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"I for one welcome our insect overlords" - The Politics Thread

dibo

Well-Known Member
Labor policy damaged children. It's time they owned up to it
Kristina-Keneally-L.png

Kristina Keneally
Until Labor takes responsibility for the harm it has done to asylum seekers it can’t credibly criticise the government for its response to the Forgotten Children report


c86bb323-7325-4c67-a372-b3af10d37617-620x372.jpeg

‘If Labor wants to regain any moral authority on the issue of children in detention specifically, and asylum seekers generally, it should stop sidestepping its own past policy decisions.’ Photograph: Brett Hartwig/AAP
Thursday 26 February 2015 12.03 AEDT

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The Labor party needs to own up and muscle up in response to the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Forgotten Children report. The report brings the human damage done – at least to children – by our immigration detention system into plain view.

Much of the Commission’s report is highly critical of the actions taken by the ALP when in government. If Labor wants to regain any moral authority on the issue of children in detention specifically, and asylum seekers generally, it should stop sidestepping its own past policy decisions. The Labor opposition can and should face up to the disastrous consequences to children of its immigration and detention decisions in government.

Labor should also fully acknowledge that the Abbott government has made improvements, such as releasing some children into the community. Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs says in her report that the Commission “is pleased to recognise (the Abbott government’s) changes as being in the best interests of many asylum seeker children.”

Only once Labor has taken these steps will it possess the credibility to demand that the Abbott government face its own failings: using children locked up in detention as bargaining chips in Senate negotiations and as a cruel human warning system to other asylum seekers, keeping children in detention for longer periods of time, and turning a blind eye to the suffering of children when presented with the Commission’s report.

And then perhaps as a nation we can face the most crucial facts of all uncovered in the report – that of 1,129 asylum seeker children detained by the Australian government there have been:

  • 233 assaults involving children
  • 33 reported sexual assaults
  • 128 incidences of self-harm
  • 34% who require psychiatric support
The flippant and political response by the Abbott government to these findings is appalling. The prime minister and some of his cabinet have behaved as though they don’t care about the wellbeing and safety of children in their custodial care.

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Tony Abbott, Scott Morrison, Peter Dutton and others continue to claim they have saved asylum seeker children’s lives by stopping the boats. Let’s stop kidding ourselves. People are not safer because our government stopped the boats. They are justsuffering and dying somewhere elsewhere they no longer disturb our view.

Asylum seekers take perilous boat journeys with their children because they judge the risk of violence, persecution and death where they are to be greater than the risk of getting on that boat. This is even truer as our country cut the number of refugees we take from the so-called “queue”, leaving more and more people in desperate circumstances. The good news resulting from “stopping the boats” and detaining people offshore isn’t for asylum seekers, it is for us – we don’t have to see or worry about them anymore.

One of the most under-reported aspects of the Forgotten Children report is the response of Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson. His description of the damage detention is doing to asylum seeker children is sobering. He has urged the Abbott government to give the findings proper consideration, saying:

The report is called The Forgotten Children report and the worst thing we could do out of that report is distract even further from those forgotten children and the human consequences and addressing those challenges into the future.

If only attorney general George Brandis would heed Wilson on this in the same way he listened to him on 18c.

There are still asylum seeker children being detained by the Australian government. There are asylum seeker children who have been released by the Australian government, some perhaps for more than a decade, who are still suffering the results of their detention.

Both Labor and the Coalition can make amends now by standing up for children and by taking the Human Rights Commission’s findings on their merits, including the recommendation that there be a royal commission.

A royal commission would lay bare what damage Australia, under governments of both political stripes, has done to asylum seeker children. It would make clear recommendations on how we help those we have hurt and on how to avoid making the same mistakes again.

Those who claim Australia doesn’t need to learn this lesson need to think about how often we have, as a nation, failed the children in our care. The Stolen Generation. The Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse.

