded to even cover the costs of its ongoing operation, let alone growth to meet the needs of an expanding population. Aside from a one-off boost under the 2009 federal economic stimulus plan, social housing has been on a starvation ration for decades.

The whole system system is effectively being run at a loss. So, from the perspective of state governments, building a new public housing dwelling is just one more way of losing money.

The federal government has also long lamented the lack of transparency about how states and territories spend their NAHA funds – about AS$1.5 billion a year. And there are glaring gaps in the evidence about the operations and performance of public housing authorities.

In failing to act on a 2009 commitment to modernise and enhance the Report on Government Services metrics, the states and territories have placed themselves in a weak position to rebut claims of ineffective financial management.

That said, everyone who has any contact with the public housing system knows it to be grossly underfunded. One-off studies occasionally illuminate the scale of the issue. For example, a 2013 New South Wales Audit Office report found a $600 million annual operating deficit for that state’s public housing. But no-one can easily quantify the extent of the problem using routinely published data.
A snapshot of social housing in Australia

Around 320,000 of Australia’s approximately 428,000 social housing dwellings remain under public housing authority control. This stock was amassed through a long series of funding agreements between federal and state and territory governments. These were known as the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreements until their 2009 NAHA rebranding.

From the first Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement in 1945, the basic arrangement was that the federal government would lend funds to state housing authorities to build houses. The states would cover the ongoing costs from the rents paid by working-class tenants.

And, at least to begin with, the housing authorities did build. They made a significant contribution to housing supply, amounting to roughly one in six houses built between 1945 and 1965.

From the early 1970s, the housing authorities were directed, justifiably, to provide more housing to low-income households unable to pay full “market” rents. However, their capital funding also went into a long decline. With the exception of a brief period in the mid-1980s, housing authorities never again built at their earlier rate.

A number of interlocking problems set in. Social housing’s declining share of the housing stock became more tightly rationed to the lowest-income households. This eroded the system’s rent base. At the same time, its ageing buildings and households with greater support needs increased its costs.

Two landmark studies by Jon Hall and Mike Berry charted the implications of these developments for the finances. At the end of the 1980s, all but one of the housing authorities ran an operating surplus. By 2004, all but one ran an operating deficit.

Various attempts to improve the situation have been made. The 1989 Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement switched federal funding from loans to grants; the 1996 agreement allowed federal funds to be spent on recurrent expenses. In the early 2000s, rebates on social housing rents were reduced, slightly increasing revenue.

Modest amounts of public housing have also been transferred into the hands of not-for-profit community housing providers. Partly, this is to take advantage of the eligibility of community housing tenants for Commonwealth Rent Assistance. But although this often enables these providers to run a small operational surplus, it isn’t enough to fund stock replacement or any significant expansion.

Meanwhile, the overall stock has been eaten away, through market sales of public housing, and run down, through skimping on repairs and maintenance. Both are unsustainable strategies.
Running a system without good data

If the broad outlines of the problem are clear, there are major deficiencies in the data as to the details. The Hall and Berry analysis is now dated. There is no current evidence base that shows transparently and consistently what the social housing system in each state and territory costs, and how these costs are met.

For example, the Report on Government Services purports to show the “net recurrent cost per dwelling” for each state and territory. But this does not differentiate between distinct expenditure components such as management and maintenance.

Our 2015 research found that this metric was a “black box”, subject to implausibly large variations across jurisdictions. These reflected the vagaries of departmental restructures, rather than a sound accounting of social housing operations.

There is little doubt that all public housing authorities are now in deficit. However, the Report on Government Services provides no data on the relative scale of these funding shortfalls. Nor do governments routinely reveal the scale of system costs still met by tenants’ rents, nor through stock sales.
What should a rebooted NAHA do?

Although the NAHA does it inadequately, an enduring program of federal funding for operational expenses is essential to sustain the social housing system. Such funding cannot be “replaced”, as Morrison has suggested, by a government-backed aggregated bond financing model.

