Australian Federal Election 2016: is there an ounce of humanity left in Liberal, Nationals and Labor politicians? *WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGE*

Enough is enough. It’s time cease off-shore detention on Nauru as well as close the centre on Manus Island and face up to our collective responsibilities under international law.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 27 April 2016:

Pregnant asylum seekers detained on Nauru could be exposed to the Zika virus, with the Department of Immigration and Border Protection confirming there had been cases of the mosquito-borne disease on the island nation.

The revelation was made in the department's submission to the Senate inquiry into the treatment of asylum seekers at Australia's regional processing centres on Nauru and Manus Island.

Detainees have been issued with heavy-duty insect repellent in order to fend off the virus, which has been linked to a serious birth defect of the brain called microcephaly.

The Australian government's smartraveller website currently recommends women who are pregnant or trying to get pregnant should consider postponing travel to any area where Zika virus is active.

"If you do decide to travel, talk to your doctor first and strictly follow steps to prevent mosquito bites during your trip," it says.

On Wednesday evening, Australian Medical Association (AMA) vice-president Stephen Parnis said pregnant asylum seekers on Nauru needed to be protected, assessed and "not exposed to any risk". He stopped short of saying whether the woman should be removed from the island.

The admission that Zika is present on Nauru comes in the same week senior doctors, including the AMA, raised grave concerns about the standard of medical care available to asylum seekers held in offshore detention, which they said would not be accepted in Australia.

In its submission, the department said "every precaution" was being taken to stop transferees contracting the Zika virus. 

The Sydney Morning Herald, 27 April 2016:

The source said the man spoke to UNHCR representatives of "the intolerable mental and physical pressure on refugees and particularly on himself, who [is] imprisoned at Nauru."

UNHCR regional representative Thomas Albrecht said his organisation was concerned about the "grave mental state of asylum seekers and refugees" and urgent action was needed to prevent further suffering and address worsening mental health.

The UNHCR had been in Nauru since Sunday conducting a monitoring mission of arrangements for asylum seekers and refugees transferred from Australia.

A refugee advocate who is in close contact with those at Nauru said tensions were high after the Papua New Guinea Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled the Manus Island detention centre was illegal, opening up the prospect that detainees there could be released.

"People are thinking 'what about us'. They are feeling desperate," the advocate said, adding she believed the man had burns to 80 per cent of his body.

The incident follows a Nauruan court decision in February to convict and fine a refugee for attempted suicide in a move authorities said was designed to "stamp out the practice".

Dept. Immigration and Border Protection, media release, 29 April 2016:

A 23-year-old Iranian man who set himself on fire in Nauru has tragically died today from his injuries.

Appropriate support is being provided to his wife and friends.

The man was taken to Republic of Nauru Hospital for medical treatment by the Nauruan authorities. He was then transferred to Australia by air ambulance for medical treatment. The man passed away this afternoon in a Brisbane Hospital.

The Department expresses its sympathies to his wife, family and friends.

The death will be reported to the Queensland Coroner. No further comment will be made at this time.

Facebook:  Doctors4refugees, 29 April 2016

The death of Omid once again exposes the lie that people offshore have the same medical care as those in the Australian community.
We know that the Nauru hospital staff struggled with maintaining an adequate airway and had difficulties accessing an intravenous line. These are quite difficult to do in a severe burns victim and needs a specialised team immediately. Some parts of remote Australia may also not have this expertise but he would have been airlifted out to a tertiary hospital in a matter of hours.
When he got to Brisbane we [sic] was grossly oedematous (swollen) from the loss of vital proteins and had fluid leaking into his lungs, further impairing his breathing. Much of this was clearly compounded by the early lack of adequate oxygenation.
It is not an unusual complication; it’s entirely predictable in a person with this level of burns
This tragic outcome once again demonstrates the complete impracticality of accommodating these highly vulnerable people so far from Australia.

