The Coalition’s savage attacks on Bill Shorten continue

I must say, it would appear that Shorten is getting the short end…

http://www.news.com.au/national/pol...e/news-story/97a567aaa8bcb4f50d38338e6c816118

Clearly the low life is protecting his own interests and has been all along. But now it was not an attack on him but disparagement of Pratt.

From the same.

Funny when the shoe is on the other foot, the grub gets a little testy.

I do believe the ALP should see this weak corrupt clown they have put out front for what he is and toss him to the side. I guess while he greases so many palms he will remain but one questions what is beneath contempt here. This grubs continued belief of selling people down the river for his own benefit would be way up there I believe…

 

So the LNP still sings from the Tony Abbott song book, I see. Thank god for Chloe Shorten or they'd be saying someone needs to make an honest man of Bill. And thank god the Shortens have kids- otherwise Bill'd be barren with no real knowledge of life.

Seems to be the way our politics are going. Straight to hell: presidential style. It's not about policies anymore and hasn't been for awhile.

 

Yes, I am very bias when it comes to Shorten, I cannot lie. He is possibly the person in the ALP that personifies the loss of policy in politics. I would suggest he is the Abbott opposition leader without the possibility of change.

However, I do think the rot in the Australian politics to populist rhetoric not policy was in part created by Howard and exploded by Rudd. From then on it has been complete debacle. However, Since the cynicism has grown to such a proportion (which I point to Howard for) with politicians the young generation who do not see the realities of decent government tend to lean their generally uniformed vote to independents and minor protest parties in the fervent belief of anti-establishment acronym which promotes the vote of the swingers (yep those of us who vote on what is on offer) to government creation and destruction.

There needs to be a purge of the populist politicians. Who would remain???

 

I'm not too sure about the label "populist" Garry. It implies the people have no idea what's good for them and considering when you pin the people down- whether they identify as leaning left or right- they say they want decent jobs, education, health care and a fair go for everybody, I think they have a very good idea of what's good for them. I don't think you can blame the people for not being offered it, especially in view of study results like this one:

Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746

And don't kid yourself that a study on Australian political policies wouldn’t show the same.

I'm not sure you can even blame the people too much for believing the constant barrage of goodies/baddies BS they're fed.

 

forgive me for saying, it should be clearly obvious from comments on this forum many people, even those who want to pretend intelligence, many people do not know what is good for them.

People wish to say free health care and education is good for them. However, there is no such thing as free health care or education, somebody has to pay they just demand it is not them. Welfare for all as long as they do not have to pay. Build renewable energy resources as long as it does not cost them.

Everything is great as long as it in no way effects, cost or just impedes them… I don’t call that smart, intelligent or even knowing what is good for them. When politicians pander to those ideals they are just playing populist politics while buying votes with no regard on future. If people really do know what is good for them, why would they be prepared to throw their countries economy down the drain simply to have an ideal of healthcare, education and welfare that does not exist???

We can look to the study you wish but it is clear demonstration of how politicians can divide a nation for their own personal benefit while completely ignoring what is best for the people. IT is also a demonstration of the people who don’t know what is good for them voting on a principle of, dare I say?? An acronym of anti-establishment populist beliefs disregarding the truth of those ideals…

Yes, you can blame the people for believing such, as it is evident to a child somebody has to pay, why they continue to believe the idealistic belief of something for nothing. Just look at the party drones who would sit and watch while a government comprising of their party preference is cutting their legs off and applaud them for taxing their wheel chair to pay for the operation afterwards because it was their party who needed money and their legs…

 

The rich have to protect their own, because what they own is actually the nation, and if that was not protected then things go backwards for everyone!!! So I think populism is the abject unrealistic or less then wise policy positions, like 'no child in poverty by', 'every child will have a laptop', 'cheap free instant high speed internet' when anyone in the industry knows tech is changing fast, no-one will use the higher speeds, existing infrastructure already serves business and gov sufficiently and being a large nation means it will cost a fortune and take ages... and an affordable NDIS as a whole new standalone agency when it could have been bolted onto existing DHS facilities and systems. Pie in the the supplication to voter groups narrow minded desires just to win votes is populism. The fringe dwelling parties tend to have the best ones, like One Nation, the Greens and the Socialist Alliance but most people get their are long term aims with those parties. When the major parties do it we have to deal with the impact on the bottom line of the half hearted attempts they make to save face by trying not to appear like hypocrits sells us down the river to banks in debt on projects which no sensible business person would consider trying to make a business case for - especially when it comes to using debt for it!!!!