The bond aggregator model depends on social housing providers having a durable subsidy from government that pays the difference between their ongoing costs and the revenue from rent that low-income tenants can afford.

Instead, NAHA should be rebooted to deliver three things:
  • capital funding for new social housing stock, distributed according to an assessment of current and projected needs in each state and territory;

  • recurrent funding, distributed according to the number of social housing dwellings in each state and territory and an assessment of reasonable net recurrent costs; and

  • clear accounting by social housing providers for costs of provision and the contributions of tenants, government funding and other sources of income towards meeting these costs.
Many in the social housing world would agree the NAHA framework is far from transparent and that there is no certainty that NAHA money is optimally spent. But a ministerial focus on these issues while ignoring the system’s chronic underfunding smacks of re-arranging deckchairs.

Rather than scrapping the NAHA, the system should be rebooted, to properly fund both the growth and ongoing operations of social housing. This must be done on the basis of clear targets for the level of need to be met and the reasonable costs of providing the service.

I think a lot of people forget that social housing was once for the working class, not just the destitute. It's a shame no one is arguing for a return to that sort of model.

Solemn Sloth
Jul 11, 2015

Baby you can shout at me,
But you can't need my eyes.
NAHA also provides the only federal funding for women's shelters so good job.

JBP
Feb 16, 2017

You've got to know, to understand,
Baby, take me by my hand,
I'll lead you to the promised land.

open24hours posted:

I think a lot of people forget that social housing was once for the working class, not just the destitute. It's a shame no one is arguing for a return to that sort of model.

It's commie bullshit.

norp
Jan 20, 2004

TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP

let's invade New Zealand, they have oil
Look, if the working class needs housing they should just work an extra 9 minutes a day!

Kafka Syrup
Apr 29, 2009

open24hours posted:

I think a lot of people forget that social housing was once for the working class, not just the destitute. It's a shame no one is arguing for a return to that sort of model.

Excuse me but I think you'll find housing is a commodity not a right. This rights agenda is ruining our country (retrospectively from the 1930's).

open24hours
Jan 7, 2001

Citizen's are always complaining about their rights, but no one ever stops to think about the rights of the government.

hakimashou
Jul 15, 2002
Upset Trowel

open24hours posted:

Citizen's are always complaining about their rights, but no one ever stops to think about the rights of the government.

David Cameron of the UK gave a remarkable speech after he won re-election in 2015.

quote:

Cameron will tell the NSC: “For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone...

“This government will conclusively turn the page on this failed approach. As the party of one nation, we will govern as one nation and bring our country together.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/may/13/counter-terrorism-bill-extremism-disruption-orders-david-cameron

hooman
Oct 11, 2007

This guy seems legit.
Fun Shoe

open24hours posted:

I think a lot of people forget that social housing was once for the working class, not just the destitute. It's a shame no one is arguing for a return to that sort of model.

and undercut the profits of our rent seeking parasites wise negatively geared housing investors? Never.

JBP
Feb 16, 2017

You've got to know, to understand,
Baby, take me by my hand,
I'll lead you to the promised land.
Oh I forgot to mention after your middle class parents die and you get their house, you can release a book about passive income and make even more money.

The Before Times
Mar 8, 2014

Once upon a time, I would have thrown you halfway to the moon for a crack like that.
When my middle class parents die I won't get anything because they had four kids and terrible spending habits :)

Periphery
Jul 27, 2003
...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-20/housing-affordability-debate-analysis-how-did-we-get-here/8284646 posted:

There's a nasty little secret about housing affordability.

For all the furrowed brows, the sombre looks and the public handwringing from policy makers, no-one is actually serious about fixing the problem because they all fear the potential fallout.

The Government is running in circles on the issue while the Reserve Bank is praying the mess will slowly evaporate over time.

It's become a regular event; a politician conjures up an outlandish idea to again make housing affordable to the masses.

