Whoever stuffs up least will win election
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The party that stuffs up the least between now and the election will win it. Not since 1990 has there a pending clash of two less competent leaders. Back then Bob Hawke, summoning the last of his fading political powers, took on Andrew Peacock, the sun-tanned soufflé leading a hopelessly divided Liberal Party so disorganised it didn’t actually work out a health policy in time for the election. The leaders’ debate was like watching a couple of toothless sharks trying to maul each other. Like Hawke, Kevin Rudd used to have electoral appeal and an iron grip on how to communicate with voters. That has now vanished. Hawke’s appeal faded over three terms. Rudd’s has disappeared so quickly you have to wonder if he’s been spirited off, Harold Holt-style, in a Chinese sub and replaced with a bad impersonator with all the charmless mannerisms and none of the 2007-vintage skills. The Abbott-Peacock comparison doesn’t, alas, hold up beyond the glowing physical vanity — and even there, Peacock rarely got more exercise than pulling his Gucci luggage around the Macquarie Hostel here in Canberra. Abbott has put in a bravura performance whenever negativity has been required. The moment he has tried anything positive, he has transformed into the most maladroit politician since Alexander Downer’s comic turn in “I Say, Wouldn’t It Be A Jolly Jape To Run A Party!”. That Abbott comes apart so easily under relatively mild pressure from journalists should be a cause of deep concern among his colleagues. So we end up with the bloke who can’t communicate what little he stands for versus the bloke who can’t handle pressure. Peter Costello might be wondering why on earth he turned his back on politics right now. This is far worse for Labor than it is for the coalition. History says the coalition should face at least two terms in opposition. They have nothing to lose. But Labor faces the horrible truth: given how well the economy is performing, and how utterly inept the opposition has proven to be on policy, they should be murdering the Liberals. Instead, by some measures, they’d lose an election held now. And they’ve now got two weeks of Parliament, and Senate estimates, giving the opposition plenty of time and coverage to get their messages out there — a rare opportunity between now and the likely election date. For all the media and opposition stirring about Julia Gillard, one of Labor’s core problems, especially in prosecuting its case for the RSPT, is that it lacks a Keating figure who combines a gift for condensing messages into cut-through phrases, economic gravitas and a capacity to intimidate industry and his political opponents. Gillard can condense issues but she’s not central to the economic debate in the way Keating and Peter Costello were. Lindsay Tanner is adept at arguing a case but is confined to the finance portfolio. Wayne Swan now owns the Treasurership in a way he didn’t two years ago, but it’s unlikely too many business executives live in fear of receiving an angry phone call from him. Swan’s been ramping up the aggression towards the mining companies in recent days and he needs to keep doing it even while negotiating with the more sensible mining execs about the introduction of the RSPT. Swan’s prosecution of the case for the RSPT is crucial not merely to Labor’s electoral fate but to the future of good public policy in Australia. If a bunch of whingeing foreign mining companies can derail a sensible tax reform through an hysterical propaganda campaign and buying the support of a major political party, we may as well sack elected politicians and put business executives and share market screen jockeys in charge of the country. |
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63 Comments
What garbage. No-one is seriously going to throw out a new government and where the hell you get this whine of incompetence is beyond my ken.
Really and truly you are sounding like the morons in Bolt world without telling us one fact.
The mining tax is just another damn tax, what is the big deal and why on earth does it have to be “sold” to anyone.
Were other taxes on other things “sold” or just imposed by parliament, which is their job.
Good lord some little people in this country have a weird idea of the importance not only of themselves but the silly rubbish they write.
Why is Rudd on the nose? No-one cared too much about the ETS because it gave vast amounts of compensation to the coal companies and ALCOA and didn’t mitigate emissions by too much.
And if no-one else in the world is working up a cap and trade who the hell do people think we would be trading with?
Honestly, the reportage standards in Australia are third world, with some rare exceptions because none of you know the work of any parliament.
Rudd is on the nose because of a vicious hate campaign launched by Chris Mitchell when Rudd wouldn’t let him get his own right wing way in the OZ.
That’s the nub of it and if I was Rudd with some of the drivel published I would scream at the lot of you in anger and frustration.
It is actually to his credit that he has not.
