As the campaign for a Australia’s Federal election on July 2nd kicked off in earnest this week, we’ve been hearing two key messages from the LNP: Message one: We need to save the Construction sector Message two: Leave the Banking and Financial Services sector alone Both these messages are unpopular with around two thirds of Australians – making them strange choices to open a
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While the government scrambles to look for ways to increase revenue and cut spending, one group of sacred cows who seem largely unperturbed by these ongoing discussions are Australia’s largest companies. That might be because around one in three of them pays no tax at all. And for those that do pay tax, there is talk of cutting the corporate tax rate in the future. It
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“The operation of any electoral system, any voting system, should be to clearly and transparently translate the wish of the voter into a parliamentary result.” .. .so said Malcolm Turnbull yesterday as he introduced legislation into parliament aimed at curtailing the potential of independent or micro-party senators to achieve election by stealth – solely through the distribution of preferences. Nick Xenophon – one
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It’s a federal election year – and although a date hasn’t yet been set, all the political ducks are starting to line up in rows as the triennial wooing of the Australian voter begins. They aren’t really wooing ‘us’ of course – what they actually want is our votes. And with the focus put on polls by both politicians and the media, you’d be
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Equality and freedom are two core component of democracy. Whether it’s me, you or Malcolm Turnbull walking into that polling booth on election day – everybody’s vote is equal and we are free to vote however we like. But there’s s lot more to democracy than that. In the often quoted words of American President Abraham Lincoln: Democracy is government of the people,
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As we all know, good government started six months ago – following Abbott’s near demise as our Prime Minister. And this last parliamentary sitting fortnight in Canberra has been another stellar example of this. There’s been press conferences galore, leaky cabinets and question-time performances worthy of entry into the Tonies (pun intended). We also learned this week that one of the government’s key
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“Heads should roll“ declared Abbott a few weeks back, after the ABC dared to do what every other TV channel was doing by replaying Zaky Mallah’s appearance on Q and A. A few days later, Abbott told us that his government will be putting forward a Bill to facilitate “the modern form of banishment“, allowing the Government to strip away citizenship from
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