 

I am sure many have said this before, the government is not a business, it is the government's job to ensure the population get fair services, even if they are not profitable to ensure security.

 

You are delusionally wrong...The elite and mega wealthy attempt to hold as much of nations wealth as they can. Things certainly wouldn't go backwards, wealth would be spread more broadly. Take Americans for instance. They believe what the mega wealthy and elitist suggest, that all people have an opportunity to be in their position. This is all but a smoke screen, you know while ever the people believe it, they can get away with generating and taking more and more wealth for themselves. At what point do people realise that there is only so much money in the world.....it just doesn't grow and grow, it just goes around but in this instance it is all being collected in the banks of these mega rich elitist who are holding more and more of the nations wealth. It won't be long AT before you are an actual slave to these people unless you change your mindset about the money cycle!

 

Yes and of course they all do what is best for Australia which is why so much money is put off shore into tax havens and Gina tried to stop her children getting their trust funds because she would have to pay tax. The only concern that business has in Australia is what they can screw out of it. Look at all the international companies that come here and shovel off billions to other countries without paying tax. Business is only worried about ONE THING, the bottom line, people, humanity, the environment, the country can all go and rot as long as the profits keep increasing. Look at the thousands of cases of illegal dumping, pollution of river's unfair working conditions, tax avoidance schemes, political bribery. Nothing for the good of the people or the country. It's get in, take what you can and get out. Quick profits, no long term plan. In Japan business have a 50 year plan and a 10 year plan. In Australia, we are lucky if they have a 5 year plan. Australian businesses have shown over and over again that they are moving away from service to their customers, it is more about profit.

Get real and open your eyes, unless you yourself are one of them, then your eyes are wide open, with big dollar signs in them.

 

1% of Australia's population owns 60% of wealth, which is increasing rapidly and pretty sure this is now worse than the U.S. It won't be until people like AT realise that money doesn't just increase, it simply circulates. While ever they have people focussing on the wrong welfare bludgers this trend will continue until we head back to the good old Middle Ages rule by kings days. They divide and conquer those beneath, which is 99% of the population over issues like Islam, race and so-called welfare bludgers. It is all sleight of hand. If the majority of people weren't so divided and focussed on these issues the mega wealthy wouldn't be sitting back laughing at us like freakin fools!

 

Forgive me for saying, but free health care and education isn’t free. Taxes pay for it. In Australia , there's a specific tax we all pay for universal health care, for instance, it's called the medicare levy. Intelligent people figure health and education cost, but ignorance and poor health- particularly poor preventative health- cost everyone a hell of a lot more.

I'm pretty sure this will shock you Garry, but some of us are quite happy to pay our share of the tax revenue to provide a safe, secure society because it's in our best interest to do so. Pure self interest you see. Some of us would even gladly pay a little more to provide everyone with a little more. It all depends on your outlook and definition of self interest, I suppose.

 

I forgot to add that the some of us who are happy to pay taxes to provide services, safety and stability for the whole of society expect the few who extract most of the benefit to pay their fair share too. We don't believe there's any such thing as a free lunch and we're fed up with providing capital a buffet banquet every damn day.

 

Err, the point I made is that the ideal of free education and health care is the fact it is not free. I am guessing you missed the point of those who wish to believe this is possible are generally the ones who do not wish to pay. As for your universal health care tax, medicare levy, I certainly hope you are not expecting that to pay for your future healthcare needs... Medicare levy (which is only leveraged against higher wage earners) is only for the purpose of getting wealthier people to buy health insurance as the so called free health system cannot support all.

I would be surprised except many systems around the world constantly demonstrate such, just not Australia. I say such pure and simply because even on these pages you will see people who demand free healthcare and free education while demanding the government profit from ventures necessary or demanded. Why do they demand such??? Because they believe it should in no way affect them. Many on this forum complain what governments are doing with their taxes and demand where it should go but refuse to accept any responsibility for their demands...

I do think we are on the same page, I just think you miss my points. Perhaps a little ambiguity, maybe I was not clear enough.

 

I honestly don't know anyone here that believes that way

 

Blinkers are lovely when you want remain ignorant...

I could get the relevant quotes but could not be bothered…

 

The VERY important point here is that wealthy people don't have to buy health insurance, they choose to. There are enough 'precious' people - rich and poor - who demand special treatment, to provide relief to the public system. And there will always be such people.

Personally, we earn more than the threshold, so we just pay the extra and use the public system. Far better than lining the pockets of insurance companies, and putting up with dodgy private hospitals etc.

