As the Starmer UK Labour government hands down a horror show budget that strips more money from average Britons who actually work for a living, in order to balloon the benefits for the leaner class, it begs the question: how soon before Australia’s fellow socialist Labor government follows suit. More importantly, what will Labor steal from you next?
We can take a guess…
The number of homes sitting empty across Melbourne surged by 16 per cent last year, despite a housing crisis and the government increasing taxes on unused properties.
What this represents is a very small class of investors who are, by the report’s own admission, engaging in “rational behaviour”. With government policy, especially mass immigration, relentlessly driving house prices up, it makes more sense to hang on to a dwelling to re-sell later, than have it trashed by ‘social housing’ tenants.
In any case, that ‘surge’ still means that very, very, few Melbourne properties are actually sitting empty: less than two per cent. But any pittance is enough to make a socialist grabber start salivating.
The number of unused and underused properties combined could theoretically house everyone on the Victorian social housing waiting list twice over.
Just in case anyone missed the hint, the Age, for no apparent reason, just happens to include a handy little how-to, from an imported socialist grifter who chooses drug references as his online handle, on how to squat in a house and try to steal what someone else has earned.
With summer coming on, perhaps the Age could pad out a story on bushfires with a handy little guide to arson techniques?
The most complimentary thing you can say about Victorian Labor is that at least they’re equal-opportunity plunderers. They won’t just steal the houses from rich investors, they’ll gouge working-class peoples’ retirement savings, too, if they can get their claws on it.
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan has called on Australia’s $4.3 trillion superannuation sector to play a greater role in funding hospitals, schools and other critical infrastructure, saying funds have an obligation to invest their members’ savings into projects that support workers.
No. No, they don’t. They have one obligation and one obligation only: to maximise the return on investment for people who are forced by law to bank a percentage of their income into these funds. Everything else, especially the ‘triple bottom line’ bullshit, is at odds with that fundamental obligation.
Unfortunately, that obligation is not the reason Australia’s compulsory superannuation laws were enacted by then-Treasurer Paul Keating. What the funds have in fact become is a gigantic cash-cow for the Long March Left. especially with their takeover by Climate Cultists: the funds too often actively act against working peoples’ interests.
None of that, though, justifies this unprincipled grab by a failing socialist government mired in record-high debt.
She said her government would look at ways for more partnerships to deliver hospitals and schools. She also identified housing and green energy as projects in which institutional investors could partner with the government.
In other words, how a socialist government can steal even more of other peoples’ money.
The Allan government has committed to winding back its infrastructure spending to bring the state’s finances back under control, after the May budget showed Victoria’s net debt was forecast to rise to $194 billion by 2028-29, fuelled by spending on infrastructure projects and Covid-19 programs. The budget projected that infrastructure spending would fall to $15.6 billion by 2028–29 after reaching a peak of $24.2 billion two years ago.
To put that debt into perspective, when the Cain-Kirner Labor government was obliterated in 1992, state debt was $32 billion. Adjusted for inflation, that would be $74 billion in today’s money.
The Andrews-Allan debt is over twice that and growing higher by the day. The debt-to-GDP ratio in the darkest days of Cain-Kirner was 16 per cent. Today, it’s nearly 25 per cent. The interest payments on the state’s debt alone are nearly $7 billion a year. $20 million per day. Just in interest payments.
She said her government’s fiscal strategy was centred on economic growth and job creation.
If nothing else, her post-politics career in stand-up comedy awaits.
