Endman posted:

They do realise that the rate we burn and release CO2 is far faster than the billions of years of organic decay it took to form coal right.



Right?

The Guardian posted:

Labor will continue efforts to make Australia’s tax system more progressive but will not countenance adopting a universal basic income policy to address rising inequality, according to Chris Bowen.

The shadow treasurer will use a speech to a progressive thinktank in Sydney on Friday to lay down some policy markers in the opposition’s internal debate about economic policy for the next election, highlighting the importance of innovation, education and targeted regional interventions to address disadvantage.

But he will also push back against internal and external calls to adopt muscular policies, such as a universal basic income, saying the concept is “very much the wrong answer”.

Bowen will use his speech to PerCapita to argue that Labor needs “an activist policy to counter rising inequality” but that the first principle of policymaking in that space is “do no harm”.

Universal basic income (UBI) has some currency in progressive circles. Providing people with a basic stipend is seen as a mechanism to lift people out of poverty and also an antidote to accelerating technological change, where automation will see massive job losses.

The Australian Greens have argued the idea should be considered in conjunction with a four-day working week. The Green party in the United Kingdom has also proposed a UBI and a shorter working week in their current election manifesto.

But Bowen will argue a UBI is a terrible idea, because it would mean Labor has given up the principle “of ensuring dignity through work for Australians”.

He says it would see government proving “payments to millionaires”.

“One of the most important elements of Australia’s policy framework is our highly targeted welfare system,” Bowen will say. “Widespread means-testing means that we get greater bang for our poverty alleviation buck for every dollar spent in welfare.

“A universal basic income would be just that, universal. Providing payments to millionaires, at a considerable cost to the taxpayer, but payments that would barely be noticed by people of means.”

Bowen will say that, depending on how the payment is structured, it could represent a “savage cut” to people currently on pensions or disability allowances, or it could necessitate unsustainable increases in taxes.

“A universal basic income would present us with a rare and unattractive policy trade-off: making us even more unequal as a society or delivering us an unsustainable tax system.”

The shadow treasurer will say on Friday that regional inequality has to be a central part of policy thinking because any discussion about inequality in Australia that doesn’t deal with geographic inequality is missing a key part of the problem. “Where you live has a big impact on your quality of life.”

Bowen will note that half of all jobs created in Australia in the past decade have been created within 2km of either the Sydney or Melbourne GPO and regional unemployment remains high.

He will argue innovation policy has to look at collaborations in regional areas and he will point to an American program, Rise of the Rest, which is a private-sector initiative to fund start-ups in regional areas.

Bowen will also point to the importance of education. “With income inequality at 75-year highs, surely we must be more concerned than ever about the fact that that our education system entrenches and re-enforces, instead of ameliorates, disadvantage and inequality,” he will say.

“Increasing the quantum of education funding is important but a proper and genuine needs-based system is just as important.”

Bowen has been battling an internal push to beef up economic policy, including a campaign for a “Buffett rule” which would see wealthy Australians forced to pay a minimum rate of tax.

Labor’s former treasurer Wayne Swan recently warned his successor that the ALP needed to avoid being “trickle-down lite”, or offering voters “a sickening Davos third-way approach” at the next election.

Swan declared Labor “can’t delude ourselves” that spending more on education is the fix to growing inequality. He characterised that line of thinking as “whistling in the graveyard”.

ewe2 posted:

Laura Tingle fires up in the AFR:


TL;DR poo poo's hosed up

quote:

Donations row engulfs Turnbull’s team The Australian12:00AM June 9, 2017 SIMON BENSON National Political EditorSydney

A senior member of Malcolm Turnbull’s campaign team had ­directly solicited a political ­donation prior to last year’s election campaign from Chinese-born Australian billionaire Chau Chak Wing, who is now at the centre of a political storm over foreign ­donations and political ­influence. The Australian has also confirmed that Labor Party officials at both state and federal branch levels were even more vigorous in their approaches to Dr Chau in seeking donations for last year’s election campaign. Dr Chau, an Australian citizen of 20 years, hit back at suggestions he was a puppet of China’s Communist Party, telling The Aus­tralian that many of the donations he had made to both side of ­politics were in response to ­approaches from political party officials. This has been backed up by senior officials from both major parties, who have admitted they saw Dr Chau as a cash cow for their election campaigns.

