Tax reform only way forward
IF I needed further reminding of the immediate need of reform in the management of our country, I did not have to look far in the past week.
I am often reminded of that political catch phrase “it’s the economy stupid”, and so it was.
Once the Budget was handed down it was all about the states and interest groups posturing for a bigger slice of the pie for more infrastructure and more services, with little regard for priorities, and refusing to recognise that savings have to be made to compensate.
Our daily lives are being consumed by unrealistic and unrealisable demands for more to satisfy bloated federal and state administrations.
The operational and administration costs of running a country of 26 million is slowly killing us and the tax paying punter is being screwed.
The simple facts are that there is an increasing burden being placed on a diminishing taxpayer base by taxation increases and levies on some, but not all.
This coupled with the fact that there is a declining workforce participation rate means that the burden of balancing the budget is being borne disproportionately by a decreasing percentage of full time workforce parborders. ticipants. The remedy for this is a fair dinkum taxation reform program that neither side of politics has had the gumption, nor importantly, the courage to implement.
That reform will clearly point to the need for a broadening of the rate and the base of the GST.
A broader based consumption tax lifted incrementally from 10 per cent to 15 per cent will enable the government to abolish the legacy of disincentive taxes around stamp duties, payroll tax, transfer taxes and a raft of other levies and taxes, which are applied indiscriminately to boost the coffers of mendicant state administrations.
More people will be employed as a consequence. No one has an issue with fairness and equity in our daily lives, and so it is that we view those who we entrust to run our daily affairs with a degree of scepticism and contempt when that is not the case.
Increasingly, governments will be judged harshly if we fail to implement, for example, an internationally competitive national education system which is appropriately funded.
Sadly this is an impossibility when dealing with the states.
Similarly, the same argument applies to the health arena with the various programs across federal and state There are more than 3000 Commonwealth bureaucrats administering various health/pharmaceutical funding programs, but not responsible for one hospital bed or pharmacy.
Across Australia the Federal Government is rolling out the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS); yet another program that is in the very expensive grip of state and federal political “power” play.
Mental health programs, long the responsibility of the various state health departments, are being “shifted” by state departments to the NDIS program (unfunded), thus freeing up more funds for their own health programs already paid by the Commonwealth separately.
This is called “double dipping” or a “rort” by any other name.
I’m heartily sick of the stupidity around the contest of states.
We are one country needing to be bolder and stronger.
Unless we rid ourselves of the duplication and waste of the states and the Senate, we will plod into oblivion remembering the Forrest Gump line: “Stupid is as stupid does”.
THE REMEDY FOR THIS IS A FAIR DINKUM TAXATION REFORM PROGRAM THAT NEITHER SIDE OF POLITICS HAS HAD THE GUMPTION, NOR IMPORTANTLY, THE COURAGE TO IMPLEMENT