If it's not a cash splash to first home buyers, it's a harebrained scheme to allow younger Australians to dip into their superannuation. Last week, it was a plan to force banks to lower lending standards.

In each case, the net effect would be to lift demand and raise the cost of housing.

Unfortunately, at this point in the economic cycle, there are only two mechanisms that could solve the social and political issue of our time.

The first is for housing prices to experience a dramatic fall. And the second is for wages to rise substantially.

The first comes with a nasty side-effect: it would create economic chaos and send many of our banks to the wall.

Achieving, or at least promising, the second might get you elected but ultimately would prove disastrous with spiralling inflation and, you guessed it, a probable spike in housing prices.

With the second option off the table, the question then becomes: Would you prefer a housing market crash, or a slow burn decline over several years?

Both are unthinkable. A crash could be catastrophic because our banks essentially have morphed into glorified building societies, with the bulk of their earnings geared towards residential mortgages.

The two biggest lenders, Commonwealth and Westpac, have around 60 per cent of their loan books devoted to housing.

Real estate is baked into the Australian psyche. We talk about it ad nauseam, owners obsess over upgrades and renovations and those outside the owners' club fret about how to enter.

All up, Australians are in hock to the tune of more than $1.4 trillion on housing. That's a hell of a lot of debt just to keep the wind and rain out. Of that, more than half a trillion is on loan to property investors.

If you want an example of just how painful a property market crash could be, cast your minds back to 2007 when a meltdown firstly in the American and later the European property markets were the catalysts for the greatest ever crisis in global finance.

It would be a similar story here and once again, it would be taxpayers riding to the rescue.

So how about the slow, grinding house price slide? Unfortunately, that could be just as debilitating.

That's because modern economies are completely geared to growth. At the micro level, profits, wages and taxes all ideally should steadily increase, feeding into a moderate inflation rate and modest rises in asset prices that feeds into an expanding economy.

When asset prices — like housing — slowly deflate over many years, investment freezes, confidence evaporates, consumers spend less, and the economy becomes moribund.

Think Japan. It's been in almost a constant state of recession since the great 1980s real estate bubble began unwinding in the early 1990s.

And therein lies the problem with asset price bubbles. All that joy and exuberance on the way up comes with an equal dose of pain and hardship when it all unravels.

Governments and central banks will do almost anything to avoid a bubble bursting, which is why no-one is serious about housing affordability.
Australia's obsession with real estate reflected in tax system

So how have we arrived here? Australian housing was already among the world's most expensive before the Reserve Bank began hacking into interest rates in 2012.

But in the years since the financial crisis, Sydney and Melbourne real estate has almost doubled along with strong gains in most capitals.

Our obsession with property is reflected in our tax system.

The family home, now the biggest asset for most Australians, is tax free.

For investors, a punt on another dwelling allows you to reduce your income — and your annual income tax — and as an added bonus delivers the ultimate gift: a profit that's taxed at half the rate your normal income attracts.

Despite what anyone tells you, the tax system bears a great deal of responsibility for our current predicament.

Investors have plunged into the housing market during the past five years and, in terms of new loans, have regularly accounted for around half the money lent for real estate.

It wouldn't be a problem if they were investing in new housing. That would increase the overall housing stock, increasing supply, providing a counter to the increased demand.

But until recently, investors overwhelmingly favoured existing houses, with about 93 per cent of investor loans bidding against owner-occupiers.

Unwinding those incentives would be a first step in fixing the problem.

But when a partial wind-back of negative gearing was proposed at the last election, it took no time at all for the politics to kick in with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull quick to deride the policy, arguing it would "smash home prices".
Even if prices drop 10pc, housing remains unaffordable for many

Last week, reports surfaced the Prime Minister had formulated his own plan, to scale back the discount on capital gains tax.

As a policy, it could have been even more efficient at tidying up the property investment problem than the ALP's.

But, as has become the norm, it was a policy floated anonymously in the media before the inevitable backflip and official denials.

