The case for more tax!
This latest from the ABC story and interview with Swan on the 22nd of Jan. 2010 http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2010/s2798566.htm
Quote; And rather than focusing on tax cuts, Mr Henry is warning that tax revenues will need to grow “strongly” if the Government is to cover the costs of Australia’s ageing population. Unquote.
Good on you Ken Henry. This has to be music to the ears of many of us who have been complaining about the state of our Health, Education, Public Transport and many other social infrastructures that through the years have become crippled by lack of money. There are finally some encouraging signs that will stop the rot in Governments on both sides forever seeking popularity in massaging and nourishing our deep seated hatred for paying tax by promising reduced taxation for the workers each time there are elections.
Of course we all know that we still are one the lowest taxpaying country of all the OECD, indeed Australian Government’s own study indicates our low tax regime and well worth a look at;
http://comparativetaxation.treasury.gov.au/content/report/html/02_Executive_Summary.asp
It is no wonder that we are struggling to keep up with the rest of the world and that rumblings of the dissatisfied are finally coming to be heard. We get what we pay for! It is so true and never before are we so poignantly reminded of our shortcomings than the arguments that have been raging here on the ‘Unleashed’ especially about our shortcoming in Education. There are now all sorts of conjuring tricks being implemented. At the last election,’ Computers for all students’ was shouted from rooftops all over the country. Boy oh boy, have seen acres of video footage of Rudd and Gillard smiling in front of those promised school computer roll-outs. We must have School ratings and Comparisons and publish the Data, shame the lot of them, and the latest from the bag of trickery; Schools to receive public disadvantage rating.
At no stage do we ever hear that good teachers need to have higher qualifications and therefore a considerable increase in wages. You can’t teach kids by a mixture of people that have only just scraped by themselves in education. That there are many good teachers is without question, but I bet you in those countries where education is better, teachers are also better qualified and better paid. In Finland, which continues to be on the top of the Education ladder, a minimum requirement is a Master’s degree.
All this cost money: and where is it coming from?
It is very much the same story with our hospitals, and again, the paddle pop stick taped together ad hoc financially starved system staggers on. People are dying from the lack of the simplest procedures. Waiting times in Casualty wards are staggering, people bleeding to death and stories aplenty of people turned away or shunted to other hospitals. They have become charnel houses and blame for this goes backwards and forwards between States and Federal Government as regularly as a dripping tap. The Government is threatening to take over the hospitals. This is just another voodoo exercise. It is the lack of money, stupid!
As with education, so it is with health. Those that can afford it go for a private option and make those that can’t, somehow feel they have failed. How an egalitarian society ever came to believe and develop a two tiered system in such basics as Health and Education is beyond my understanding, but that is how it is at present. It would have to add to a huge waste and duplication. Not surprising is that those that have succeeded in making the money for private health and education probably enjoyed some very handy tax breaks or even dodges, n’est ce pas?
So, where is the money coming from for first class, world beating health system?
We have done so well though. But, has this doing ‘well ‘been on the back of filling up Bulk Carriers with the scrapings of the top 50 metres or so of our country, especially in the North and West. This has been a nice little earner for Australia, all those minerals and all that red dirt. It’s been so easy too. Huge trucks and trains to ports and then shovel it all onto boats and then wait for the money to roll in. How lovely for the Government, what a win-win. Will this go on forever?
In any case, it has not provided us with best standard public Education, Health, Public transport and it never will. It just puts money into shareholders who in turn will go for the private goodies and live in big ugly houses.
As for pensioners, they will have to feast on that extra $30. – added onto their fortnightly pension. Many will just have to continue living just above the poverty line and make do with the no-frills toilet paper.
Good on ye, Ken Henry,
We need to pay far more tax.
gerard oosterman said:
Yes, Goulburn Hospital is a home away from home. It is not always like that. Some years ago, I had booked in for my routine colonoscopy at Concord Repat. Hospital. I woke up from the anaesthetic feeling as if I was handled somewhat inappropiately. I looked at my watch. No watch, I remember having taken it off. Instead a plastic name tag with Mary Snodgrave.
I was a whisker away from getting an hysterectomy. I waved my arms around and I was subsequently wheeled in the colonoscopy ward and into the calm hands of the expert doctor.
Not only sandwiches afterwards but a lovely lime jelly. You are all somewhat lucky I can still stand in front of you completely ‘entire’.
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Big M said:
I’d hate to see GO without his ‘hyster’!
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H said:
The hospital kitchen staff is good though, Gez loved the HEALTHY white bread sandwiches with the crusts cut off and his favorite Vegemite smeared on them…
All the staff were extremely nice and helpful, even I were given cups of tea and toast. I don’t think they would be as nice in some effectively run and modern German hospitals, (sorry Monica)!
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H said:
PS. I have a minor complaint . This goes for almost all hospitals that i have visited, touch wood, so far luckily only visited. I can never find the ward, the room, the cafetaria, that I’m looking for.
The friendly receptionist tells me to turn left, then right, take the lift to such and such floor, all this turning around makes me feel giddy and I find my self in the boiler room or something. A kind bloke takes me back to the reception and the i start my walk in the endless corridors with renewed confidence….
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Voice said:
Indeed hospital kitchens have a culinary expertise equalled by none. At Royal North Shore I was suspicious of them and opted for the sandwiches as being the most likely to resemble actual food, due to the lack of opportunity for processing. I was so struck by the unique character of their sandwiches that I tried to replicate it when I was released. In case gerard is nostalgic for hospital food, I present the recipe below:
– Partially freeze a loaf of sliced white Ti-Top ‘bread’ so that it offers a good resistance to the knife.
– Saw the crusts off.