"Omid" set himself alight on 27 April, was airlifted to a Brisbane hospital sometime on 28 April – approximately 22 hours after self-harming. He died on 29 April 2016.

He appears to be the third asylum seeker who has died after setting themselves alight since June 2014 and the eighth offshore detainee who has died since August 2002.

UPDATE

ABC AM, 2 May 2016:

Shocking video and new details have emerged that raise questions about the standard of medical care given to the asylum seeker who set himself on fire on Nauru last week. Omid Masoumali died on Friday in a Brisbane hospital, two days after his injuries. His grieving wife Nana has told doctors on the mainland that while on Nauru, Omid was without a doctor's care for two hours at the medical facility and lay in agony a further eight hours before morphine was administered….

Omid Masoumali's body will be flown back to Iran.
His family have been asked to pay the $17,000 cost.

The Guardian, 3 May 2013

The young Somali woman who set herself alight on Nauru – the second refugee in a week to do so – has been taken to Australia by air ambulance, but her situation remains critical.

Hodan, 21, doused herself and set herself alight inside the OPC1 section of the detention centre on Nauru.

According to reports, she suffered severe burns to most of her body. One person reported “all of her clothes were burned off”.

Australian Federal Election 2016: Turnbull's federal plan for your pearly whites

Excerpt from Australian Dept. of Health statement, 23 April 2016:

Through the 2016–17 Budget, the Government is introducing the new national Child and Adult Public Dental Scheme from 1 July 2016. This Scheme will replace the Child Dental Benefits Schedule and the National Partnership Agreement on Adult Dental Services.

Under the Child and Adult Public Dental Scheme, over 10 million Australians will have access to Federal Government subsidised public dental care. We expect that an extra 600,000 public dental patients will be treated each year through this Scheme.

The Government will spend $2.1 billion in the five year National Partnership Agreement for the new Scheme. This represents the largest-ever Commonwealth investment in public dental coverage –– which, for the first time, will be enshrined in legislation to provide long-term certainty.

Overall, we will spend a total of about $5 billion over the next four years in improving dental outcomes, including through the Child and Adult Public Dental Scheme, private health insurance rebate, the Commonwealth's contribution to in-hospital dental services, and dental infrastructure in rural and remote Australia.

Public dental services will be improved with better funding. Over time, people's dental health issues will be tackled earlier, with the focus shifting from restorative to preventive dental care, avoiding tooth decay, and alleviating more significant health problems and expense.

The new Child and Adult Public Dental Scheme lays the foundations for a fair and equitable national scheme for children and adults that Australia can afford now and into the future. This reflects the Government's broader integrated approach to health reform, improving oral health, and contributing to better overall health.

Sky News, 23 April 2016:

As part of the $5 billion plan, $2.1 billion will go to the states and territories, who can use the money to pay for private dentists "where service gaps arise" Ms Ley said.

The Australian Dental Association (ADA) has described the new scheme as "smoke and mirrors".

Axing the children's dental scheme is the wrong approach to a serious problem, and money is being taken out of dental care, dentists say.

"Let's see this for what it is. This is a 'budget saving' that results in a reduction of about $200m per annum for dental care," ADA president Rick Olive said in a statement.

"Let's not be fooled. This is a measure that just won't deliver."

The Turnbull Government announcement reveals that the new dental health scheme is directly funding public dental health to the tune of $2.9 million over five years, with approx. $415 million available in 2016-17 or an average of around $51.8 million for each state and territory.

In its 2014-15 Budget the Abbott Government deferred the National Partnership Agreement for adult public dental services and ceased the Dental Flexible Grants Programme – saving $609 million over four years. In that budget government also expected to achieve savings of up to $35.7 million over four years by deferring indexation of Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA) dental and allied health provider payments to 1 July 2016.

In its 2015-16 Budget the Abbott Government expected to save $125.6 million over four years from 2015‑16 by broadly aligning indexation arrangements for both the benefits payable and the benefits cap under the Child Dental Benefits Schedule with indexation arrangements for other health benefits programmes. In that budget government stated it would provide $155.0 million in 2015-16 for a one year agreement to replace the existing National Partnership Agreement on Adult Public Dental Services and that the agreement would support the provision of dental health services to adults who rely on the public dental system.