As a tax change proposal, it lasted all of four hours, shot down within the party room.

In the ensuing policy vacuum — and with the tax system geared to turbocharge prices — the Government and the Reserve Bank are praying for a moderate but relatively quick property market slump; a minor correction and a plateauing in national prices at the lower levels.

They've got all their chips loaded onto the supply argument.

Rather than curbing demand by eliminating investment distorting tax policies, they're hoping that all those new apartments coming on stream in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, will flood the market and put a lid on price growth and maybe even cause prices to fall.

Investors, they hope, will be taught a valuable lesson: that prices don't always rise. And the handy side-effect will be that all that construction in the past few years has provided a lot of new jobs.

The problem is, if prices drop — say 10 per cent — in a correction, they'll still be way above where they were just five years ago.

Even if they stagnate from then on, as everyone hopes, it will take decades before housing becomes affordable for first-time buyers.

Unfortunately, it appears the great Australian dream is coming to an end.

Future generations increasingly will only be able to afford real estate through inheritance — creating class divisions — unless there is a major overhaul of the tax system, or a collapse in prices.

In the meantime, don't believe anyone who claims they have an easy and painless way to make housing affordable.

It just doesn't exist.

Death is certain.

tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]



Hot take: Australia's people and government are p poo poo

JBP
Feb 16, 2017

You've got to know, to understand,
Baby, take me by my hand,
I'll lead you to the promised land.

The Before Times posted:

When my middle class parents die I won't get anything because they had four kids and terrible spending habits :)

Oh. I'm an only child and my parents got a divorce, so great for me.

tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]



JBP posted:

Oh. I'm an only child and my parents got a divorce, so great for me.

This sounds like the origin story for a young lnp member

JBP
Feb 16, 2017

You've got to know, to understand,
Baby, take me by my hand,
I'll lead you to the promised land.
I might use the money to start a registered training organisation and sell classes in entrepreneurship. The sky is the limit really.

You Am I
May 20, 2001

Me @ your poasting

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/feb/20/wa-election-turnbull-threatens-funding-delay-if-perth-freight-link-scrapped

Looks like Malcolm is pulling the same trick with WA as Abbott did with Victoria when the State Labor dumped the East-West link plan, and Abbott wouldn't give them the money for the Metro Link. In Turnbull's case, he is withholding the money if the Perth Freight Link gets put on hold or scrapped by WA Labor.

Don't the Federal Libs ever learn? Blackmailing voters like that so they can get their state morons over the line.

adamantium|wang
Sep 14, 2003

Missing you
https://twitter.com/chriskkenny/status/833413226956148736

:psyduck:

tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]




Dunno, that tweet reads like fake news to me. nothing in there about dog loving.

MysticalMachineGun
Apr 5, 2005


Good call Chris, your tweet is indeed #FakeNews

JBP
Feb 16, 2017

You've got to know, to understand,
Baby, take me by my hand,
I'll lead you to the promised land.
@khriskkenny

open24hours
Jan 7, 2001

http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo...plication%2Fpdf

GST going up being applied to low value imports.

I would blow Dane Cook
Dec 26, 2008
:ancap: :ancap: :ancap: :ancap: :ancap: :ancap:

quote:

Scott Morrison: I can bypass Anna Bligh with ABA

Scott Morrison’s communications director has left the Treasurer’s office abruptly amid a storm over the government’s relationship with the big four banks and the appointment of former state Labor premier Anna Bligh to lead the Australian Bankers’ Association.

The communications director, Sasha Grebe, left over the weekend when it became clear he was seeking a position in the corporate sector, including applying for the position that went to Ms Bligh.

Mr Grebe was a key figure in Mr Morrison’s office after joining the government in 2015 as a senior adviser in the tax white paper unit under the former treasurer, Joe Hockey.