– Spread the centre with Vegemite. It is important that this should be done when the bread is fresh, or the filling will not spread thinly, wasting government money. The packet should have been opened for no more than 6 hours since its removal from the freezer when the filling is spread.
– Place the sandwich in the plastic wrap machine.
– Return it to the freezer.
– No less than a month later, remove a batch of sandwiches and place it in the sun.
– Replace in the freezer.
– Serve at will.
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H said:
Gerard’s hospital stay has also been very beneficial to the whole family; because of the friendly, good humoured staff, he stopped complaining about Australian hospital system for roughly eight hours… OK, seven…
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Voice said:
On the contrary, I think the infrastructure problem is that we DON’T get what we pay for.
Corruption is rife in NSW.
On a national level there’s the nonsensical waste of money in poorly conceived and incompetently run schemes that sound “caring”. I mean, any blind Freddy who had to answer their own phone knew there was a problem with the home insulation scheme. We regularly got hard sell calls from obviously opportunistic scammers whose other job is selling used cars. The Copenhagen Climate Conference Scam cost a fortune too. None of these ideas, which are probably well-intentioned, take the realities of the business world into account.
I won’t forget the time the NSW government raised water rates to fund new infrastructure and then put the money into consolidated revenue.
Let’s see a hospital plan, with costings, with the allocation of contracts open for public review so it doesn’t go to Minsiters’ mates, and I’ll extremely happily contribute to a once-off levy provided it goes into a trust fund to pay for that hospital. And provided there is a concomitant increase it doctor training to fund staffing, which I’d be more than happy to contribute to also.
Australia didn’t do too badly in the OECD educational league tables.
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gerard oosterman said:
Nice to hear from you Voice.
You might be right and our reluctance to fork out more tax will never be overcome or welcomed. Our daughter wanted to buy a car which was advertised in Vic. She cannot tranfer the rego to NSW unless the car gets a pink slip here in NSW (again) and is physically in NSW. It just was registered in Vic. It seems even laws applying to cars are not uniform around Australia.
People committing crime are hopping states avoiding court summonses because of extradition laws having to be applied. Criminal records are not shared between states, nor are hospital records between hospitals. Jam in Queensland is not necessarily jam in NSW.
We are governed by thousands of loafers mad on keeping all this going, their mantra of ‘if it isn’t broke don’t fix it’. It is their bible.
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Big M said:
The problem is, GO, is that it is bloody broke, not just stat to state, but between area health services. I can view an xray, pathology, etc anywhere in my area health service, but try to look at something outside the boundaries, impossible!!
Corruption and incompetence is rife in NSW, don’t know about other states. The stupidity and lack of foresight is phenomenal. My hospital recently announced that they were planning a second entrance. One problem. Didn’t speak with the Dept Main roads, Local council, OR, the owners of the land which access road was to cross!!! Result, second entrance quashed!
NSW govt has just announced that electricity costs are going up 60% in the next few years. No one would mind if infrastructure was built in, along the way, but it isn’t.
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Voice said:
Luxury Big M. At Royal North Shore you are lucky if they can find your records within the same hospital, not just the same area health service. I can’t believe they’re not computerised.
Also, I’m not so sure about the stupidity. Yes, in the case of your example I agree. But often what seems like stupidity is just that you assume they want the hospital/company/state/business to run well, whereas their actual aim is to direct as much money/status/mate favours their own way.
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Big M said:
Voice,
Patient records are about to be computerised, in NSW.
One of the big problems in health care is that they’ve drafted in managers from businesses which have nothing to do with health care. It’s all budget, budget, budget. They can’t comprehend that a ward can run at 105 to 110% occupancy for months at a time, and this costs more money. They can’t even understand that the cost per patient-day has gone down, probably because of unpaid overtime by health care workers.
I don’t think these managers even realise that the hospital is staffed at night, or on the weekend!
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Voice said:
Really Big M, you just don’t GET it. Don’t you realise how important it is to have good managers? Somebody who has worked in the hospital system for years might be a good nurse or doctor but does that mean they can manage? Of course not.
We need our hospitals to be run be REAL managers. What is a real manager? Someone who has been to manager school. All large organisations are the same. Running a hospital is the same as running a brewery is the same as running shoe shop. You are just thinking at too low a level. Leave it to the professionals, there’s a good chap.
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Big M said:
Sorry Voice, I was overstepping my station in life. Back to the trenches…
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Voice said:
I should hope so Big M. Next you’ll be saying that the purity of the management methodologies should be sullied by knowledge of the actual business/enterprise/activity to which they are being applied.
This is the road to ruin. Some perfectly good managers might find themselves out of a job, replaced by people who know what they’re talking about.
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theseustoo said:
I’m ‘taking the fifth’ on this one Emmjay…
😉
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Hung One On said:
Is that 5 yo’s? I’ll raise you a yo…
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Big M said:
…and a bottle of rum.
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H said:
I’m not sure where our taxes go, or what are we doing with the money that’s coming in taxes paid. Sometimes I think, maybe foolishly, that the more tax the government gets the more we have to spend on things like good education, and therefore we do not need to spend huge amounts on private schooling, win/win for all…
This is possible in many places, why not here.
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Hung One On said:
Gees, Thanks H, next you’ll tell me that you’re a raving leftie? Shit my spell checkers gone from Firefox. Zark
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Emmjay said:
I agree on many points, Gez. There IS a need for more tax – and more expenditure on frontline workers who make a difference -as opposed to superannuated paper shufflers.
I think for a population of 20 something million we are massively over-governed, and we need to cut as well as grow public services.
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gerard oosterman said:
Ja,ja,ja,ja. I had weeties with onion juice.
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Hung One On said:
Wow, well said Gerard, what did you put on your weeties this morning? This story deserves three no make that four yo’s.
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