It might be next year, it might be in 10 years or in two decades, but in our lifetimes there will be a royal commission into Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers. Our children and grandchildren will wonder how we allowed it all to happen.
 

dibo

Well-Known Member
Scott Morrison may gloat but asylum seekers' boats haven't really stopped
Sunili Govinnage
Two facts emerge as the UNHCR meets in Geneva to look at protection for refugees at sea: more people than ever are fleeing their country by boat, and deterrence doesn’t stop them



‘The UNHCR estimates that around 21,000 people have departed from the Bangladesh-Burmese maritime border in the two months of October and November 2014.’ Photograph: AAP
Thursday 11 December 2014 09.30 AEDTLast modified on Thursday 11 December 201411.50 AEDT

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For all the slogans and military operations, over 54,000 people have boarded boats across the Indian Ocean this year, with around 20,000 in just the two months of October and November. As much as Scott Morrisonmay gloat, the boats haven’t really stopped.

The point you won’t see on any media release or hear at a doorstop press conference is this: even if people haven’t drowned on the way to Australia, they’ve still drowned. Because people fleeing countries in the region are still getting on boats.

There are many inconvenient facts for those who won’t stop talking about stopping the boats. But perhaps the facts are not so bothersome if they aren’t on the nightly news. After all, if an asylum seeker drowns well enough away from Australian territorial waters, will there be a leadership challenge today? And have you seen Julie Bishop’s broach?

For the rest of us, here are some details.

According to the UNHCR report on Irregular Maritime Movements in South-East Asia, over 50,000 people set sail just from the Bay of Bengal area in January-November 2014. The smugglers operating in the region move people who aretrafficked as well as those paying for passage outside of legal migration channels. The latter includes people such as ethnic Rohingya who do not have any nationality (and therefore no official travel documentation) and have a long history of persecution and discrimination by the Burmese government.

The UNHCR estimates that around 21,000 people have departed from the Bangladesh-Burmese maritime border in the two months of October and November 2014. About 10% were women, and around one-third of arrivals interviewed by UNHCR in Thailand and Malaysia were minors. The numbers for October 2014 are a marked increase (37%) from the year before.

And not all the deaths at sea are merely from drowning, according to the report:

“One in every three interviewees said at least one other passenger on their boat died en route; one in every 10 said 10 or more people died on board. Deaths were attributed to severe beatings by the crew, lack of food and water, illness, and heat.”

Globally, around 350,000 people have risked it all by taking a boat this year. On 10-11 December 2014, UNHCR is hosting a meeting looking specifically atprotection at sea. The non-governmental organisations taking part haverecommended, among other things, that to implement effective protection and ensure safety at sea, it is vital to “address ‘route causes’ and ‘root causes’ of forced and dangerous migration”.

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UNHCR notes that these reasons for irregular movement include: conflict and war, protracted refugee situations, statelessness, the absence or inadequacy of protection systems, family separation, poverty and economic inequality.

What is notably absent from all the recommendations to “stop the boats” from these experts is deterrence, which in Morrison’s parlance is also known as “taking the sugar off the table”. This was of course the honourable minister’s reasoning last month for reducing the number of refugees Australia would resettle from Indonesia and banning those who registered with UNHCR in Indonesia after 1 July 2014 from ever getting to Australia.

Sweet though that poison may be (and poisonous is certainly how one can characterise the way Australia treats those who come across the sea), no refugee is paying a people smuggler for any sort of benefit other than getting the hell out of the hell they were in.

At the opening of the UNHCR meeting yesterday, the High Commissioner forRefugees António Guterres said, “You can’t stop a person who is fleeing for their life by deterrence, without escalating the dangers even more”.

So what would work to actually stop people getting on boats? Again, according to the NGO recommendations, practical solutions for preventing irregular migration by sea include:

  • More opportunities for legal migration
  • Cooperative international agreements by states to provide more safe-havens for asylum seekers, e.g., through expanded UNHCR resettlement programmes; and
  • Migration and asylum policies that recognise the benefits of migration and the contributions of migrants and refugees to the development of countries of destination and origin.
It’s ultimately pretty simple and obvious: the key to reducing irregular movement of people by dangerous ways is to increase pathways for properly managed, safe and regulated movement. It involves as Guterres said, “looking at why people are fleeing, what prevents them from seeking asylum by safer means”.

In practice, nobody is going to be able to neatly pack their passport and customs declarations cards in order to flee discrimination or state persecution in a “regular” way. Which is why, in the case of those people, the Refugees Convention set up a system for countries around the world to join forces to help them, and why the UNHCR’s resettlement process allows for countries to accept refugees who cannot return to where they fled. Both of which the Australian government is slowly but surely repudiating.