Public dental health schemes across the country have been under intense strain since at least July 2014 even when eligibility for these schemes was targeting low-income households. Now the Turnbull Government has decided to open the floodgates by removing means-tested eligibility.

There is a subsidy cap per eligible individual of $1,000 every two years in the existing federal scheme and I presume that this cap will remain in the new scheme.

With the $2.1 billion divided between eight states and territories over a five year period only 1.74% of the Australian population, or a total of est. 52,500 people in each state/territory, will potentially be able to access this scheme every two years via a participating private dentist before the money runs out.

The remaining 40% of adults and children the Turnbull Government calculates may wish to access this national public dental scheme will be obliged to seek treatment from the public dental heath schemes in their respective states or territories.

However, if the Turnbull Government subsidises dental treatment at a lower rate that the existing scheme then the number of individuals who receive adequate treatment by way of state and territory public dental health schemes may drop dramatically.

All those accessing state public dental schemes will be faced with waiting lists.

At the end of December 2015 there were 9,203 children and 104,156 adults who were waiting for public general dental care in NSW – 11% of the children and 32% of adults had been waiting for periods exceeding clinically acceptable benchmark times.

An est. 15,507 individuals on the waiting list were in the Mid-North Coast and Northern NSW regions.

Given past reports of waiting times, it is not outside the realms of possibility that approximately 25% of those who have been waiting for public general dental care in NSW have been waiting for up to one to two years.

In September 2015 the population of NSW was 7.64 million people. All of these people are now potentially eligible for public general dental care under the Turnbull Government's Child and Adult Public Dental Scheme once they reach two years of age and over.

Does Prime Minister Turnbull seriously believe that his est. $5 billion cut eight ways will stretch that far?

Australian Federal Election 2016: who else is tired of Liberal-Nationals political lies concerning negative gearing?

Human Rights Commission President Gillian Triggs recently observed that Australian politicians were generally ill-informed and uneducated.

She was speaking in reference to democracy, human rights and international law.

I am beginning to suspect her observations may apply to almost any matter that is placed before them for consideration or action.

When it comes to negative gearing, Liberal and Nationals federal politicians have obviously not read beyond those party talking points released as the federal election campaign heats up and, I suspect their ignorance is wilful. 

Readers have probably already noticed how many of them have declared investment properties and accompanying mortgages in the current Register of Members’ Interests?

So in an effort to balance the one-eyed view of negative gearing held by those with vested interests, here are some facts and observations……

What is negative gearing?

This is how the Direct Property Network (Denuo Pty Ltd) website describes negative gearing:

Negative gearing: cost of the property is greater than the income generated. e.g. total cost is $2,000 per month (includes loan, council rates, real estate management fees etc) less the incoming rent $1,500/month rent received. The difference is $500 per month or $115. 38/week, which costs the investor.

The benefit of negative gearing is the cash loss is offset against income from other sources, thus reducing your taxable income, and hence the amount of tax you have to pay (compared to the tax you'd pay without the investment).

The effects of this cash loss are buffered or absorbed by the tax system.

Because of the tax effects your loss is reduced.

Simply put: the tax man and the rental income pays for your investment property!!

And this is what the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) says about negative gearing:

A rental property is negatively geared if it is purchased with the assistance of borrowed funds and the net rental income, after deducting other expenses, is less than the interest on the borrowings.

The overall taxation result of a negatively geared property is that a net rental loss arises. In this case, you may be able to claim a deduction for the full amount of rental expenses against your rental and other income (such as salary, wages or business income) when you complete your tax return for the relevant income year. Where the other income is not sufficient to absorb the loss it is carried forward to the next tax year.

If by negatively gearing a rental property, the rental expenses you claim in your tax return would result in a tax refund, you may reduce your rate of withholding to better match your year-end tax liability.