I note the OZ are still running the stupid line that a 10 x 4 metre tuck shop is 10 times bigger than an 8 x 3 metre tuck box and they do it with a straight face.
Look though at the schools site and the halls and others buildings are actually very beautiful where they are completed and the schools who have them are indeed very grateful.
This is totally over the top and smacks of the hysteria Keane rightly accuses the mining companies of stoking. There are so many ‘structural’ elements that favour the government in the run-up to the election that they rightly remain odds-on favourites to win. Much of the recent slump has been ‘protest polling’ (ie analogous to protest voting in by-elections), it does not mean that people are wishing to elect Abbott to power.
Some of the more ‘structural’ elements that favour Labor include - a coherent policy position, having revenue and spending ‘cards’ on the table, the advantages of incumbency (including the ability to shape the debate - eg on health), superior personnel etc etc.
The Essential Report released within the last hour now has Labor ahead 52-48 and it is very possible that this presages at least the partial restoration of the government’s previously strong polling lead.
Marilyn your rants are becoming more delusional by the day. Everything alright dear?
Rudd is in real trouble because people are starting to no-longer listen to him.
He is in trouble for the next election when enough swinging voters in margin seats stop listening. (What is the polling of this small minority of voters saying??)
But I think (hope) that Rudd is also in trouble because voters who support progressive actions have started to realize that Rudd stands for nothing and that all his revolutions have just been spin.
The spin that Labor is somehow progressive or left is starting to wobble as actions speak louder than words.
When Howard said “This war is right” I believed that the thought this, but strongly disagreed with him. Howard had some integrity.
When Rudd says “This government is still passionate about taking action on climate change” I do not believe that he thinks this. He does believe that he needs to fool the public into thinking that he cares, but that is all.
I loath and detest both Howard and Rudd, but at least Howard had some integrity.
Football teams call it ‘running out the clock’ - and it’s boring as hell to watch. I’d predict the rest of the year will be, politically, as interesting as this.
BK said: “Like Hawke, Kevin Rudd used to have electoral appeal and an iron grip on how to communicate with voters. That has now vanished. “
IMO, Rudd has never had an iron grip on how to communicate with others and your comparison with Hawke strikes me as invalid.
Hawke cut his teeth delivering blood-and-guts speeches to union audiences, punching the air and snarling as appropriate, and he was the centre of attention at the bar afterwards leading umpteen choruses of The Internationale at 3am. Hawke was a bloke’s bloke. When he gave up drinking he turned into a preacher — some may say he was channeling his father in that regard however, as Richard Carleton famously discovered, there was still plenty of venom and spleen in the guy when provoked.
Rudd, on the other hand, is a self-confessed nerd. He has always sounded like a preacher to me, more so when speaking extemporaneously than delivering a set speech, but nonetheless often lacking the passion that comes from speaking from the heart. At times I think he is simply enjoying the mere sound of his own voice making what he considers a nice intellectual point, without regard to the ‘cut through’ effect or not of what he is saying. Whenever he tries to be passionate it comes over as false.
As for the last election, it bears repeating that in Oz governments are voted out rather than oppositions being voted in. Howard was on the nose. Nobody was listening to him. The legendary drover’s dog could have run against him and won. Heck, even Latham could have beaten Howard had he not self-destructed. In fact, anybody ‘non-Howard’ was up for a stint as PM.
I consider the next election Rudd’s first chance to win on his own merits — if any.
If the electorate at large thinks Rudd now stinks, Abbott will win by default. Simple as that … and what a god-awful thought that is, too.
If we are talking about the election, then it does not matter what most of us think.
Firstly, at an election where the government changes, the vast majority of the electorate voted for the same party as they did at the last election.
Secondly, in most electorates, a voter changing their vote does not result in the seat changing hands.
So, election wise, all that matters is the swinging voter in the marginal electorate. My guess is that most of these are working families
Yes, if Swan can turn the tide then Kev may feel emboldened to take his head out of his ass.
^ Yes, yes, but I’m not talking about a landslide here. By ‘at large’ I mean a sufficient number of voters to effect a change of government — wherever they be. Call them working families if you want. Rudd sure does.
David Sanderson’s right about the protest polling. As we saw with John Howard, the swinging voters who decide our elections will choose banal (or in Howard’s case actually evil) competence over whatever it is you’d call Abbott’s bizarre hot/cold incompetence.