Election donation returns show that in the 12 months prior to last year’s election, Dr Chau donated more than $800,000 to both ­parties following approaches for financial support. The Australian understands that ASIO has issued updated warnings to political officials over its concerns about China’s “soft power” influence in Australia as recently as the past month. Bill Shorten this week tried to distance Labor from Dr Chau, claiming: “We (the Labor Party) don’t want these individuals’ or associates’ money. I do not want these two individuals who were named on Four Corners to be making donations to the Labor Party, and I have made it clear, before last night, that I don’t want our party accepting donations from these people.”

An ABC Four Corners report on Monday named Dr Chau in an attempt to make links between foreign donations and political influence. Former prime minister John Howard in 2015 described Dr Chau as being crucial in securing a key LNG deal with China. Dr Chau said in a statement to The Australian: “These reports, and the subsequent political re­action they have triggered, have caused great distress and dis­appointment to me and my family. All of my political donations, which in some cases resulted from a direct approach by the major parties, have been made and declared strictly in accordance with Australian electoral laws. They have also been made with complete transparency through businesses I am clearly identified with. “At no time have I sought to, or seen any reason to, use an elaborate corporate structure to mask a donation to a political party. Further, I have never sought or received any personal or commercial benefit in connection to a political donation. The most distressing alle­gation of recent days is that I am somehow acting as a conduit of information for the Chinese Communist Party, which risks jeopardising Australia’s sovereignty. For clarity, I am not and have never been a member of the Chinese Communist Party, and I completely reject the suggestion I have acted in any way on behalf of, or under instruction from, that ­entity.”

A senior Liberal organisational official confirmed the party had approached the family of Dr Chau, who bought James Packer’s Vaucluse mansion in Sydney’s east for $70 million in 2015, before the election asking to donate to the 2016 campaign. “He was a longstanding donor, and an Australian citizen,” the official said. The official also defended Dr Chau, claiming there had never been evidence he was linked to the Communist Party or had sought to bear influence, despite an ASIO warning about Chinese political donors. “He never asked for anything,” the ­Liberal Party official said. “All he was interested in was good relations between Australia and China.” Labor and Liberal Party officials were warned by ASIO in 2015 about taking donations from foreign Chinese entities and companies alleged to have links back to the Communist Party.

However, Dr Chau, as an Australian citizen and proprietor of several Australian businesses, is not a foreign political donor.

He is pursuing a defamation case against a former Fairfax journalist who joined Mr Turnbull’s office in 2015. “I am immensely grateful for all of the opportunities living and working in such a wonderful country have provided me and my family, and I have sought to repay that gratitude by investing in education, cultural and health projects that will provide broad benefit,” he said. A senior Labor source confirmed party officials had regularly asked Dr Chau for donations: “Of course we did. We got greedy.”

Bogan King posted:

https://twitter.com/PoliticsFairfax/status/872692344918728704

Yo Malcolm, we heard you like walls so we're building a wall where we're building your wall so you could have a wall where you wall is going to go.

MysticalMachineGun posted:

Labor: true leftists!


"We have means tested welfare but we certainly can't have a means tested UBI"

L

M

A

O

bowmore posted:

any news on how the election is going?

bowmore posted:

any news on how the election is going?

Bogan King posted:

https://twitter.com/paharvey99/status/872976656520163328

Birdstrike posted:

quote:

But Bowen will argue a UBI is a terrible idea, because it would mean Labor has given up the principle “of ensuring dignity through work for Australians”.

open24hours posted:

A means tested UBI wouldn't be universal though?

ModernMajorGeneral posted:

the21stcenturyleft.txt

MysticalMachineGun posted:

It would! It's just that some people's UBI would be means tested to be $0 due to their 5 mansions and 7 figure income

PC Brigadier posted:

i'm so happy,
even if it doesn't work out, its a good reminder for everyone on the left to double down, not compromise, and for centrists to watch their loving backs.

bowmore posted:

any news on how the election is going?

norp posted:

The point of the UBI is that you set up the tax system to pay it back in a progressive way you doofus's

Although it should probably come out before deductions to stop the rich people gaming it with their artificial "low" incomes.

TheIllestVillain posted:

https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/872990507353485315

this is what happens when you don't have preferential voting, what a clusterfuck

ModernMajorGeneral posted:

the21stcenturyleft.txt

Lid posted:

https://twitter.com/theprojecttv/status/872757635430309888

This is the dumbest of things.

JBP posted:

Is she being coached off screen? What a shitshow.

Periphery posted:

Why the gently caress would you means test a UBI? Just scrap tax deductions and shift the tax brackets so those earning above a certain amount don't see any net benefit? Why make this poo poo harder to administer than it has to be.