Opening and expanding legal channels for migration and the movement of asylum seekers and refugees will reduce the use of smugglers and black-market operations. But for various reasons it’s doubtful Australia would be checking off anything on that list of solutions any time soon.

And so the boats will sail on, but just a little further off Morrison’s horizon.
 

nearlyyellow

Well-Known Member
" .. It might be next year, it might be in 10 years or in two decades, but in our lifetimes there will be a royal commission into Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers. Our children and grandchildren will wonder how we allowed it all to happen. "

Yes. ^ ^ ^
I was 3/4 through the article and had already pressed the reply button to post along these lines, and there are my words already written at the foot of the article. For those of us still around then we will be asked by younger generations how did we let this happen? And aren't you ashamed of Australia's treatment of Asylum Seekers? I for one will state right now that I am ashamed of our treatment of Asylum Seekers, over the last 10 years. That old Liberal hard liner of his time, Malcolm Fraser had, and has, a much more humanitarian approach to Asylum Seekers than *most* of the Australian politicians today.

There are many inconvenient facts for those who won’t stop talking about stopping the boats. But perhaps the facts are not so bothersome if they aren’t on the nightly news. After all, if an asylum seeker drowns well enough away from Australian territorial waters, will there be a leadership challenge today? And have you seen Julie Bishop’s broach?
Bloody inconsequential news reporting that was! It's spelled "brooch" in *this* English speaking country, that is, ignoring the stupidly biassed American spell-check. And anyway, wasn't it one of her earrings that she lost in Martin Place or somewhere? Not a brooch?
 

nearlyyellow

Well-Known Member
The much lauded Intergenerational Report. And what does it show? Apart from toeing the LNP Treasurer's line, it's just lies, lies and damn statistics.

Intergenerational Report: implausible spending projections defy belief
March 5, 2015 - 12:13PM
Peter Martin
Economics Editor, The Age

How much worse under Labor? The newly released Intergenerational Report tells us that had Labor's programs been continued, the deficit would have been 6 per cent of GDP larger than under the Coalition's program - and that's just the parts of it that have made it through the Senate.

In truth both sides aren’t as far apart as the report suggests

Had all of the Coalition's measures got through, the deficit would have been 6 per cent smaller again, giving Australia a surplus.

Twelve per cent is an enormous change for one budget to make, one that defies belief.

So how was it brought about? Two big changes already approved by the Senate account for most of first six per cent.

They are the government's decision to stop lifting its spending on hospitals in line with the costs of running those hospitals. Beyond 2017-18, Commonwealth grants to states for hospitals will increase only in line with population and the consumer price index. But the cost of running hospitals is increasing far more quickly. Over the best part of 40 years the saving is enormous, if unrealistic.
It could only be achieved if the states did something like lifting the GST, introducing their own income taxes or started charging for previously free visits to the hospital.

The other big change passed by the Senate is zero real growth in Australia's level of foreign aid. Labor had it climbing to meet the United Nations target and then climbing with gross domestic product from then on. The budget measure passed by the Senate has it climbing by just the consumer price index for the next 40 years.

Neither sounds particularly plausible, but after 40 years of compounding the difference in the bill to the government is huge.

How would the government have been spending even less if all of its budget measures had passed through the Senate?

Pensions, and Gonski.

The Coalition wants to index pensions only to the consumer price index rather than wages until the budget is back in substantial surplus. Labor wants them to continue to climb with male earnings. The Coalition wants to lift the pension age to 70. Labor had only announced an increase to 67.

On the Gonski education reforms, Labor had committed it to an expensive formula which would have supported schools on the basis of need. The Coalition guaranteed that funding only during this term of government. Again, over 40 years the difference is huge.

That's more or less all it takes to eliminate Labor's looming deficit according to the figuring in the intergenerational report. The projections about Labor program aren't particularly plausible; ever continuing increases in foreign aid, a fixed retirement age for the best part of 40 years. But the projections about the Coalition program aren't that plausible either. It'll most likely have to stump up more money for hospitals if it stays in office that long and with more of us aging it'll be under pressure to give a little extra to pensioners.

