Same-same.
On the ABC on Thursday arvo, you get Pat McNamara (Nats) and Brendan Jenkins (ALP) discussing politics, and both seem far more in touch, even now years after theyâve retired, than current pollies.
Nice try guys but I donât think anyoneâs buying it
Scott Morrison and Christian Porter gave a press conference today to announce their response to the Ruddock review into religious freedom and the formation of a National Integrity Commission.
In explaining the need for religious freedom legislation and a Religious Freedom Commissioner at the AHRC, Scott started out by telling us what a religious country Australia is as 70% of people nominated a religion in the 2016 census. Itâs part of who we are.
And how the percentage of migrants identifying a religion was much higher. Multiculturalism.
And blessed be the atheist who must be equally protected from discrimination.
When pressed to give examples of religious discrimination today, Scott floundered until Christian helpfully stepped in recounting how a person who had expressed opposition to marriage equality on Facebook got sacked and had to sue for unfair dismissal. Which was kind of ironic as he was announcing the governmentâs support for religious schools to sack teachers if they express support for marriage equality.
Scott then remembered that someone had been blocked from entering a meeting somewhere because of their religionâŚthen remembered they want to enshrine the right of religious groups to stop people from entering their premises so kind of mumbled something about exemptions.
After the thousands of submissions and wide consultation that led to the Ruddock review recommendations, they will now flick pass the five substantive ones to the Law Council to review the review for long enough to make it another governmentâs problem.
This wasnât going quite as well as theyâd hoped so they proudly announced their Christmas present to the Australian public â a National Integrity CommissionâŚ.well two of them actually, but they wonât hold hearings or publish conclusions. They will just investigate stuff and then pass it on to the DPP.
âWhat kind of stuff?â a reporter asked. âDo you mean like Michaelia Cashâs office tipping off the media about a police raid?â
âNo, no⌠This will just be for aggravated criminal offences.â
âBut that is a criminal offence.â
âYesâŚerrrâŚummmâŚIf criminal behaviour was shown to be ongoingâŚ.ummmâŚif it was sayâŚ.ummm benefitting from giving out contracts for exampleâŚ.erâŚ.if it was aggravated behaviourâŚ.â
HELP ME.
PM to the rescue to tell us how bad the NSW ICAC was and that this will not be a political witch hunt like the NSW ICAC where good menâs lives were destroyed. People were labelled as criminals but many of the findings were overturned by the courts.
GeeâŚ.I seem to remember Dyson Hayden saying some pretty damning things very publicly about the thugs and criminals in the union movement which fizzled off into nothingness. Not to mention Peter Slipper.
If they said it once, they said it a hundred times â this wasnât anything to do with Labor who just have a press release. This was a body of work that began last January and that had been methodically discussed and worked through with the Cabinet.
Except, it was less than a month ago â November 19th to be exact â that Christopher Pyne said on Sky NewsâŚ.
âLook, we have a number of different bodies which are already over-sighting federal politicians. The new Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority, of course the Australian federal police, which has its own particular division which deals with fraud and so on in public office. Itâs the easiest thing to do is call for another organisation costing money, giving it extra powers. I donât think thatâs necessary at the national level and itâs just another way of Bill Shorten trying to distract people from the real issues that matter around jobs, the economy, national security, border protection.â
Nice try guys but I donât think anyoneâs buying it. The U-turn left skid marks.
2 Likes
Please, keep goingâŚ
The only people whoâll get busted are the whistle-blowers who actually report corruption.
6 Likes
100%
Business as usual:
"722 of the largest corporations paid no corporate tax in Australia in 2016-17, including 100 firms that reported more than $1bn in total income.
At least eight of Australiaâs largest companies paid more money in donations to the Liberal and National parties in 2016-17 than they paid in corporate tax that year.
Chevron paid $82,228 in political donations in 2016-17, Origin Energy $103,574, Woodside Petroleum $279,000, Whitehaven Coal $30,000, and Santos $102,516, but none of them paid corporate tax that year."
5 Likes
Watching TV last night and add for the news was played.
Lead story - Pell
Second up - government wants to introduce relegious freedom laws.
Perfect timing.
6 Likes
You made me click - gahhh
It would be nice if the reporters could understand the the concepts of revenue vs taxable income and tax adjustments, you know before you espouse to be an expert journalist on the subject at hand. No wonder they are begging for donations to keep the lights on.
Quick look at the financials for the worst offender Qantas on the list (I just downloaded, available to the public)
There are tax reconciliation adjustments + using up some carry forward tax losses. So whatâs the beef from the author? We should redo a tax system where companies pay tax when they make a profit, but tough luck if you have a down year?
FYI
Looks like Qantas will pay tax in FY19 - as they have run out of carry forward losses and the business growing and well managed (remember this company was on is knees not that long ago)
Gahhh you made me click @Albert_Thurgood
3 Likes
I assume none of these companies paid executive bonuses, if they had such a âdown yearâ?
1 Like
The fact that current sitting ministers are excluded from review should tell you with absolute certainty that they are as corrupt as â â â â .
Sorry @Bacchusfox, but you were wrong, they are as dirty as they are scummy
4 Likes
So if Iâm out of work for a year (decreased revenue, net loss) I can reduce my tax (maybe to zero) next year when Iâm again working?
No?
Hmm.
4 Likes
And how did the Qantas planes go, were they on time?
Both totally irrelevant to the taxable income/loss of a company
Huh? You have zero income, you canât have a loss on your personal income
But letâs say you balls up some shares and sell and a loss, sure you can carry forward that capital loss to offset against in the future
At the very least, every dollar they donate to political parties should be matched, dollar for dollar, by a donation to the Australian people, some may even call it a tax
1 Like
Companies arenât taxed on revenue, theyâre taxed on profit.
Individuals are taxed on revenue. In that year Iâm out of work my expenses give me a net loss, but I canât carry that into future years.
(Capital gains/losses are a different issue, and are more consistently treated.)
2 Likes
Not really true. You can claim against expenditure connected to earn your wage. So itâs net income or profit your getting taxed on. Just most peopleâs work related expenses are small.
What should executive bonuses be linked to, then?
Thatâs an easy one.
My Bank Account.
Yes, ⌠ALL of them!!
2 Likes
This is the Lib proposal of course, ⌠so fair call on THAT side of the joint.