More interesting to me is who’ll be leader after Abbott. It’s hard not to rate Turnbull as the best Liberal performer in parliament, but he’s just not backward enough to be respected by the party.
Swan still strikes me as deer caught in the headlights. I don’t know — perhaps it’s the lenses in his glasses. Nonetheless, he couldn’t frighten anybody if he tried. I see him as Rudd’s mate from QLD and nothing more.
Lefty ‘Progressives’ squishies such as Michael Wilbur-Ham at least have some insight to the fact that this is the worst PM in modern Australian history
Lefty ‘Progressives’ of the poison dart variety (David Sanderson) believe everything “presages at least the partial restoration of the government’s previously strong polling lead”.
Apparently Keane (now apparently an ex-KevvieLuvvie) believes Rudd hasn’t already “stuffed up”!
Flagrantly pissing $42 billion dollars pre-interest taxes yet to be collected down the drain on a Labor pork-barreling stimulus package which enriches Labor-mates / hack consultants and pretty well nobody else on projects that do nothing to prepare us for the future and which are done badly for thrice the market rate and that kill the odd punter doesn’t really cut it in Keane-“stuff-up”-land.
Neither apparently does $43 billion of pre-interest taxes yet to be collected on a FTTH broadband infrastructure project with no business plan but $25 million pre-interest taxes yet to be collected post hoc payment for a u-beaut Labor government KPMG pat.
Presumably insulting international partners like Israel, India, China, Japan, Singapore and Indonesia is just dandy with Keane as well?
Hey if he insults Obama next month at least he’ll have the majority of Americans onside…….
On the other hand for loony radical and rabid secularists there is Abbott’s faith……
Does that constitute a ‘stuff-up’ as well Bernard if only for the conservative side of politics?
I still can’t believe that Turnbull allowed himself to be swayed into staying in politics. Granted, he’s a narcissist and his ego was nicely stroked by all the”please don’t go” pleas, but he is no politician and proved it many times over. He is certainly not a party leader.
I believe that if the Liberal machine could find an alternative electable candidate in Wentworth then they would, and Malcolm would be a distant memory.
Socratease, Rudd and Swan didn’t even like each other until a few years ago. The problem Rudd has is that he has worked outside of this country and sees the rest of the world in light of us, not us in light of the rest of the world.
Not one other PM has ever worked in jobs outside of Australia although some have been educated outside of Australia.
WE don’t actually matter too much in the scheme of things except as pawns for the big powers and little powers like Israel to use and abuse.
Talk about over inflated senses of importance. Maybe after working in China Rudd understands what a tiny, pretty much useless little place this is.
And there is nothing delusional about me, it is Natasha Bita and the Australian who are delusional.
I have never, ever seen such a vicious attack on anyone in politics as I have seen against Rudd by the likes of the Murdoch hacks.
They still laud Howard over attacking Iraq for no reason while they whine on and on about bloody school tuck shops.
Do not get the impression I am in love with the ALP - if there is ALP, Liberal and a drovers dog on any voting ticket the dog has had my vote since 1983.
Given that there was an alternative, how could the government be so incompetent as to launch a tax they couldn’t sell and which immediately had demonstrably deleterious effects on overseas investment in Australia and, largely as a result, our exchange rate (if you are inclined to believe the government’s denials look at the comparison of the Canadian and Australian stockmarket movements and consider how closely the exchange rate is now linked to the stockmarket)?
The alternative was to adopt the precedent of the off-shore oil resource rent tax. Instead they have allowed themselves to be snared by Ken Henry’s cleverness combined with real world ineptitude because they don’t really know what they are doing. And also because they have no feeling for the principle that you don’t sell something and then, just because you can, and because it serves your self-interest in getting people who rely on you to behave with propriety and principle to vote for you, change the agreed price.
One of the things that annoys me about The Greens is that their electioneering is far too much aimed at people who already vote Green. What they should do is the minimum needed to keep already Greens voters happy, and then look to see where the new votes might come from, and what to say to convince these potential voters to vote Green.
Rudd’s health revolution was a classic of creating a spin strategy aimed at the swinging voters .
Last election campaign it was “I have a solution to our hospital crises.” Almost three years later, with nothing much done, he needs a health revolution.