In truth both sides aren't as far apart as the report suggests. And in truth, we'll probably muddle through.

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-polit...-projections-defy-belief-20150305-13vt44.html
 

nearlyyellow

Well-Known Member
All right dibo, I'll say it.

Vale Malcolm John Fraser, RIP

A man who not only polarised the nation, but also did some pretty damn good things for the nation. In his day he was regarded as a "right winger". But in today's political spectrum he would be ranked to the left of centre, probably considerably to the left of centre. That's not to say he didn't for many years support the "Liberal way", he did. But as he aged he mellowed, and as the LNP moved further towards the right wing political philosophy they have today he did the opposite, to the point where he resigned from the Liberal Party in disgust at their current day philosophies.

Anyway, the mark of a great Australian is the effect they have had on the Australian way of life, and like him or hate him, Malcolm Fraser has left a legacy that has enriched the nation in many ways. Bless you Malcolm. We are are a better nation for your time amongst us.
 

midfielder

Well-Known Member
The last few weeks has been interesting to me and IMO a real danger to both Truthful Tony and Trustworthy Blinky ...

A number of groups are starting to say the decisions by the parliament to in effect not be able to govern-en the country because each is refusing to move on most things and any change is met with trillions of reasons it should not happen.. on Q & A last night the guy from the Fin Review explained it well and was funny to see both the Lib and Lab people on the panel try to blame each other ... this has been going on now since Truthful Tony was the opp leader and Trustworthy Blinky has followed on the same path...

At some point major decisions need to be made ... tax revenue is down and costs are up ... everyone wants to pay less tax, no one wants to give anything up, people want the government to do more, ................ at some point this becomes a mega issue for us all ...

I found the NSW state election interesting with the State Libs running a build new stuff but need to sell some stuff coming in for some incredible claims especially from the Greens ...

To me I hope they can take some of the politics out of key decisions ... maybe we need Malcolm to hold a summit like Hawke did ...
 

midfielder

Well-Known Member
Labor held a summit in 2011. The Liberals boycotted it.

OK the ALP are the good guys and the Libs are the bad guys if that's the message you wanta get out ... me I just want a good government I don't care who it is ...

No matter who is in government the problems will not go away .. falling revenue and increased costs ... you can make matters much worse by being a bad government ...

My very simplistic hope is the two major parties can come together and agree a general direction and to do that needs outside influences something neither side has done well over the last three governments ... we need to increase revenue so increase tax and decrease cost meaning someone is going to get less or none at all... every decision made if the other sides says no reasons can be given ... however to do nothing does become an issue ... then you will see things like Clive, then the Miners Party, the Farm party etc... already the Labour vote is coming under increasing pressure from the inner city greens and the other city burbs having different wants ...

I for one and many folk I speak to are well past the contra positions the ALP and Libs seem to take on most things these days... As for the greens they seem to be in constant protest against everything from what I see ...
 

dibo

Well-Known Member
OK the ALP are the good guys and the Libs are the bad guys if that's the message you wanta get out
That's reading quite a lot of hidden meaning into a one-line statement of fact. Labor had a summit and invited everyone, and they refused to show.
 

midfielder

Well-Known Member
D

All I am saying right now the major parties seem incapable of running the country does not matter who is in power ... Tony A started it there is no denying that ... Blinky Bill is coping the Tony A handbook ... someone must blink and they sit down and work things out because major issues are just not even being discussed in any meaningful way ...thats why I said maybe MT should call a summit as he did support Rudd [cost him his job at the time] it would mean the libs dumping Tony and hopefully he leaves parliament to ease tensions...

Minor parties will spring up everywhere if this continues to the election ..... I think the NSW election showed if you take a middle of the road approach and discuss people will listen
 

dibo

Well-Known Member
D

All I am saying right now the major parties seem incapable of running the country does not matter who is in power ... Tony A started it there is no denying that ... Blinky Bill is coping the Tony A handbook ...

