Dikkii's election wrap-up - the newbies take over

OK. So you all probably know by now that the Liberal/National coalition government headed by John Howard was crushingly defeated by the Labor opposition.

I think that the ALP ended up with a 25 seat majority in the House of Representatives.

Which of course means that Kevin Rudd is now our new Prime Minister. In fact, he was sworn in as the 26th Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia today, along with his new ministry.

And he hasn't mucked around either - making this blogger look like a goose by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol. I predicted that the Rudd Government would renege on this particular election promise. Boy, do I feel stupid.

Howard himself ended up being defeated in his own electorate, making him, as regular commenter Plonka has pointed out, the first Prime Minister in nearly 70 years to actually lose his seat at an election. Then Peter Costello retired. Now Brendan Nelson has been made Opposition Leader.

The tears and recriminations from this will be amazing - the Liberal Party is known for trashing their former PMs, with the exception of Robert Menzies, of course, and Harold Holt. Ming is something of a minor deity to the Libs, and you will never hear a bad word said against him. Holt died in tragic circumstances while in office, so I guess that Liberal Party members draw the line somewhere. But if the past is a guide, Howard's legacy is cactus in the eyes of Liberal members.

The new ministry looks a little like this:

Cabinet

• Kevin Rudd, MP: Prime Minister
• Julia Gillard, MP: Deputy Prime Minister; Minister for Education; Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations; Minister for Social Inclusion
• Wayne Swan, MP: Treasurer
• Lindsay Tanner, MP: Minister for Finance and Deregulation
• Peter Garrett, MP: Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts
• Senator Penny Wong: Minister for Climate Change and Water
• Anthony Albanese, MP: Minister for Infrastructure, Transport; Regional Development and Local Government
• Senator Kim Carr: Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research
• Martin Ferguson, MP: Minister for Resources and Energy and Minister for Tourism
• Tony Burke, MP: Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
• Simon Crean, MP: Minister for Trade
• Nicola Roxon, MP: Minister for Health and Ageing
• Jenny Macklin, MP: Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs
• Stephen Smith, MP: Minister for Foreign Affairs;
• Joel Fitzgibbon, MP: Minister for Defence
• Robert McClelland, MP: Attorney-General
• Senator Chris Evans: Minister for Immigration and Citizenship
• Senator Stephen Conroy: Minister for Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy
• Senator John Faulkner: Cabinet Secretary; Special Minister of State; Vice President of the Executive Council

Outer ministry

• Senator Nick Sherry: Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law
• Craig Emerson, MP: Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors and the Service Economy, Minister assisting the Finance Minister on Business Deregulation
• Brendan O'Connor, MP: Minister for Workplace Participation
• Tanya Plibersek, MP: Minister for Housing and the Status of Women
• Senator Joe Ludwig: Minister for Human Services, Manager of Government Business in the Senate
• Bob Debus, MP: Minister for Home Affairs
• Alan Griffin, MP: Minister for Veterans' Affairs
• Warren Snowdon, MP: Minister for Defence Science and Personnel
• Justine Elliot, MP: Minister for Ageing
• Kate Ellis, MP: Minister for Youth and Sport
• Chris Bowen, MP: Assistant Treasurer, Minister for Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs

Parliamentary Secretaries

• Maxine McKew, MP: Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, Early Childhood Education and Childcare
• Anthony Byrne, MP: Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister
• Greg Combet, MP: Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence
• Mike Kelly, MP: Parliamentary Secretary for Defence
• Gary Gray, MP: Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Infrastructure with responsibility for Northern and Regional Australia
• Bill Shorten, MP: Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs
• Bob McMullan, MP: Parliamentary Secretary responsible for International Development Assistance
• Duncan Kerr, MP: Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs
• Laurie Ferguson, MP: Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Settlement Programs
• Senator Ursula Stephens: Parliamentary Secretary for Social Inclusion
• John Murphy, MP: Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Trade

This blogger predicted that after his pedestrian election campaign, Peter Garrett will most likely not be Environment Minister. Again, I was made to look silly when he was appointed to that portfolio, although I notice that he did score Arts, and that Penny Wong ended up with half the Environment portfolio (Climate Change and Water).

The Arts Minister post would be something of a let-down for him - this is normally the portfolio for ministers who have failed, or for junior ministers looking at their first portfolio.

No surprises elsewhere - Wayne Swan is Treasurer, Stephen Smith is Foreign Minister. Nicola Roxon got Health.

Maxine McKew, after unseating Howard ended up with a Parl Sec job. Good work, I say.

Elsewhere in the Senate, it looks like the Greens have picked up 2 seats and Family First one. Independent Nick Xenophon from South Australia also won a seat. This means that neither major party holds a majority in the Senate again. It'll still be a couple of weeks before the Senate votes are all tallied.

But that's it so far. Thank FSM it's over.

Is this Peter Costello's best ever budget?

Peter "Smirky" Costello handed down his eleventh budget as federal treasurer this week, and from what I've seen so far, it looks pretty good.

He's forecast a budget surplus of $10.8 billion for the 2006/2007 financial year.

Examining it in depth, the two great achievements of this budget are that all taxes on superannuation benefits for over-60s and RBLs have been abolished.

Which the cynical may like to point out (and there is definitely truth to this) that this is another example of the Howard Government pandering to baby boomers, this is good for the rest of us on several levels:

1. Only a brave future government would consider re-imposing these.
2. We all have to retire eventually.
3. Anything that simplifies tax legislation is pretty good in my book.

The budget hasn't just been about improving the tax situation of superannuation, though.

Income tax rates have been reduced.

As this is the one area that our conservative, sensationalist media can pick up on a possible way to blow holes in the budget, they've already honed in on the pay of people earning $50,000 per annum.