How many Crikey readers know the details of what he first proposed? You can be pretty certain that most swinging voters had no idea.
Rudd’s plan was simply to have endless media grabs of him in hospitals talking up his revolution, what ever that was. Do this for long enough, and the expectation is that the swinging voters will think that Rudd has done something.
I’m sure that Labor have done the demographics of these swinging voters in margin seats, and that working families dominate, and thus this is why he even said thing like “We need to fix our hospitals for working families.”
Rudd only had to fool the swinging voters, and he has probably succeeded.
I’m sure that a part of Rudd’s mining tax strategy is to use this debate to divert media coverage away from other issues. This strategy is working!
What might not be working so well his how the swinging voters in margin seats are thinking. What Rudd might have thought would be an easy win is starting to look much more difficult.
Shepherdmarilyn, it’s all very well for Rudd or anybody else with eyes on the Prime Ministership to consider themselves a person of the world, but that doesn’t cut it with the great unwashed at the polling booth. It’s the problems and issues at home that is the PM’s first responsibility.
International statesmanship is fine, as long as you’re ahead of the game at home and Rudd is hardly in that position. Keating tried the ‘big picture’ thing with Asia, made some off the record disparaging comments about Australia’s position in the world and quickly began to fall out of favour with his flock.
Talking to friends on the weekend — who were heartily sick of Howard — they are now asking ‘who is Kevin Rudd’?
If I were Rudd’s chief minder at the moment, I’d be advising him to start selling himself, and quick.
Rudd’s problem is that he has already oversold himself. How many things have been “top priority”? How many “revolutions”? And who can believe any promises for future action when so little as been achieved so far?
Rudd’s best chance would be if he could come up with some wedge politics that not only splits the Coalition, but their voters. But Rudd is so far to the right that I can’t even think of an example that he could use.
So, as Bernard says, the best he can do might be to try to stuff up least.
Fair amount of windbagging going on here and a couple of the usual culprits are at it again.
JBG and MWH two blogging stalkers obviously dont work and dont have a life away from their PC’s, sad really, but then its typical, getting their kicks via the keyboard.
Well for christ’s sake little whining morons, do better.
We live in the world, we do not live in some little bubble no matter how ignorant you are.
As for the revolutions Michael, why don’t you look at the pictures of new school buildings on the website and look at the details of money allocated and spent instead of relying on the idiotic media.
Really and truly, it is time to grow up.
The world’s economies collapsed, it is not like Rudd said he would do things and then didn’t deliver. Everything has been delivered as far as it was possible to do so with less money and even though I don’t like his hypocrisy credit has to be given where it is due.
bubble people in a stupid little bubble country.
SHEPHERDMARILYN,
The best way to show that Rudd (and Howard and Abbott) are right wing is to compare us to the rest of the OECD.
I’ve done so in other posts, and in every case we don’t come out well (to a progressive).
Why is Australia in this mess?
Because most of those who don’t support the Coalition are locked into Labor!
It is the Labor supporters who are locked in a stupid bubble. If they started comparing Rudd with other OECD countries their bubble would burst (which, I think, would be a good thing).
The reasons I posted last week showing that Rudd never believed in climate change were ignored by the Labor supporters (except for one person who said that nothing could be done because the pubic had swung away from supporting action - to which I say this happened under Rudd’s watch, and this was not the case at the start of his term when he could have done lots of things, and this still does not excuse his complete lack of action now).
To David - my current job is writing at home. But last week and today I have not done very much of my own work.
Swan in parliament has just finished presenting the case for the RSPT. Any fair-minded listener would have to consider it to be very well-reasoned and morally sound. You would have to damn the Australian electorate as mugs if you think the mining company liars, and their shills in the Coalition and the media, are going to win this argument.
The government has not sold it well thus far but Swan’s performance has convinced me that this is an argument that the government will win. The hysteria will die away and as the fog clears we will have a tax/expenditure mix that is clearly seen to have solid benefits for the Australian community. In contrast, the Coalition will be exposed as shallow opportunists who are slippery with the truth and the lapdogs of big mining companies.
I would be interested in hearing from someone who supports the miners contributing more back, but is still prepared to critique the tax.
Questions I’m interested in are:
Why not make this of environmental benefit as well and get more money from them by reducing or eliminating fuel subsidies?