I don't quite agree with that. We're a year and a bit from an election, the Labor budget reply speech in a month's time and the Labor national conference in July will see Labor lay out their plans in a fair bit of detail.

someone must blink and they sit down and work things out because major issues are just not even being discussed in any meaningful way ...thats why I said maybe MT should call a summit as he did support Rudd [cost him his job at the time] it would mean the libs dumping Tony and hopefully he leaves parliament to ease tensions...

Labor will play ball on any tax review - Labor sees the value in getting out in front of the Government on this stuff so they can say that they're leading and the Government's playing catch-up. The one thing Labor won't touch is the GST.

Minor parties will spring up everywhere if this continues to the election ..... I think the NSW election showed if you take a middle of the road approach and discuss people will listen

I don't think they will, at least not across the board. You'll get them in key areas like in SA where Xenophon's making a push and in some other local areas, but when governments change, generally the primary vote of the party taking government goes up at the expense of both the opposition and minor parties.

Even in this pretty uninspiring last state election, Labor's vote was up by about the same as what fell off the Coalition and minor parties. The Greens had more *victories*, but that was just because they condensed their votes into the seats they needed. Their vote is stagnant, but they went from one seat to three. In spite of the profile of their anti-corruption campaign, their anti-CSG campaign and their pro public transport campaign they actually lost a sixth of their upper house vote (11% down to 9.5%) but will hang on to their second seat.

In 2007, Kevin Rudd was talking up the NBN, boosting the aged pension, action on climate change, reform of health policy and hospitals and a new national curriculum. Had there not been a global financial catastrophe in 2008-9 they'd have run a record budget surplus and been on their way to locking in a comfortable re-election that would have presented the chance to bed in a set of once-in-a-generation reforms.

As far as an aspirational program launched from opposition it was pretty good - little wonder they were elected with an air of optimism rather than rancour.

I don't think the Labor opposition owes the current government any courtesy whatsoever. The current government is the author of the present climate, and if it means the environment is not conducive to reform they know who to blame.

I think the Libs have cornered themselves. They will either lock in the unpopularity of the 2014 budget or they'll change tack and beg the question "what the hell have you been doing up to now - if you didn't believe in that stuff then why try it on, and if you didn't believe in what you were doing then, then how do we know you believe in this"? I think they're cooked.

Where to now for Labor? They need to clearly articulate a modern progressive agenda whereby government and public policy are rightly used as a tool to ensure that we look after the environment, we grow the economy and we ensure that everyone has the opportunity to thrive and choose their own paths regardless of their gender, class or postcode.

It's not like this hasn't been what we've been doing already in government, but it's never had the 'bumper sticker simplicity' to make it stick, and Bill's gonna have to do better than his "zingers" so far.
 

nearlyyellow

Well-Known Member
Message to *both* major parties

Get "THEM" to pay a bloody fair share of tax as a consequence of doing business in Australia.

That is all. :soapbox:
 

dibo

Well-Known Member
Why companies that avoid tax should be named and shamed
Date - April 7, 2015 - 1:32PM
Sam Dastyari
1428388339395.jpg

Starbucks began paying tax in Britain after a consumer backlash. Photo: Bloomberg

The idea thatany company would choose to pay more tax than it legally needs to seems extraordinary on the surface. But that is exactly what happened in Britain in 2013, when Starbucks unexpectedly decided to voluntarily pay £20 million ($38 million) in taxes.

From 1998 to 2013, the coffee conglomerate made £3 billion in sales running 735 British stores, yet only once paid tax in Britain. Starbucks' tax structure was complicated, but the principle was simple. Special "royalty fees" were paid to its Dutch operation, making the operation in Britain (where taxes are higher) unprofitable and the business in the Netherlands (where taxes are lower) profitable.

When their tax practices were publicly exposed and discredited, Starbucks faced a consumer revolt.

So what caused Starbucks' sudden change of heart? It wasn't a change in tax law; it was driven by consumer behaviour. When their tax practices were publicly exposed and discredited, Starbucks faced a consumer revolt. Protests and boycotts from customers left Starbucks with little choice; either start paying their fair share of tax or cop a significant sales backlash.

Australia can and should learn from this example. The worst practitioners of profit shifting and tax minimisation should be named and shamed. We know about the practices of tech giants such asGoogle, Apple and Microsoft mostly from international reports. But while tech companies are the masters of tax minimisation, they are just the tip of the iceberg. The Australian Tax Office should be playing a public role in exposing poor behaviour across the board.

