Rules for some of us
Tens of thousands of Australia’s poorest people sent “Please Explain” notices by the government and called “Welfare Cheats” by the minister because the government believes they MAY owe some money.
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Hundreds of millionaires and super rich corporations pay no tax at all and that is OK because they can afford pay accountants and lawyers to tell the government that they don’t need to pay anything. I am not sure our government understands how average Australians feel about this.
Doug Steley, Heyfield
Draw a line in between
Graffiti artists - they say it’s art - have upped the anti in a play-off for best all-round coverage of our trains as they’re all lined up in the one place without having to spray from building to building.
It has become competitive now about max coverage and max monetary destruction. What are councils, police and government doing about this farce? Nothing!
How many times have I emailed the Greens who live and die by the environment with sorry we have no policy on graffiti? How many times have I contacted the police, councils and the Labor party with the same question! Why is it we can’t simply have a dedicated graffiti hotline direct to the nearest police station?
It’s time a line was drawn between legal graffiti and vandalism.
Brian Johnson, Gymea
Taxing consequences
Response to the article, “Pension a victim of the great Aussie muddle” by Emily Millane refers to the pension means test. The opening sentence “In 1966 ....” places this in the era of the “Gold Standard”, the period between the end of World War 2 and 1971. Australia is a monetary sovereign dominion of Great Britain.
The Government has the monopoly authority to create and legitimise our total money supply. Every Australian “dollar” that exists is classed as “legal tender” via the authority of the Government.
No Australian money can exist unless it is created and authorised by the Government.
The world’s financial system radically changed in 1971, when Nixon reneged on the promise to convert foreign dollar holdings to gold. This reverted the world’s currencies back to 1945.
In the last year of World War 2, (before the “Gold Standard”), Chairman of The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Beardsley Ruml addressed the American Bar Association.
Ruml stated that given (1) control of the Central Banking System and (2) an inconvertible currency, a sovereign national government is finally free of money worries and need no longer levy taxes for the purpose of providing itself revenue.
All taxation, therefore, should be regarded from the point of view of social and economic consequences.
Don Kelly, Kanahooka.
Brilliant ‘do nothing’ plan
Jeffrey D. Sachs, author and director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute, recently said: “Governments should levy gradually rising carbon taxes, using the revenues to finance low-carbon energy systems.
And the loopholes in the global corporate-tax system should be closed, thereby boosting global corporate taxation by some $200 billion annually, if not more. The added revenues should be allocated to new public investment spending”.
Keeping Sachs economic ideas in mind, what is our government’s plan to tackle air pollution? The plan is to do nothing – except boost profits for oil companies. The government expects oil companies reduce air pollution by increasing refining-processes on crude oi – that’s it.
And the government’s brilliant “do nothing” plan gives the oil companies the nod to increase fuel prices by producing cleaner fuel. Oh I forgot – someone has to pay for cleaner air pollution – the motorists.
John Macleod, Berry