If the tax is meant to replace royalties, isn’t this also very much about a federal takeover (as was hospitals)?
What possible justification is there for part of the package being a big subsidy for mines which loose money (or whatever this part of the proposal is)?
The royalties are now clearly too small, but surely if the people own what is in the ground, isn’t a royalty which matches market prices the right way to compensate the people?
And how can anyone compare a royalty to a tax? A store needs to buy its stock, a mining company needs to buy its product.
The two party dominance is very effective in keeping those who support the tax unaware of what, from a progressive viewpoint, might be wrong with it. So it would be great to be enlightened.
@DAVIDS …… I share your view completely David, the mining bosses have pulled out the big stick and told Abbott to jump, and jump he surely has. He doesn’t have the gumption to stand up to them (even if he wanted to) and just imagine Hockey when confronted by them,,”yes sir, no sir, whatever you say sir”. He is all talk, chest puffed out, but in reality a big soft bear, who would rather be a house father.
Swan has improved out of sight since Nov 2007 and he is leading the battle against the mining bosses which does him credit and hopefully the majority of the country will see it before the election.
As for the Coalition being slippery with the truth, it has come straight out of Abbotts not so Christian mouth. No doubt he has already visited the Pell confessional, kissed the bishops ring, (no not Julia) and all has been forgiven until the next wopper.
Wonder if Mr Rudd’s advisers can convince him to stop his annoying phrases, like…well let me say this….you know something…and that irratating habit of ending a reply to a question with a question of his own to himself.
If the object of taxation is to pluck the goose (in this case “Golden”), with as little hissing as possible, then the government has probably not gone about this well, but may yet succeed in convincing the voters that it’s ‘us against them’. Sympathy for global mining companies won’t be running deep, not if the benefits of some leveling of the playing field is seen to be happening with the leveling of the iron ore mountains. (Just a reminder that three companies control something like 80% of the world’s iron ore market: BHP, Rio and the Brazilian mob. They’ve got ‘pricing power’ like no one else, and they can well afford to pay a bit more of their profits to us.)
But can Rudd et al, sell the idea to the punters? Ironically, the more the big miners protest the more the public will most likely get turned off their self-serving agenda, and that should make the government’s job easier.
Yup, we need Rudd to impose himself on the electorate the way Keating imposed himself on the electorate in the 1996 election. Did a fantastic job.
Really, Bernard, you can do better than this.
Gee…… believe David Sanderson, Wayne ‘cash in a brown paper bag please’ Swann VerdantRedLefty ‘getting elected is for the plebs’ Henry and convert Australia to easily the highest taxing resources sector in the world or listen to commonsense national and international business leaders?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704342604575221552182071826.html
Thanks to the incompetent introduction of the resource tax into the discussion my super savings have list 6 percent in the last week alone. How much have yours fallen? Thanks, Rudd and Swan.
Oops, should be ‘lost 6 percent”…
Jamesk on the turps again…beating his gums…must be a cheap brew Jimmy, gets you going though, hopefully your kidneys will start to feel the ‘strain’ .
Utter rubbish Rainer, the bloody tax doesn’t exist you goose.
I see David has nothing of substance to say yet again.
No argument made.
No evidence supplied.
Nothing new. Nada.
Its this profound absence that testifies to an airhead in full voice
Rainer may like to consider that:
1. the tax has not yet been legislated
2. his 6% super loss has been caused by the skittish market. The mining executives (and the Coalition) are the cause of investors’ angst with their rash predictions of doom and disaster. Shooting themselves in the foot is the expression which springs to mind: they show themselves to be increasingly imprudent the louder they protest.
Rainer seems to be in need of much advice and I will add a little more. The ASX went up 2% today with mining stocks leading the way. If Rainer wishes to remain consistent then he will have to attribute the rise to the planned implementation of the RSPT.
But, then again, perhaps consistency, or logic, is not Rainer’s forte.
Noddy does shares. (especially written for ShepherdMarilyn)
If people think shares will go up, they buy them.
If people think shares will go down, they sell them.
When more people think shares will go down than shares will go up, the price falls until buyers return to the market.
The sharemarket always looks to future events, therefore the RSPT could easily impact share values today.
