Keywords: Taxes
There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.
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AUSTRALIA
- Brian Lawrence
- 14 April 2015
6 Comments
A fair minimum wage has to be fair to workers with family responsibilities, many of whom are currently working poor and living in poverty. But in its 2014 Annual Wage Review decision, the Fair Work Commission decided that the 'appropriate reference household for the purposes of setting minimum wages is the single person household'. This was the first time in more than a century of minimum wage setting that an industrial tribunal has decided that minimum wages should exclude the needs of the low paid with families.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 09 February 2015
8 Comments
As a former business executive, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby speaks with particular authority on economic issues. He has just given a landmark speech on the ‘Good Economy’ in which he stresses that everybody including the marginalised has a role to play. As our Coalition MPs undergo soul searching in order to reconnect with the Australian people, they might consider the virtues of a reduced pace of economic growth that has more universal benefit.
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EDUCATION
- Bill Uren
- 23 January 2015
16 Comments
We can sympathise with the university Vice-Chancellors who support fee deregulation. Over many years Government financial support for higher education has been eroded in real terms, and maintaining international rankings depends upon deregulation. But do we want the major metropolitan universities to return to the financial exclusivity that characterised the early history of Australian tertiary education?
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ECONOMICS
- David James
- 10 December 2014
12 Comments
One of the fascinating aspects of Australia's political pantomime is the manner in which the Federal Treasurer is forced to metamorphose into a used car salesman who is spruiking the Australian economy. One reason for the relative impotence of the Treasurer is that the Federal government only has control over fiscal policy. Monetary policy, the interest rate, is set by the Reserve Bank, not the government.
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AUSTRALIA
- Frank Brennan
- 09 December 2014
27 Comments
What a dreadful year it has been for parliamentary democracy. Speaker Bronwyn Bishop has taken pride in the number of members she has ejected. Senator David Leyonhjelm has introduced his same sex marriage bill in an orderly fashion, but the decision will rest with the Abbott Government, which won't want to to hand the bouquet for breaking the logjam to Leyonhjelm. To get arrangements for the bearing and nurturing of children right, we need our parliament to be a more considered and dignified place than a battlefield.
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AUSTRALIA
- Angela Owen
- 07 November 2014
3 Comments
The media has reported that Swedish furniture company IKEA's Australian arm has earned an estimated $1 billion in profits since 2003, almost all of which has been exported tax-free. Action to crack down on tax avoidance is on the agenda of next week's G20 in Brisbane, but it remains to be seen if the interests of developing countries will be looked after.
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AUSTRALIA
- Lawrence Cross
- 27 June 2014
30 Comments
While a number of Cabinet ministers are Christian, their policies seem to lack any Christian emphasis on caring for the poor and disadvantaged. America's interpretation of Christianity is heavily influenced by the doctrine of the theologian John Calvin, according to whom the rich who work hard for their wealth are preparing themselves for heaven, while the poor not only deserve their plight, but may well be abandoned by God.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 19 June 2014
28 Comments
Many Australians, myself included, believed that the Federal Budget was unfair. So Treasurer Joe Hockey's recent speech in defence of its fairness offers a welcome challenge. Hockey is right to insist that fairness can co-exist with gradations of wealth within society. But fairness is incompatible with gross disparity of wealth because the concentration of wealth in the hands of few people and corporations destroys equality of opportunity.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
There are efficiencies in the fictions of right. The glee, that honest toil of looting other lives. Each tumble clears the view, just a bit. Years are nothing, what's rebuilt doesn't work — just as effortlessly as the dirty little system before that so many died to defend. But don't worry, time is a grader. Alongside the quacking of historians all mistakes will be buried under new initiatives.
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EDUCATION
- Dean Ashenden
- 28 May 2014
1 Comment
The Government doesn't want it. Shorten does. He can go to the next election with uncontested ownership of one of the most widely supported proposals of recent times. The problem with Gonski's plan, however, is that he wasn't allowed or able to propose solutions anywhere near as big as the problems his review uncovered. This presents Shorten with a tricky dilemma.
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AUSTRALIA
It took John Howard until his third term before he let his personal leanings completely off the leash. It led to his electoral demise. Abbott is doing much the same in his first term, over-reaching, thinking himself invulnerable to a political backlash. Whereas Machiavelli's prince could rule through force, Abbott must face an electorate whose trust in political promises has been completely eroded. Our political system will take a long time to recover.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael McVeigh
- 15 April 2014
22 Comments
On Sunday, tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest the Government's treatment of asylum seekers. This wasn't a group of radicals — it was Grandma and Grandpa, Mum and Dad and the kids, making a statement to a callous political elite. Rather than simply asking how we can become more decent towards asylum seekers, it's time to ask: What reserves do we, as a country, have to resist inhumane forces that besiege us?
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