Dry outlook for drought funds
Where have donations ended up?
AUSTRALIANS have donated about $50 million to help families and farmers in the drought.
That number is going up by the day, but it’s going to slow if there is not greater transparency about where the money is going.
A few weeks ago the Federal Government picked Major General Stephen Day to be the national drought co-ordinator.
It’s his job to make sure all levels of government are working in conjunction with charities to find a way through the hardest of times.
By all reports he’s doing a good job, but I was genuinely shocked when he admitted on Thursday he had no idea what percentage of the donations was actually getting to the farm gate.
This needs to be changed, the government needs to establish a one-stop shop for donations and divide them up to the charities.
Government can pass on 100 per cent of the donations as they already have the infrastructure to collect and administer funds.
If they don’t, donations could start to dry up like the ground that hasn’t seen rain in a while.
We need city folk to be confident of where the money goes because they want to genuinely help.
Finally a Liberal has found a way to wedge Shorten
Scott Morrison has found a way to back Bill Shorten into a corner – tax cuts.
After failing to get ones for big business, he wants to speed up the ones for small to medium business.
Rather than waiting eight years to go from paying 27.5 per cent to 25 per cent, it will be five.
Most will get them in the next three years.
The wedge comes for Shorten because he’s previously said he may end the full impact of the tax cut early, leaving thousands of businesses stranded on the higher rate.
In part, he took that view because the policy costs billions over the years in lost revenue and he wanted to redirect it into more spending promises he’s got for the election.
But the politics is tough for the Labor leader.
Will he say no to small and medium business?
I doubt it.
So watch this space and keep an eye out for a spring in the government’s step when they get back to Canberra on Monday.
Bathurst is the race that stops the nation – well, mine at least
The Bathurst 1000 is my favourite sporting event of the year.
You can have the footy finals, this is my grand final.
Again this year’s race didn’t disappoint in terms of drama.
Craig Lowndes won his seventh, but only after David Reynolds cramped up and had to leave the track.
I love motorsport because it’s the fine dance between risk and reward. Where brilliant engineering meets the human element and everyone is pushing themselves to the limit of their skill.
As a cultural event, I love going because it’s a celebration of a largely forgotten people.
Average Aussies who love a laugh, a drink and doing what their dad did before them without being attacked by the identity politics warriors who seem to frown on almost everything we do these days.
It was great to see the Prime Minister show up and seemingly love every minute of it.
The joy on his face going around the track with Mark Skaife and the smile as he watched the teams in the pits showed he was genuine and instantly got why 200,000 people were there over the weekend and a million watched it on TV.
The only bad thing about Bathurst is we have to wait a year to do it all again.