So, David Hand, if the “RSPT could easily impact share values today”, then perhaps the 2% rise today could be due to the RSPT, or at least a belated realisation that the RSPT doesn’t represent the financial Armageddon that the sleazy fear merchants would have us believe.
The sharemarket is a discounting mechanism. The RSPT was priced in from the day after it was announced. The rest of what’s happened in the equity market in the past three weeks has been about rising risk aversion due to Europe’s sovereign debt crisis and doubts about the longevity of the global recovery.
Insofar as the RSPT is currently affecting market prices, it is almost wholly due to the scare campaign being run by the mining industry itself and its paid spruikers in the federal opposition. Markets don’t like uncertainty. And I can guarantee you as soon as a deal is done, prices will spike.
As for the supposed link to the latest demise of the $A, P-L-E-A-S-E. The local currency, just like it did in 2008, has copped a pasting because of its reputation as the canary in the coal mine of global risk sentiment. Carry trades (borrowing in near zero interest rates in the US and Japan and investing in “high yielding” currencies) are being unwound as hedge funds cover short positions.
That’s all there is to this. The RSPT is a sideshow. The talk about its effect on superannuation is even more silly. Super is a 15-20-30-year investment. Anyone with any sense is in a diversified fund with domestic and offshore exposure, plus fixed interest, plus cash and property.
What IS it about Australian politics these days that encourages the media to talk absolute bullshit about economics?? I mean, really.
David Sanderson is quite correct. The reasons why shares go up or down are highly subjective and mostly guesswork. My point though is that the RSPT does not need to actually be in force for it to have an effect. Or have no effect. But one issue that can’t be avoided is that if investors come to the view that the RSPT will have a negative impact on BHP earnings and dividends, they will discount them. My (virtually worthless)view is that markets have yet to react to the RSPT because there is a strong likelihood that it may be significantly modified or even never introduced.
But those in the community who believe that Rudd’s “fair share for Australians” at the expense of Australian shareholders and super funds will not depress BHP, Rio et al, share values and willingness by those companies to invest in Australia are delusional.
Any government that thinks it can share the cake differently by introducing policies that reduce the cake’s size can’t last long.
“Any government that thinks it can share the cake differently by introducing policies that reduce the cake’s size can’t last long.”
Worth considering that the OECD average for tax as a proportion of GDP is 36%, and Australia is only about 30.5%.
So if the Australian Government increased taxation by say 4% then we would still be below the OECD average.
Bernard wrote:
Since when have this Opposition had any trouble getting their messages out there? The media (especially their ABC) are constantly running with Opposition messages. What is the most commonly-used phrase in ABC Radio news bulletins:
It is actually the Government that is not being heard above the din the Liberal bullies are making.
But, of course, David, there is no solid evidence that the tax will “reduce the cake’s size”. Treasury modelling predicts that the mining “cake” will be enlarged by the way the RSPT is designed.
As you say, your view is “virtually worthless” and, when your view is compared to the Treasury view, I must wholeheartedly agree with you.
I don’t think those who have been discussing the effect of the announcement of the RSPT on the stock market are all very familiar with its workings. True, part of the probable reduction in value (by discounting future after tax profits as estimated to be reduced by the tax) will have been realised on the first trading day after the announcement. But reappraisals are constant so it would be very surprising if none of the subsequent movements in the indexes were contributed to by further assessments of the effect of the RSPT - including, be it noted, assessments of what others were doing and likely to do.
Anyone reading the research and newsletter material of major brokers would be aware of how heavily hit the Australian stockmarket was by selling from offshore (or for foreign investors) who often added derogatory comment about the Australian government and investment environment. There was a compounding effect as the decline in the $AUS made selling Australian assets while they were still in the black more urgent and that in turn drove the $AUS further down. Uncertainties about China and the Eurozone undoubtedly exacerbated the declines and increased the rush to safety [hard though it is to believe there is nothing better] such as US Treasuries, but Australian managed to stand out because of its own feat of shooting itself in the foot; cp. Canada as previously noted.
The peculiar thing about your views Julius is the implication that the direction of the stock market is the only matter of any significance. The widening of the revenue base is an important objective in itself and, as the Treasury has argued, likely to result in higher economic growth, especially as the tax-paying load is then more equitably shared.
I don’t claim your supposed expertise in the stockmarket but it is hard to avoid the conclusion that a more strongly growing economy is likely to increase average share values.
