Anthony Albanese clearly learned nothing from the downfall of the Rudd-Gillard Labor government. First Rudd tried to ignite an “eat the rich” class war, then Gillard cynically and egregiously broke a clear election promise.
Both exploded spectacularly.
Rudd’s “mining tax” was predicated solely on the argument that “big miners are making a lot of money — let’s grab more of it than we already are!” Such a blatant tax grab revolted a great many Australians’ sense of what Don Bradman reminded Malcolm Fraser: “Private enterprise is entitled to rewards as long as it obeys fair and reasonable rules”. Gillard’s broken promise was so breathtaking in its cynicism — after promising, unambiguously, the day before the election, that there would be “no carbon tax under a government I lead”, she immediately turned around and imposed one at the Greens’ behest, to win minority government — that it fatally crippled her credibility for the rest of her brief, unlamented term.
Albo’s repeating both mistakes.
Albanese’s list of broken promises include his 100-times-repeated promise to lower household electricity bills: bills are soaring and the government’s own modelling acknowledges that they’ll keep doing so for the foreseable future. But it’s his broken superannuation promise that’s smashing his credibility, this week.
On its own, it seems like a very minor promise-break — but then, so was Tony Abbott’s when, having promised not to touch Medicare, proceeded to attempt a footling change to billing. It was the vibe. The vibe over superannuation is just as damaging.
Karl Stefanovic has confronted Treasurer Jim Chalmers while claiming the government’s changes to superannuation ‘stinks of a broken promise’ […]
‘You said it wouldn’t happen but now it is going to happen. That is a broken promise?’ Stefanovic said.
Proving once again that explaining is losing, Chalmers and Albanese tried to claim that it wasn’t a broken promise, not really, well, maybe a little one, but…
‘I said there wouldn’t be major changes to superannuation. This is not a major superannuation change. This is a modest change,’ he declared.
MSN
Albanese repeated the same “modest change” excuse.
But if he thought that that would be the end of it, he hadn’t reckoned with Treasurer Zippy’s ability to keep digging when he’s up to his neck in it already.
Dr Chalmers was earlier forced to rule out raiding capital gains tax exemptions on the family home after putting himself at odds with the Prime Minister.
He repeatedly refused to confirm the government would not broaden its search for savings by hitting other tax concessions, despite Mr Albanese declaring his government would not touch CGT exemptions.
Asked multiple times on Wednesday morning whether he would guarantee no hits on CGT discounts, Dr Chalmers said: “I can’t commit future government to changes or otherwise.”
The Australian
It’s one thing to set Australians, a sizeable proportion of whom are at or nearing retirement age, on edge about the security of their retirement savings, quite another to threaten the sacred cow of the family home.
Geez. Jim Chalmers managed to go from trainee treasurer to trainwreck treasurer in one spectacular leap.
Before Tuesday he had only managed to get Australians worried about whether and when the taxman was going to come after their super.
Now, he’s left open the door that they’ll still be coming after your super.
And they might also target the family home and those ‘good ideas’ that helped the previous Labor leader Bill Shorten lose the ‘unlosable’ 2019 election – franking credits on share dividends and negative gearing on investment properties.
Indeed, even more punitively, they might even target ordinary everyday expenses claimed as tax deductions across a wide front, including even expenses on properties that weren’t negatively geared.
The Australian
Well, that’s what you get when you put a Communications graduate in charge of the economy. Albanese rushed to hose down the CGT speculation, but the damage was already done, the seed of distrust sowed.
And what do you get when you put someone who studied economics under an unapologetic Marxist in charge of energy policy? Yet another bomb that’s ticking away on the Albanese government.
A move to electrify all Australian households could cost taxpayers more than $60bn, analysis from the national peak body for pipeline infrastructure has revealed, highlighting the challenges of paying for the country’s transition away from fossil fuels.
Oh, sure, the Climate Cult roll their eyes, a fossil-fuel shill would say that, wouldn’t he? The only problem is that this figure comes from the office of a climate-bothering Teal.
Mr Davies pointed to costings by the Parliamentary Budget Office for independent senator David Pocock that calculated it would cost $11.3m over the forwards to help a single ACT suburb electrify.
This figure was based on a model to give $13,000 a household to help 1000 homes in Canberra transition to be fully electric.
The Australian
About five million Australian homes are currently connected to gas. The $13,000 in Pocock’s modelling, it should be borne in mind, is just the proposed government subsidy of 50%. So, it will in fact cost at least $130 billion to force a change to all-electric homes. The $65 billion is just the taxpayers’ bill.
Then there’s the rest of the cost of “Net Zero”: not just the panels and turbines, but the millions of kilometres of new wiring, the batteries. Hundreds of billions of dollars, all for an unreliable, substandard grid and soaring power prices.