Actually I can't think of anyone I know who has paid for essential healthcare in the past 10 years. The last was my father-in-law, who paid $26k for cancer treatment at the same hospital and under the same doctor he'd have had if he'd opted for public. Conversely, a good friend recently went through treatment at a new, dedicated, state of the art cancer centre attached to her local public hospital, and didn't part with a single cent.

 

Yes, the very point the levy was to give incentives for the wealthier to join health insurance but what many have missed is the decay of the insurance system to the point of paying large premiums for no benefit. Your further point of or the precious made the system untenable for those precious demanding the same healthcare as those who are insured which further pressured the entire system. Ergo when Governments so called tinkered with the system, they deliberately decayed the system while pretending to support the poor. All sounded good but now the healthcare system has MASSIVE demands and little budget.

Since those who consider healthcare should be free don't want to pay for it, Australia is now in a serious problem. Insurance rates rise as people leave in droves and place a larger pressure on a system that is already struggling with budget restraints. Since short sighted policy is to tax the crap out of the nation we now see those very same clowns demanding who should be taxed and how they can avoid it themselves.

There needs to be a serious discussion about these policies and many more without the partisan politics. While Australia has the moronic numb nuts who wish to just hate on parties and people that disagree with them, such as shorten and well ALL the greens, the nation will continue the slow decay.

 

I agreed with you. Here's me quoting me:
" Forgive me for saying, but free health care and education isn’t free. Taxes pay for it. In Australia , there's a specific tax we all pay for universal health care, for instance, it's called the medicare levy."

And we're travelling pretty well. We deliver a bloody good universal health care system very efficiently. We spent 9.3% GDP on health in 2015. The OECD average is 9.0%. Compare our health expenditure to BS stupidity "user pays because the gubment's broke and we're all rooned" systems like the (*)(*)(*)(*) poor joke you find in the US, which blew 16.9% of its GDP on health care in 2015. Well, I'll call it "health care". In reality it's an obscene corporate welfare handout.

http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-data.htm

And Garry? I don’t mind my Medicare Levy subsidising those who earn too little to pay one. I've been a low-income earner. I don't mind giving back now it's my turn. It's part of the social contract. Your posts suggest you can't get your head around that- all that talk in all your posts about people demanding services but not wanting to pay for them - but there it is.

I get you resent subsidising others. Lord knows there's plenty of it going round after decades of bashing low income earners ( the ones who apparently don't pay tax) and Centrelink benefit recipients ( excluding sacred cow Aged Pension recipients. Amen), but I don't feel that way. And looking at other comments on this thread, I'm not alone.

 

I forgot to add Australia has a revenue problem, not a spending problem. Too many tax cuts for too many wealthy individuals and corporations too many times. Howard/Costello were the worst offenders' but Hawke/Keating, Rudd/Gillard/Swan didn't have the balls to correct it and reinstate progressive taxation either.

And after 40 freaking years of anti-tax rhetoric specially imported from the US to justify the tax cuts, is it any wonder Australians have been brainwashed into believing we are high taxing nation that spends like a drunken sailor? Ironic that the very classes whose throats are cut by too little revenue and too much austerity are the ones coached to moan the loudest."Australians pay too much tax! We have to give business tax cuts because jobs! ", isn’t it? Nice little vicious circle our lords and masters made. God they must laugh.

You're right Garry. People do resent paying taxes, but it's because they've been brainwashed. The only thing we can do is fight back by pointing the facts out to them to undo the damage. The revenue burden has been shifted firmly from those who can most afford it to those who can least afford it. We're not overtaxed, we're taxed unjustly and disproportionately. We have a revenue shortfall as a consequence which has caused cuts in basic public services. We have to get that message out to the people. If we just throw our hands in the air, give up on them and bang our heads against the wall because it hurts less we won't get anywhere.

Australians aren’t greedy and they aren't stupid, but they've been deliberately misinformed for a very long time. It's understandable. If you'd wiped out someone else's bank account giving your mates free money to party with, would you admit it to the account holder or would you lie and say a very expensive emergency came up and you had to spend it all plus some to protect the account holder? That's basically what successive governments have done with tax revenue.

 

My father had prostate cancer about 25 years ago. All good now. The surgeon who performed the operation operates out of a private hospital. My father went in as a public patient under Medicare and didn't pay anything unfront. My father was still working at the time so he naturally was paying the Medicare levy. The poor guy in the bed beside (twin bed room) him went in as a private patient, had the identical operation and was handed a bill.