Well, David, if Treasury has expressed a view about whether our not the RSPT has had an impact on share prices, I’d be surprised but you can give their view more weight than my (virtually wortheless) view, or not. As I said, I think it has had no impact.
If you are a believer that Treasury has got the RSPT right, well that’s brave but some of us have our doubts. I predict the tax will change significantly if it ever gets up, probably an increase in the threshold of a super profit, which is clearly wrong, and a rethink on the taxpayer underwriting losses, which is positively dangerous.
@ David Sanderson
I believe I have only mentioned the effects (direct and indirect) of the RSPT on the stock market in two contexts. One is the errors or inadequacies in some other comments on the effect and the other is the falsity of Rudd’s and Swan’s expressed views about the effects of the announcement of the RSPT on the stock market and on the exchange rate.
I know enough Treasury and former Treasury people not to put much faith in Treasury forecasts or modeling. It is certainly possible to conceive of circumstances in which the RSPT’s longer term effects might add to future GDP sufficiently, and sufficiently soon, so that the net present value of the increase (relative to no RSPT) would be significantly positive to make it look like a good tax to impose now - if one were sufficiently certain about the necessary circumstances coming about. Of course those who advocate zero or near zero discount rates for benefits to future generations (valuing their welfare as highly as our own) will, like those who wish to close down all coal burning now, find it easier to advocate immediate action - in this case the RSPT if they think it is really likely to produce gains in non-mining industries which will outweigh the diminution in the income from mining.
@Jamesk…yo jimmy I got your usual liquid response…I really enjoy getting into your nerve ends old soak
a) you are such a self opinionated know all wanker
b) you try to be such a big tool, successfully
c) it makes my day to get your responses , penis features
As for not responding to the c — p you write, wanks as yourself really don’t require any more than anything similar to the fertiliser you write
Keep tilting the bottle ding dong, it encourages hopefully, the inevitable .
David, you should read more carefully, the view about where the stock market might go is clearly mine not the Treasury’s.
You compliment me on my “bravery” in believing that Treasury is likely to have the best evidence and expertise but it is you who deserves that compliment as you are bravely willing to place your trust in those who have less expertise than Treasury or in mercenaries who are pushing a rent-seeking barrow protecting a sectional interest.
@Julius…excuse me sir, just wondered if you are a social partner of old liquid intake jimmyk..you both have similar type entries.
@ David
I have no idea who JamesK is. I doubt that we know each other. “Similar type entries”? By what criterion do you judge similarity I wonder. Not style presumably.
I agree with you Julius. Comparing you to the unhinged Jamesk is a stupid slur.
@Mr Sanderson…my comparison with Julius and the said JimmyK was only due to the style of Julius to go on and on and on. Brevity is the joy of the blogging fraternity and I declare no one could possibly be as boring as jimmyk or as rude. If, any way, my inference was taken as a slur on the gentleman Julius, be assured he is as the driven snow, plus he/she/whatever, would never sink to the level of stupidity and sheer obnoxious rudeness of kidney soaked, jimmyk…eventually one of his organs will give up the ghost, woops he is a member of the father, son and holy thingie, anyway he amuses the shareholders of breweries, he is to be allowed to continue sampling his liquor advisory officers recommendations utntil …..see ya, bye bye Jimmy
woops …where is he?????????
Jamesk , david is right , get off the turps and stop reading the Un-australian and repeating it here. What are you going to do when the Fiberals are in ” other parties” and the Greens are the NEW opposition party? Howard really did kill the Fiberal party, just like Hitler did to his party, when he knew the war was lost. Remember HoWARd killed millions in the illegal war in Iraq. If you are unhappy ,drinking and blogging are not a good idea.
Rudd certainly won’t go down as a great PM in the same light as Menzies, Hawke, Howard et al and Swan would go close to the most boring and uninnovative treasurer we have ever had. In saying that, Abbott and Hockey have about as much hope of being elected as Australia does of winning the World Cup.
“whoever stuffs up least will win election…..” I would back the Rudd ticket rather than the Abbott ticket, it is only a matter of time before the Coalition ship sinks on the back of an Abbott gaffe!