The Tax Commissioner, Chris Jordan, has been championing a new approach to enforcement. He has instigated an aggressive stance, put together specialist teams targeting Australia's largest firms and is legally challenging what he has deemed "artificial and contrived" tax structures. All of this while suffering 4700 job cuts across the tax office. But this new-found activism from the ATO is undermined by its refusal to come forward with information on which companies it knows are engaging in aggressive tax minimisation.

On Wednesday the ATO will be coming before the Australian Senate as part of our hearings intocorporate tax avoidance. It will be called upon to the name those companies that are engaged in the worst tax-minimisation practices.

The ATO has revealed more than $60 billion a year is transferred in internal company transfers from Australian operations to international tax havens. If even half of that was otherwise taxable profit, our budget bottom line would be almost $5 billion better a year. That would go a long way, for instance, to funding the proposed Gonski reforms to education that have already been slashed.

But while the ATO is prepared to reveal the amount, it will not name the companies. The ATO often cites privacy concerns when refusing to name companies. That's just rubbish. At Wednesday's hearings, under parliamentary privilege, the ATO is free to identify these companies without any risk of legal retribution. The ATO has the opportunity to come clean on how these businesses have been duping Australian taxpayers. The Australian public is rightly angry.

Recent polling shows more than 80 per cent of Australian families want to see more action on tax-minimisation practices. The complexity of tax law creates a huge grey area where companies are able to engage in behaviour that is technically legal, but morally unethical. To address the scourge of aggressive tax minimisation, a three-pronged approach is needed.

Firstly, the government should be continuing to engage in international efforts to address cross-border challenges. Efforts by the G20, OECD and international bodies are an important part of any attempt to crack down on aggressive tax minimisation.

The companies practising this type of behaviour operate internationally and our laws need to as well.

Treasurer Joe Hockey was right when he said at the G20 that international co-operation is vital for success. Nonetheless, this will be slow and stilted. Don't hold your breath waiting for the world to agree on anything, let alone tax law.

Secondly, we also need to tighten our domestic laws. There is unilateral action the Australian government can and should take.

Labor leader Bill Shorten has already outlined proposals that could raise close to $2 billion over the next four years. Common-sense measures such as tackling debt shifting, closing loopholes and properly resourcing the ATO could be introduced into the Parliament immediately and would pass through the Senate without opposition.

Finally, we need to empower consumers. That is where the ATO has an important role to play in coming forward with more information. The ATO should be on the side of the consumer and the public good, not running a protection racket for aggressive tax-minimisation schemes. Information should be presented to Australian taxpayers on the worst offenders.

If companies are prepared to engage in aggressive tax minimisation, they should be prepared to face the public consequences once consumers are informed.

So, my public call to the Tax Commissioner is this: when you testify on Wednesday, come forward and give the Australian taxpayers the information they want and deserve.

Who knows, perhaps with a little public exposure, a few Australian companies will take Starbucks' lead and pay more of the tax Australia so desperately needs.

Senator Sam Dastyari is chairing the Senate Inquiry into Corporate Tax Avoidance that begins hearings in Sydney on Wednesday.

**********************************

Wanna guess what party old mate Dasher is from?
 

nearlyyellow

Well-Known Member
I'll bet that in most cases the Australian tax liability is avoided, or mitigated, by a mere book entry. The most useless asset on a company's books is "goodwill". I have seen many associated companies in Australia use a merry-go-round of book entries to share the profits around by way of inter company interest charges on creatively created ( ? ) loan accounts, the result being an overall minimisation of the group's tax liability.

That kind of thing can be very disheartening for an effective manager who has boosted his division's sales, minimised expenses etc. only to have a huge sledgehammer hit him on or just before June 30th. Just sayin' :(
 

kevrenor

Well-Known Member

Yes, lots of years, sweat, heartache and tears .. and some great, right-hearted people. It is very complicated .. bit of a Judean People's Front style of thing federally. Still registered (I think the good guys) in NSW, and I voted below the line for a friend in their ticket. AD preferences may yet keep No Land Tax out.
 
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