News of Mr Grebe’s departure comes as Liberal Party frontbencher Zed Seselja accused the ABA of attempting to “appease” Labor, which has been damning of the banks while in opposition, by appointing Ms Bligh as CEO.

“I did find it curious,” Senator Seselja told Sky News.

“Business groups haven’t always done this very well but the idea I guess of appeasing those who are trying to destroy you - and the Labor Party has been bashing the banks and sometimes they deserve criticism, there’s no doubt, and we hold them to account - but I think general bank bashing is not good for our economy and the Labor Party has been engaged in that.

“I don’t think you win these battles by appeasing those who are trying to destroy you, I think you actually fight for your industry.”

Mr Grebe’s mobile phone has been disconnected and he could not be contacted for comment, but The Australian was told the departure occurred over the weekend.

The Australian Financial Review reported on Monday that Mr Grebe had applied for the position of chief executive of the ABA, the job that has caused deep frustration in the government following the sudden announcement last Friday that Ms Bligh was being appointed.

Mr Grebe has a long background in corporate affairs and government, including positions as a top adviser during the Howard government to Mr Hockey and Communications Minister Richard Alston. He was also a government relations manager at the Australian Wheat Board.

Mr Morrison’s longstanding press secretary, Julian Leembruggen, is understood to be acting in the role of communications director.

Earlier, Mr Morrison said he’ll work with the Australian Bankers Association “professionally” after it appointed Ms Bligh as its chief lobbyist but pointed out he could talk directly to chief executives rather than a go-between.

In his first comments on Ms Bligh’s appointment since the ABA’s surprise announcement on Friday, the Treasurer claimed he was neither happy nor unhappy about the move.

Mr Morrison also said it was “not true” that he had cancelled meetings with the executives of the big four banks after being told of the appointment, which has been interpreted as a possible sign the industry has written off the Coalition government politically, saying he had “no scheduled meetings” with chief executives in the coming weeks.

“I will continue to deal with the ABA professionally as I always have, regardless of who’s in that job,” Mr Morrison told 2GB radio.

“I will simply deal with whoever they put up but in all of my engagements with the banks they are mainly directly with the banks themselves, I don’t need to work through an intermediary, I can just pick up the phone as I should, as previous treasurers always have.”

The Bligh appointment has angered government MPs, with some claiming the ABA had evaporated any remaining goodwill within the Coalition partyroom.

It is understood Mr Morrison was informed of the decision only on Thursday night.

Liberal Party backbenchers had called for the big four banks to be excluded from the government’s company tax cut and told The Australian Ms Bligh’s new position was another reason not to include the banks in the tax plan.

The Treasurer joined Malcolm Turnbull in taking some responsibility for ANZ’s decision to cut credit card rates to the lowest point since 2003, insisting the banks had been “under a bit of pressure” politically and were lowering rates as a consequence.

While the government has resisted growing calls for a royal commission into the banking industry, the Prime Minister said yesterday he was bringing the banks “regularly” before a parliamentary committee and they were being “held to account for their actions”.

Mr Turnbull said the ANZ’s decision to cut rates on two credit card products was one of the “real results” from the committee and MPs “doing their jobs”.

Mr Morrison said the banks were no white knights in cutting rates and the government needed to “keep as much pressure on them as possible”.


http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...0889deb8e90699e

https://twitter.com/mrjoeaston/status/833468119016280064

I would blow Dane Cook fucked around with this message at 05:55 on Feb 20, 2017

hooman
Oct 11, 2007

This guy seems legit.
Fun Shoe
"The Bligh appointment has angered government MPs, with some claiming the ABA had evaporated any remaining goodwill within the Coalition partyroom."

Good, I look forward to that banking royal commission as well as tightening of regulations.

Might as well raise the corporate tax rate while you're at it.

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starkebn
May 18, 2004

"Oooh, got a little too serious. You okay there, little buddy?"
Is there any more to it other than they choose someone from the other team, and a woman to boot? Because none of the media about this is giving any other context for a tantrum.

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