What, we have the two worst leaders because the media tell us so? We’ve entered a phase of instant negativity. Through things like Shitter, sorry Twitter, and comments sections any idea can voice an opinion. I much preferred the internet 15 years ago before all the idiots got on board. At least having a flame war on usenet people were mostly intelligent.
Rudd is a product of our times. We want politicians to listen to us but when they do, through polling, we deride them as weak and poll driven. The media love strong and outspoken leaders like Keating and Latham but the public doesn’t. The 1996 and 2004 election losses for the ALP were two of the worst in history. The problem here is that those in the media and their opinion represent the public even less than the politicians.
The public get the politicians we deserve. Russ is poll driven yet when he tries to introduce major reforms like the ETS and mining tax he is smashed by the media. When the ALP try to get their policies through the senate they are blocked (by a senate that still reflects the 2004 Latham disaster) by the Opposition then derided by them, and their News Ltd and talk back cronies, as a “do nothing” government.
We’re getting as bad as the USA in intellectual stagnation and hypocritical and ignorant political comment.
Leave it to Count Swan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idLG6jh23yE&feature=player_embedded he likes to count things ha ha ha ha
woops wrong link.. haha http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMhNpYhFtmc&feature=watch_response
socrates
While I agree that in general Governments are voted out rather than in, your valid point about Latham runs counter to your conclusion. The Australian people are fundamentally risk averse, so even if they are over Rudd unless Abbott can re invent himself into someone who isn’t seen as risky his chances of winning the election are slim. There has to be a viable alternative and the current coalition isn’t it.
Mr Denmore
Indeed.
BK.
I cant believe that this is the Kevin Rudd of 07 we are talking about here, “the least incompetent wins”??? This is the guy who ran a flawless positive campaign against Howard and was the most popular PM in modern history. Now the only chance he has to win a second term is to stuff up the least? For shame Kevin, for shame.
When was the last time the winning party DIDN’T win by default? Anyone know?
Could it be that we are in a double default situation? Perhaps, at the polling booths we could have specially printed voting cards with a line drawn across them. Anyone who is actually in favour of a Political Party getting in could mark above this line and people marking below the line could register the negative vote.
Have we ever before been faced with such an appalling choice before this? I mean, it’s a bloody farce. How dare they treat Oz in this manner?
@Rainer:
You shouldn’t worry about short-term fluctuations for Super. If you look long-term, even ‘major’ fluctuations like 1987, dotcom crash, sub-prime crash have all recovered and exceeded the drops.
@SHEPHERDMARILYN Posted Monday, 24 May 2010 at 6:44 pm:
If you would have read what i have written your comment is completely out of place and the name calling doesn’t help.
@MESKI Posted Wednesday, 26 May 2010 at 1:54 pm:
I can’t look at it long term, because there are only 2 years until my pension left for me and to loose everything accumulated since 13.12.2009 does hurt in my circumstances.
@OTHERS: The stock market has gone up and down in the last few days, but the trend is down which has been started with the announcement of the Super Tax, which is now not a planned tax on the mining companies, but already a tax on our Super Accumulation Accounts.
@ Meski
Apart from Rainer’s understandable interest in ths short term the problem with your argument is that current investors in mining stocks who are selling (and those just selling out of Australian stocks) may be right in their view that the super profits tax will reduces the value of their shareholdings in the long term which is the reason why they are taking a present loss (or at least selling for prices less than they could have got a month ago.
The calculation would be the perfectly rational one that an increase in tax is going to mean lower returns by way of dividends in future so that the capital asset which generates those dividends is worth less.
There is no rational basis for saying that the loss caused by a reduction in future cash flow will be recovered as if the cause of the immediate loss was just some temporary psychological panic by invetors.
The only discount that can be rationally applied to the calculating investors’ assessment of the diminution in value (i.e. loss) caused by the *announcement* of the new tax is that it has to be treated as a probable rather than certain negative occurrence. Fr0m that it follows that, if the average investor has been allowing a 50 per cent chance of the new tax being imposed as announced, then there will be more losses to come if it actually becomes law.
Bernard Keane
b> “The party that stuffs up the least between now and the election will win it. Not since 1990 has there a pending clash of two less competent leaders”! Not when it comes to the silver-tongued lies emission by the incumbent virtuoso, so …”If we really want to make things better I suggest we introduce a law that makes it an offence for politicians to lie” [Julian Burnside QC].