Apparently, they'll only take home an extra $9.81 per week.

Personally I don't have a problem with income tax rates being reduced - we have a bizarre situation in Australia where the corporate tax rate is 30%, while the top marginal tax rate will now be 45% (not including the Medicare levy).

This is designed to achieve more foreign investment, but has the unwanted disadvantage of discriminating against Australian taxpayers in favour of multinational companies.

No wonder people use offshore bank accounts and companies for tax avoidance purposes.

The other angle that our tired and unoriginal media go for when this happens is to compare apples with front-end loaders by looking at someone earning $30,000 a year with someone earning $1,000,000. This comes in the form of, "How much will each group save?"

Naturally, this gets a bite, especially on talkback radio. People can be such idiots.

Families earning up to $40,000 get the full amount of Family Tax Benefit Part A.

And so they should. No controversy here.

Costello has scrapped the cap on subsidised childcare places.

This one does concern me, and not just because I don't have kids.

This is stuffing around with supply and demand on a grand level. The obvious outcome of all this is that childcare itself will climb through the roof as parents scramble to take advantage of this.

And the net result is that the grant itself will end up being meaningless.

Not that anyone will notice this until well after the next election.

Kinda similar to how the First Home Owner's Grant contributed (along with low interest rates) to the most extreme property bubble this country has ever seen. We still haven't seen the complete fallout from this yet.

These were probably the most important new initiatives.

On the whole I like it. I think it's the best budget that he's introduced ever. It has its stupid bits, but who ever claimed that politicians were smart?

Tell him he's dreamin'.

In this article penned by David "Kochie" Koch, Peter Costello has given himself 5 weeks to look at ways to reform our horrible tax legislation.

In it, Koch takes a swipe at Costello for even suggesting that 5 weeks is enough time for a serious review.

I have to say that I agree with Koch, here.

5 weeks is an appallingly short timeframe to fix what is some of the silliest legislation in the world.

Lets look at some facts on the our beloved tax laws.

The Income Tax Assessment Act is not one, but two acts of parliament - one from 1936 and one from 1997.

Together, these two acts total over 10,000 pages.

Not including Tax Rulings made by the ATO or the case law interpreting the Acts.

Wikipedia points out that the laws themselves have been amended that many times, that there is actually a sub-sub-sub-sub-section in the ITAA 36 that is denoted as Section 221YHAAC(2)(e)(iii)(A).

The problem with tax in Australia stems from the problem with the law in Australia - consistency is not considered to be important.

Take, for example, juvenile offenders.

In most states, you can be tried as an adult from about age 12 onwards.

Yet you can't vote, drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, have consensual sex, and quite a lot of other things until much later on. Usually age 18. Or thereabouts.

Thus, it appears, a 12 year old can think and reason criminal acts the same as an adult, but can't think and reason a how-to-vote card.

Staggering.

Other inconsistencies abound, so we can verifiably conclude that dealing with the law in Australia is a truly diabolical process.

Tax law pretty much takes the inconsistency approach, creates more exceptions and buts and leaves us with the underlying conclusion that all Australians fudge their taxes in one way or another.

Not just that, but tax law in Australia works on the basis that you are guilty until proven innocent. Fairly much different to every other criminal law in Oz.

Koch even points this out in his article.

Over the years, these little discrepancies have piled up into a huge, scary monster.

We have a Tax Pack of over 100 pages, where we once had a little form to fill in (I don't remember this - it's something that Koch points out).

Anyway, tax reform requires a bit more than a small commission looking at it over 5 weeks.

Koch mentions that the commission itself consists of Costello, Peter Hendy and Dick Warburton.

The performance of Warburton, though has not looked promising.

Not long after this commission started, Warburton was heard to remark that compulsory superannuation should be considered a tax on business.

I suppose that minimum wage could also be considered a tax too, eh Dick?

Goose.

So we await this commission's findings.

I would like to say "...with baited breath..." but I have absolutely no doubt that any changes recommended by the commission will be cosmetic at best.

Ten years of John Howard

Well it's finally happened.

Ten years of having John Howard as PM.

Now, this is a fairly decent achievement. Some would say that he's benefited from an unusually rare run of 15 years of unprecedented growth, but to be fair, there was a tech wreck that hit the rest of the world in 2000, and we came within a hair's breadth of a recession in 1997/98.

So economic prosperity has been good. On the other hand, this has come at the price of quite a few things.

We appear to have become a much more intolerant country as a result of various things. Peter Costello's inconceivable words to the media about people from islamic countries migrating here and instantly looking to convert us to sharia law appears to have been aimed at the general population who are possibly getting stupider and stupider.

Thanks to thoughtless comments like Costello's, we now have a real problem with a sub-section of Australia who belives that all muslims are out to cleanse the earth of non-believers.

On top of this, prior to the Howard Government, a comment like Costello's would have been enough to have him sacked from previous governments.

(Sadly, a lot of these idiots are born again freaks who happily quote the Qu'ran on the subject, but then wilfully ignore the Bible's wording which is uncannily similar. Especially in the Book of Judges)

Our treatment of refugees is similarly hopeless. They have now become "illegal immigrants".

Apologising (Not!) to Aboriginal Australia for the Stolen Generation, not enforcing the Ministerial Code of Conduct, mollycoddling the ethanol lobby, negotiating a useless free-trade agreement, going out of their way to discriminate against gay Australia... the list goes on and on.

At least Port Arthur happened early on in the government's reign. If it had happened yesterday there is absolutely no way that the gun controls proposed by the Howard Government would even see the light if day now.

I give them a C-, just because I'm charitable.