Monday 27 October 2008

It's be kind to ethically-challenged politicians week, with exceptions

I do try to be as tolerant as possible with that class of persons known as politicians and with behaviour which illustrates that many are ethically challenged.

However, some like Deputy-Leader of the Opposition and Shadow Treasurer, Hon. Julie Bishop M.P., make it so hard to remain even nominally balanced in outlook.

It boggles the mind that someone who would have once acted as an officer of the Court should so consistently and knowingly misrepresent the facts.


The Treasurer has not resiled from that. The Prime
Minister took 10 minutes to answer a question and not
once did he say that this tax was not compulsory, nor
did he say that it would not apply from 2.23 pm yesterday.
So the Australian public must assume that they
will be subject to this new tax on their deposits. They
were told that the guarantee was going to be free of
charge; they now find that their savings will be subject
to a new tax. I ask the Prime Minister: does this mean
that the savings of ordinary Australians will now be
diluted by the fact that they must pay this tax?
(Time expired)

Now Ms. Bishop would be well aware that the only event that occurred at 2.23pm on Wednesday 22 October 2008 was that she asked a short question of the Federal Treasurer to which he gave an even shorter reply.

Ms JULIE BISHOP (2.23 pm)My question is to
the Treasurer. Treasurer, in the interests of giving depositors
and banks clear information on the proposal
being canvassed by the government to now charge a
fee for guaranteeing deposits over $1 million, I ask:
will this fee be compulsory? Will a depositor with, say,
the Commonwealth Bank, who has no concern about
the safety of their deposit, be obliged to pay the fee, or
will a bank that does not wish to have its deposits over
$1 million guaranteed by the government be obliged to
pay this fee?
Mr SWANThe very simple answer is that the fee
will be paid by all depositors in the deposit-taking institutions
that are regulated by APRA, and the fee will
be paid either by the depositor or by the bank.

So-called taxes (or for that matter new fees and charges) are not brought into legal being on such a basis and her feigned indignation is so patently false that one has to wonder if this statement was not also an attempt to support Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull's efforts to spook retirees and other small time investors and, encourage a further run on financial institutions holding managed funds.
As for the "fee" - I'm sure that I am not the only one who remembers that fees was mentioned from the start in a prime ministerial media release on 12 October 2008.

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