If you believe your circumstances warrant a reduction to your rate or amount of withholding, you can apply to us for a variation using the PAYG income tax withholding variation (ITWV) application (NAT 2036).

Advice from domain.com.au on how to negatively gear your own holiday house so that the taxman pays for your weekends away and annual holidays.

Who negatively gears investment properties?

Business Insider reported on 16 February 2015 that:

The richest 40% of Australians carry 80% of the investor housing debt.

According to the Grattan Institute on 8 March 2016:

Data is not directly available on what proportion of home purchases are made by investors. Data on new home lending from The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Lending Finance figures indicates that between one-third and half of new lending is to investors. And ABS census data shows that just under a third of existing properties are owned by investors.

But not all of them negatively gear. Some do not borrow, and others do not borrow enough to be negatively geared: that is, their rental income is greater than the expenses and loan interest. The tax stats show us that about two-thirds of all housing investors are negatively geared. This suggests that around 20% of housing buyers are negatively geared investors.

In 2015 Australians borrowed a total of $73.54 million in housing finance [ABS, 5671.0 - Lending Finance, Australia, Dec 2015].

These figures indicate that in 2015 negatively-geared investors borrowed an est. total of $14.7 million in housing finance.

It appears that many investors who negatively gear property have borrowed up to 50 to 80 per cent of the purchase price of their investment.

This is a breakdown of who these investors are thought to be, according to Grattan Institute spokespersons writing in The Conversation on 8 March 2016:

Click on images to enlarge

That graph is supported by a second based on ATO data:

Executive Director of The Australia Institute Ben Oquist stated in The Sydney Morning Herald on 16 February 2016:

"In total, these concessions [negative gearing, capital gains tax discount & superannuation tax concessions] are worth more than $37 billion, yet the young receive only $2.4 billion of their value…

"The capital gains tax discount and negative gearing are particularly unfair for the young, with the under 30s taking approximately 1 per cent of the benefit of tax breaks worth $7.7 billion a year and climbing.

The NATSEM research also shows that 73 per cent of the benefits of the capital gains tax discount, flows to the top 10 per cent of income earners.

The Sydney Morning Herald also reported on 13 November 2015 that:

According to Tax Office data, nearly 30 per cent of anaesthetists negatively gear their properties, compared to just 3.6 per cent of cleaners.
Surgeons (27.7 per cent), finance managers (23.4 per cent), mining engineers (22.2 per cent), and lawyers (22.1 per cent) are also far more likely to use the strategy than people in lesser-paying jobs, the data shows.

Sales assistants (3.7 per cent), hairdressers (5 per cent), nurses (9.6 per cent) and teachers (12 per cent) are much less likely than surgeons and lawyers to use negative gearing…..

Click on images to enlarge

Data shows the average tax benefit that surgeons received from negatively geared property was $4161 in 2012-13, followed by anaesthetists ($3353), lawyers ($1788), mining engineers ($1336) and finance managers ($1247).

But cleaners only received an average tax benefit of $41, while sales assistants ($42), hairdressers ($167), nurses ($254) and teachers ($327) fared little better…..

Data for the 2013-14 financial year confirms the same professional occupation mix as benefiting most from negative gearing tax concessions.

It comes as no surprise that an electorate with some of the wealthiest people in Australia - the Liberal Party electorate of Point Piper held by Malcolm Bligh Turnbull MP - is also the electorate which claims the most in average rental losses from negative gearing:

ABC News, 27 April 2016, ATO (2014) and NATSEM

According to the Brisbane Times on 1 May 2016:

New research by the Parliamentary Library has found that of the 6071 people in Mr Turnbull's postcode who submitted a tax return in 2014, 592 claimed the tax deduction to the tune of almost $18 million - or $30,278 each.

That works out at about $582 a week.

