knockoff nige

Interestingly, in the last election campaign the same question was asked and most people said the budgy smugglers made them less likely to vote LNP but look what happened? I call for more pertinent questions from the media!

GarryP

The budget, which was designed to give LNP voters something to vote for, seems to have failed - that seems pretty pertinent.

There's talk that there's $1.6bn in the budget unaccounted for - to fund more giveaways and trinkets if Turnbull is looking pressured and their 2PP vote slips below ~47% it seems. It's going to be needed.

Beoz

The "dumb" as you put it, aren't the strength in numbers they once were. You only need to see the ever increasing amount of those finishing year 12 or doing tertiary education of some sort along with the ever declining numbers of union membership to see that.

As Ozzie has pointed out in the past, the numbers of youth at Oz Post doing manual roles is low, its all old blokes waiting for their retirement.

Times change and the workforce roll with it. Jump on board.

Amazulu

Good for him - a team player

He was a competent PM and had good policies but unfortunately much of the electorate wants to believe fairy tales and not accept reality

Beoz

Sensible move. I'd like to see the numbers crunched on the ALP budget response. I predict a massive blowout.

GarryP

Probably not, since they aren't going in for the LNP corporation tax give away to big business. IIRC through that and other measures they had $71bn to play with, to do things like fund Gonski.

Thought I had yesterday, set Norfolk island as a tax haven for Australia, only charging 20% tax, but only open to those that can set their 'location' as there reasonably (eg the one's that could set Singapore as their tax residency).

Not only does that focus the tax cut on those most likely to jump ship from tax domicile in Australia anyway (20% of something is better than 30% of nothing), it also keeps the islanders sweet (since they don't want to be part of Oz).

Beoz

You obviously don't see the "cost of doing business in Australia" issue that is already smacking us around.

GarryP

Err, that's exactly what I was addressing. the 30% corporate tax rate. If you can shift the profit such that its recognised in a low tax country (say Ireland at 20%) then you can save yourself a lot of tax - hence any new high tech company does so. If you have your own low tax haven (such as the UK has in the channel islands) then you can at least have them shift to a low tax regime that you get something from, rather than one that you don't.

Can't so anything about the Cayman islands, but there are other approaches there.

Seems more use than the 'below $10m' attempt of Turnbull, since you target the reduction on just those that won't be paying anything otherwise (eg the actual tax take will probably go up).

Beoz

Or you just make Australia the tax haven. After all, salaries and geography aside, global companies would rather their Asian base in Australia than Sing or HK.

GarryP

Yeah, but it's $50bn to cut the tax from 28% to 25% - which still isn't there.

Targeting the cuts where needed could increase the overall take, which the LNP actions certainly aren't going to achieve.

Beoz

I think you are purposefully ignoring the point. You drop the rate to keep companies staying and to encourage more to start. If your competitors are offering low rates elsewhere you go there.

A 50bn loss in one area could translate into a 200bn gain elsewhere. Income tax, corporate tax, GST, more money floating around the system.

I think you know this though and are just looking for an angle.

I'd even go so far as to drop the rate to 20% even less, for large corps who wish to set up in regional locations like Newcastle, Geelong, or the Gold Coast. With that needs to come investment. You need to train from Syd to Newcastle in 1-1.5 hours.

GarryP

Actually, I'm not sure if it's not you that's not getting it.

Cutting the corporate tax rate costs money, $50bn of it - and that's for only half way to what's needed. Thus it's not credible to say that you are going to get the corporate tax rate to 20% for everyone, the money's not there.

Instead you target the tax cut such that those companies which today jump ship to base themselves in Singapore or Ireland, etc. stay in Australia, paying taxes to Australia. Do it right and you can even gain in total tax receipts.

And my suggested route is to pick an out of the way spot (such as Norfolk Island) that wouldn't get anyone otherwise, and set it up for a haven for those companies that can sensibly play the 'mobile company' tax games, not the rest. You don't want the hairdresser down the street setting up their corporate location in the tax haven, just those mobile innovative companies that have a virtual presence.

If you want to do 20% corporate tax rate for all companies under $2m turnover as well, well I'm all for it. But that's not the issue here really.

Beoz

In bold aren't we talking the same thing here?

I'm not saying get the corporate tax rate to 20% for everyone today, though it might become a need in the future.

I was talking about providing incentive for the large corps to base themselves in regional locations, to help provide for those locations and to help contain regional migration to the cities.

There is no reason why the larger regional centres cannot be the tax havens. They already have the infrastructure, the people, they need better links to the cities.

Norfolk Island, OK could be done but you would be only benefiting a few rather than a lot.

GarryP

A nice little run through of the policies of the main three parties in the key policy areas.

The 10 big issues of election 2016: how Coalition, Labor and Greens policies compare | Australia news | The Guardian

Beoz

Sounds like the Libs have the most balanced and sensible set of plans of all except for 1 policy.

Affordable housing seems to be a sticking point. Their plan is increasing supply but they don't want properties to fall in price. Kind of defeats the laws of supply and demand.

Labors policies are too wish list with little thought on how to get there.