A FUTURE WE CAN BANK ON? FORGET IT

AUSTRALIA is now led by bank robbers — politicians who steal from banks to finance their wild spending.

This is mad. Which foreign investors would trust their money with us?

First the Turnbull Government snatched $1.5 billion a year with a bank levy, with Treasurer Scott Morrison jeering that the bankers “can afford it” and voters “already don’t like you very much”.

Last week South Australia’s Labor government unveiled its own special tax for banks that will rake in nearly $100 million a year.

And, once again, the politicians’ only excuse for robbing the banks is that that’s where the money is.

And the reason Premier Jay Weatherill needs the cash? Like Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, he just can’t stop spending: he’ll spend an extra 5.8 per cent next financial year, after a 5.7 per cent rise this year.

This is just banditry, not prudent financial management. Depositors and lenders will pay more, and shareholders like pension funds will earn less.

Westpac is now cancelling expansion plans in South Australia, but we’ll pay a much bigger price.

Think how we look to the overseas investors whose cash we need to create new jobs.

They see a company like Adani invest in a $16.5 billion coal project but get forced by rich activists into four years of costly legal warfare and delays.

They see so much red tape that Gina Rinehart’s Roy Hill mine needed 4000 government approvals.

They see tax rates for big business among the highest in the world, and workers on high wages.

They see electricity prices also among the world’s highest, thanks in part to global warming policies that are among the most extreme.

They see an electricity supply so shambolic that South Australia suffers blackouts and the rest of the country faces shortages.

They see politicians impose irrational green bans on fracking and even drilling for gas, leaving the country dangerously short of local supplies.

They see the panicking Turnbull Government passing laws to force gas exporters to break supply contracts with foreign customers so there’s more gas for Australians.

And if investors do still manage to make a big profit, they see cashhungry governments sticking up banks, which they say are too rich.

Our economy is fast becoming an international joke. But we won’t be laughing when investors shut their wallets.