Abbott outed as class warrior intent on taking from the poor and giving to the rich

Excerpt from Nicholas Reece writing in The Age 29 April 2013:

As Age columnist Tim Soutphommasane presciently observed in these pages, ''class warfare'' has become the catchcry of a new conservative political correctness.

The truth of this assessment is made clear by an analysis of the competing policy platforms of Labor and Tony Abbott's Coalition. What it shows is that both parties have policies that result in a redistribution of resources from one group in society to another.

This is not surprising. With only finite revenue, a decision to give to one individual or group means, by definition, that another will miss out.

What is surprising is the extent to which Coalition policies will result in a significant redistribution of wealth upwards rather than downwards. Consider the following Coalition policies:

■ Lower the tax-free threshold from $18,200 to $6000. This will drag more than one million low-income earners back into the tax system. It will also increase the taxes for 6 million Australians earning less than $80,000.

■ Abolish the low-income superannuation contribution. This will reimpose a 15 per cent tax on superannuation contributions for people earning less than $37,000.

■ Abolish the proposed 15 per cent tax on income from superannuation above $100,000 a year. The combined effect of these two superannuation changes is that 16,000 high-income earners with superannuation savings in excess of $2 million will get a tax cut while 3.6 million workers earning less than $37,000 will pay more than $4 billion extra in tax on their super over the next four years.

■ Abolish the means test on the private health insurance rebate. This will deliver a $2.4 billion tax cut over three years for individuals earning over $84,001 a year, or couples earning over $168,001. People on lower incomes will receive no benefit.

■ Introduce a paid parental leave scheme that replaces a mother's salary up to $150,000. To put it crudely, this means a low-income mum gets about $600 per week while a high-income mum gets close to $3000.

■ Abolish the means-tested Schoolkids Bonus that benefits 1.3 million families by providing up to $410 for each primary school child and up to $820 for each high school child.

These policies will result in low- and middle-income earners paying billions of dollars more in tax while those on higher incomes receive billions in tax cuts and new benefits. Rather than take from the rich and give to the poor, the Coalition policies are a case of take from the poor and give to the rich. And this remains the case even taking into account the flow-on effects of the abolition of the carbon price and the funding of the Coalition's paid maternity leave through a tax on big companies.

So who is waging the real class war?

Nationals candidate Kevin Hogan thinks he is Barack Obama

One of the crass aspects of federal election campaigning in America are those offers of brand mugs, t-shirts, car magnets, coasters and posters in exchange for donations to someone's political campaign.

President Barack Obama’s campaign team excelled at the hard sell during his first successful federal election campaign.

Now Australian voters are being invited to participate in similar tackiness, without the reward of receiving a mug from China or a t-shirt from Bangladesh.

Kevin Hogan wants voters to clothe his campaign workers. Yes, you read that correctly – the people of Page need to hand over $5 to stop some poor National Party supporter from being forced to door knock bare from the waist up.

The double standard of the Leader of the Opposition

Yet another example of Australian Leader of the Opposition’s view that it’s all right when he or the Liberal Party does it but a sin if someone in the Labor Party does the same thing.

The Age 25 April 2013:

Tony Abbott has attacked a government decision to double termination payouts for federal political staff to four weeks' pay, despite having sought more generous arrangements for outgoing Liberal staffers when he became Opposition Leader in 2009.

Correspondence obtained by Fairfax Media from Mr Abbott to the then special minister of state, Joseph Ludwig, shows Mr Abbott asked for eight weeks' ''settling-out'' time for seven staff who had been employed in the private office of Malcolm Turnbull when Mr Abbott replaced him as leader on December 1, 2009.

Asked about the new payout standard on Wednesday, Mr Abbott was scathing. ''This is another sign of the Labor party's contempt for taxpayers,'' he said.

''This is a taxpayer-funded handout to political staffers and, frankly, it's just not on. It shouldn't be happening.''

Add ups and gazintas

Daily Examiner reporter Lachlan Thompson's piece in today's paper provides proof that he's a words man and not an add ups and gazintas bloke. Check out what he wrote about Yamba Cinema's Merv Cousemacker and do the sums yourself.

End of an era for movie man

Sixty-four years ago a nine year-old boy had to fill in for his ailing uncle and change the reels on a movie film projector.

And as Yamba Cinema moves into the digital age that boy, who is now 81 years old, is sad to see his skills made redundant.

If you have watched a film in the Clarence Valley in the past five decades there is a good chance Merv Cousemacker was operating the projector.

Mr Cousemacker's uncle Jack Ellem operated a touring cinema show on the east coast during the 1930s and '40s.

One night Mr Ellem was sick with yellow jaundice and nine-year-old Merv, who had keenly watched his uncle since the age of five, stepped in to help.

There began a life-long love affair with film and projectors which resulted in Mr Cousemacker running a travelling cinema show throughout the '50s and early '60s, operate a cinema in Maclean and finally own his own in Yamba.

During the 1950s Mr Cousemacker and his wife, Elaine, travelled and put on weekly screenings, complete with newsreels in Copmanhurst, Tucabia, Glenreagh, Brushgrove, Lawrence, Ulmarra, Iluka and Red Rock.

"Until television did us out of business," Mr Cousemacker said.

During the 1970s and '80s they operated the Picture Palace in Maclean - the cinema's name is still ingrained in the pavement.

"One of my greatest memories was filling the theatre there, which seated 1200 people, twice screening Born Free," Mr Cousemacker said. 

Read the complete piece here.