The only time I've had private health insurance other than ambulance cover, was when I was living abroad. Now I'm back in Australia, Medicare only.

I've had a couple of niggly health issues since returning 18 months ago. One in particular, a detatched retina. I was being treated for a burst blood vessel in my retina. Things were going well until the night before my scheduled appointment with my Ophthalmologist, who bulk bills after the first appointment. Over night I almost lost the sight in my left eye. My retina tore and detatched. Saw my Ophthalmologist at 10.30am, by 5.30pm I was on the operating table at Sydney Eye Hospital (120 kilometres away) having my retina reattached. Since I've had another two followup surgeries to correct the vision in my left eye, all under Medicare. The retinal surgeon who looked after me, informed me I'd needed followup surgery to correct my vision. When it was due he asked me when can I come in to have it. No waiting period. Eye surgery is a very specialised field.

I still have impaired vision in my left eye that won't improve. After the first surgery, the chief of surgery came to my bed and bluntly put it - "Your eye was f**ked". Love his honesty.

I'm a full devotee of universal healthcare, wouldn't have it any other way.

 

We should always try our hardest to never regress, and Healthcare and education are two fundamentals in our society that come to mind. Now all we have to do is work out the best way to fund them long term, always having in mind ways to improve the delivery of these two very important aspects of our society.

Yes I have read it on here before, that our system is better than most. However it is not perfect, and we should never be content with mediocrity, doing so will only slowly rot away what we have already worked so hard to achieve.

 

We should also never allow any government to water Medicare down,, never ever.

 

Well I don’t know about you but I would be seriously worried about the figures if you wish to compare medical costs over the average of OECD nations Due to one very important point, there is only 23 odd million people in Australia. The Statistical anomaly of who spends what belays the truth of the figures. Australia has serious problem with the increasing costs of healthcare and the lack of ability to pay that ever increasing cost.

You completely miss the point of the medicare levy. It is not to pay anything, it is incentive for those who can afford it to buy insurance. As a healthcare tax it seriously is lacking in resources as it will not cover a tenth of the cost of Australian healthcare. The problem is that those people who cannot afford medical cover demand the same treatment as those who pay. Ergo, why pay huge insurance premiums to a private company for no benefit??? You might feel altruistic about it but the fact of the matter is who is benefiting from your altruism??? Not the people but the companies you pay your healthcare insurance too.
Resenting subsidising others??? Sorry, but you truly do miss the point. You might feel happy about watching the decay of your economy through unsustainable policy. Since you clearly miss the point of policy such as the medicare levy the delusional aspect of continuing to pay people for providing nothing to the system is the failure of yours not mine.
I would suggest returning to class and learning about economic basics such as capitalism and socialism before continuing in such delusions. For the first and most important fact of them is that economies of measure do not in any way allow support of people who do not contribute to the system. No matter how you want to twist your social programs, ABSOLUTELY NO economic system has room to account for the demand…

 

This one line states all anybody needs to know about who you are and what you demand. Like the glass is half full, not half empty.
For example, what is the difference??? You can justify your point of view any way you want, but the only difference is the eye of the beholder. Why does it tell so much??? Because it points to what partisan politics you rest your hat on. The entire rest of your rant pales in significances in this one short sentence.
Your attack on the wealthy, reducing incentives to invest in Australia and demanding those whom YOU have decided should pay more be screwed to pay for programs YOU demand. The attack on the tax system to pay for programs YOU demand and the point of what they truly are for.
BUT most of all, that intrinsic hatred for anybody who does not share you view of how the world should run. So while you’re demanding the system to continue to pay for those who provide nothing, don’t you feel there is a saturation point as to what the system can support???
What is that saturation point in your view??? Is it where 100% of income tax pays the welfare budget??? If so you missed the boat on that. Maybe it is when all your social welfare programs reach say 50% of GDP??? I don’t know, but before you go leaning this way and that and attempting to demean others with such you should decide yourself just how much your social programs will cost and just how much your economic system can support.
Australia is lucky in many way’s it provides healthcare for all, pensions and benefits for those who need it without return of used by date. Education for all and many other programs. No place in the rest of the world do as much for people who provide nothing to the economy than Australia does. That is because, NO economic system can survive supporting people who provide nothing to the system.
I could go on but simple to say, this socialist ideal in the free economic system is not an ideal that can survive the test of true economies.

 

WOW I wish I was so arrogant as to know everything and be right just because I say so