Nor does it come as a surprise to find some Turnbull Government ministers have one or more geared investment properties, such as Minister for Immigration and Border Protection Peter Dutton, who in December 2015 purchased a $2.235 million two-story beach-front house at Palm Beach QLD with money borrowed from the ANZ Bank. He and his wife appear to own four other properties - two of which are also listed as investments.

In fact an est. 1 in 3 federal politicians own rental properties and ownership by party breaks down like this:

Qld Nationals senator Barry O'Sullivan reportedly owns 41 of these properties, Nationals MP David Gillespie 18 properties, Palmer United Party MP Clive Palmer 12 properties and Country Liberal Party MP Natasha Griggs 12 properties.

So why does multi-millionaire Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull insist that removal of the negative gearing would hurt mum and dad investors ie those with taxable income incomes at or below $80,000pa?

Well, the first point to remember is that people with genuine and 'unmassaged' taxable incomes below $80,000 per annum are more likely to be receiving negative gearing tax concessions worth less than $800 per year.

The second point is that Labor is only talking about removing the negatively gearing option from old housing stock that is not already negatively geared.

Current investment properties - no matter who they are owned by - will be exempt from proposed negative gearing changes.

Basically, removing negative gearing from old housing stock purchased after 30 June 2017 would predominately affect that section of society which seeks to aggressively avoid tax and accrue wealth by property speculation.

The simple answer to the question of why Malcolm Turnbull has taken his contrary stance is that this is a federal election year and the country is probably heading to the polls in less than six weeks - therefore both Liberal and National ministers, senators and MPs all need to keep their political donors, personal support bases and the property, banking and finance industries firmly on their side if they are to retain their seats and win the Abbott-Turnbull Government a second term in office.

I suspect that small-time investors did not genuinely factor into Turnbull’s decision to leave negative gearing arrangements well and truly alone, no matter what he argues between now and 2 July 2016.

After all, before this election year dawned negative gearing was open to debate in his own party. As the departing treasurer Joe Hockey demonstrated in Hansard on 21 October 2015 at Page 11952 when he appeared to be agreeing with an element in Labor’s draft affordable housing policy:

JOE HOCKEY: We should be wiser and more consistent on tax concessions to help pay for that. In particular, tax concessions on superannuation should be carefully pared back. In that framework, negative gearing should be skewed towards new housing so that there is an incentive to add to the housing stock rather than an incentive to speculate on existing property. 

In an effort to paper over Turnbull Government unwillingness to look taxation inequities squarely in the eye, Liberal and Nationals politicians are apparently blaming ordinary Australians and their supposedly shaky levels of confidence, if The Saturday Paper of 30 April 2016 is any indication:

Coalition sources say concerns about the impact on consumer confidence of big changes to the tax system – along with the assessment that the boost to growth was too small to justify the upheaval – were behind the decision to abandon an increase in the goods and services tax. 

Similar concerns also fed into the decision not to fiddle with negative gearing.

The online newspaper went on to say:

The Saturday Paper has been told cabinet took its decision to retain negative gearing some weeks ago and that it was a political – and not an economic – move.

The policy decision was made to form part of the government’s armoury in the lead-up to the election…..

What do ordinary people think of negative gearing?

According to The Australia Institute less than 9 per cent of the Australian population owned investment properties in 2012, so it is unsurprising to find this online poll in The Daily Examiner (Clarence Valley) on 29 April 2016:

Conclusion?

Putting it quite frankly;  protecting current negative gearing tax concessions for an estimated less than 9 per cent of the population (whose cumulative tax minimisation/avoidance is by most accounts distorting the property market) at the expense of the remaining est. 91 per cent is bad taxation policy.

Favouring this less than 9 per cent, during a federal government term which saw first Abbott then Turnbull rip into the fabric of health, education and welfare safety nets protecting over 23 million people because tax revenue is not keeping pace with government spending, is mindlessly destructive politics.

A fairer approach to taxation concessions - particularly those on self-managed superannuation funds, investments and capital gains realized - which does not encourage aggressive tax minimisation/avoidance at the expense of the common good is not the bogeyman vested interests are making out.

Just because it is beautiful......(8)

Adiantum aethiopicum, also known as the common maidenhair fern

Found on Google Images

Quotes of the Week

the [Westpac- Melbourne Institute Leading] Index last took a dip during the Global Financial Crisis in 2008, but then recovered shortly thereafter. However, despite the LNP’s claims to be economic masters, since they took office in September 2013, the Index has been steadily trending downwards to its current record low. [Progressive Conversation blog, 23 April 2016]

Not a jot of cosmic humility, religious or otherwise, is detectable in anything I have read or heard Abbott write or say. He doesn’t speak in these terms, even obliquely; I wonder if he fears death. It’s this, I think, that people find weirdest about him: how can you trust the judgement of a man so utterly immune to the animating psychic horrors of the human condition? As the woman from the focus group pointed out, everything he says is tainted, even his experience of something as quotidian as the weather. Abbott contains an absence, a conspicuous and upsetting lack, and as long as he hangs around Australian politics, he’s going to make us all stare straight into the void. [Freelance journalist Eleanor Robertson writing in The Monthly, 28 April 2016]

Disgraced Liberal MP blots his copy book again and another Liberal minister is found wanting

This was disgraced Liberal MP for Fadden, former Minister for Veterans' Affairs and former Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC, Stuart Robert, tweeting on ANZAC Day 2016 and then deleting the tweet around three hours later once he finally realised that using soldiers to play politics on the major national day of remembrance in this country was not a good idea.

http://www.politwoops.com/p/unknown/stuartrobertmp
25 April 2016

As New Matilda editorialized online; Yes, At the going down of the sun over our multiple investment properties, We will remember them.

To make matters worse Robert tweeted an apology at 1.17pm the same day and then deleted that eight minutes later - probably after the first journalist rang him to confirm the apology. 

 He then had second thoughts and tweeted his lame excuse again.

Oh dear.....with friends like Stuart Robert in an election year, Malcolm Turnbull doesn't need enemies.

However, Robert is not the only fly in the election ointment.
On 26 April 2016 ABC News reported on Country Liberal Party Senator for the Northern Territory and Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Nigel Scullion:

Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion has asked the board of the Indigenous Land Corporation (ILC) to change a controversial section of its annual report that dealt with the corporation's $320 million acquisition of the troubled Voyages resort at Uluru.

The extraordinary intervention is revealed in documents released under Freedom of Information (FOI) amid an ongoing battle between Senator Scullion and the former chair of the ILC, Dawn Casey…..

A draft briefing paper by acting ILC chief executive Leo Bator and released under FOI asserts that Senator Scullion threatened to "withhold permission to table the (annual report)" unless it was amended.

The annual report's publication was delayed by months as a result of the conflict, and appears only to have been published in February following media inquiries.

The delay in its publication prevented Senate Estimates from examining the Voyages acquisition last October.

The documents released by the ILC under FOI reveal the current board of the ILC, and senior members of its executive, were deeply concerned at the request by Senator Scullion for amendments to the foreword and by the delay in the report's publication.

The ILC director of strategy warned last year that the agency would "attract scrutiny about the delay and any deletions to the annual report" at Senate Estimates.

In the end, the board decided to publish two forewords to the report, one written by Dr Casey and one by Eddie Fry, who was revealed to have assured Senator Scullion that the ILC would pursue no investigation into the Voyages sale and instead was intent upon tackling its large debts.

Senator Scullion has insisted his intervention was in response to incorrect information being asserted by the former ILC board about the Voyages acquisition. He declined to speak to the ABC yesterday and referred to his published statement.

"What I did was ask the ILC board to consider responding to factual inaccuracies in the statement from the former chair contained in the annual report," Senator Scullion said in the statement.

"It is completely appropriate for me to bring to the attention of the ILC board these inaccuracies."

Excerpts from Dr. Dawn Casey’s statement which was included in the published ILC 2014-15 annual report in question: