Yesterday I made a few predictions about the federal budget, and in a moment I will check my accuracy on those predictions, but first my overall opinion on the budget. Generally I was quite pleased with the budget, the surplus was a bit bigger than I expected, and as such so was the amount of spending, most of the cuts to income tax were expected, although perhaps a bit bigger than I expected towards the top end of the scale, and I shudder to think how much money the government can afford to lose in tax from the top two income tax brackets.
I was pleased to see a bunch of one off payments to a lot of people who would fall in to the lower tax brackets instead of massive tax cuts there, as tax cuts are permanent (relatively speaking), they cost money this year, next year, the year after that, etc etc etc. A lot of the one off payments are an awful lot larger than any tax cut would have been, and on a one-off basis, are sustainable. There is a bit of election grandstanding going on here, but overall the payments were targeted at those who really deserve a helping hand, and were well thought out. (OK, so 2GB and 2CC’s Jason Morrison did convince me of that one a little bit…I was thinking roughly the same thing last night but Jason ran through the economic arguments a whole lot better than I ever could have).
I thought education did pretty well, increased opportunities for teachers to study, and incentives to do so, something I think a lot of reports have been showing is lacking. The “coupons for tuition” idea is absolutely brilliant, and possibly the first real, widespread initiative, to do something useful with the data from the years 3, 5, 7 and 9 testing and benchmarking of students literacy and numeracy testing (although year nine is excluded from the scheme, I did think it should be included for at least the first two years of the scheme…or is the ACT the only place to test in year nine?).
I am a bit sceptical of the merits of the “extra money for schools that have a large increase in student performance” scheme, or at least I was, then I thought about all of the distant schools, especially aboriginal communities who could benefit from this…now if we could just convince the states to actually maintain the schools properly.
The thing that really interested me though (and people who heard me talking to 2CC’s Mike Jeffreys at 7:40 this morning can skip this section as you’ve already heard most of it) was the automated online tax returns. For once the hansard people at Parliament House don’t have proof hansard online so I’m unable to quote what treasurer Peter Costello said, but I’ll do my best to explain it.
Basically instead of filling out forms or going through the whole E-Tax process you just go the ATO website, presumably login somehow (probably the same way you verify your identity with E-Tax) and you are presented with a pre-made tax return produced by a computer (although Mr. Costello would have you believe the commissioner writes them all). This tax return will (theoretically) have all of your income, Centrelink payments, bank interest…in fact everything you would normally find on your tax return. All you have to do is review it and, if you agree with it, click submit, otherwise you can modify it to what you believe is correct.
I can see this working in one of two ways. Either it will be based on the tax paperwork filed by your employer(s), Centrelink, bank etc, which would effectively mean you would lodge your tax return some time later in the decade, or it would be linked the the government’s favourite little project, the National Access Card, or as I like to call it the “National Not An ID Card”…this is about the only way I can see this working with any kind of efficiency. I’m not going to go in to the whole debate about the card here (although you can feel free in the comments), but on the whole, with the proper safeguards, I have no problems with it, and this would be not only a good practical way to provide an extra service to the public, it would help to cut down on tax fraud, and save a whole lot of time and money on processing tax returns from individuals, and verifying them against business records.
Now, how did I go with my predictions:
Tax cuts: Yes, but not as minor as expected, half a point.
Infrastructure: Well they had the already announced Murray-Darling basin funding, and there was some stuff about water tanks…half a point
Education: Looks like a full point there
Environment: Bob Brown said $4 billion, Peter Costello said $4.3 billion. Add in rounding and it looks like I was overly cynical. No points on that.
Total: 2 from 4 or 50%, not too bad, if this were high school it would have just made it through as a pass. Of course if I only talk about my original predictions it’s 2 from 3, which is 67%. On the whole, pretty good.
So to briefly summarise this for those of you who didn’t feel like reading all of that, I’m 95% happy with the budget…I would have preferred a bit more spending on infrastructure, but overall I thought it was a very sensible and balanced budget once again from Peter Costello and his staff. A hearty congratulations are in order here, so well done. I will, much like last year, send a letter to that effect shortly (although last time I did send an email).
For those of you waiting to see how the public reacts to this…next week’s Newspoll is a waste of time as most of it will be done before people have had a chance to work out what the budget means to them. The week after that will start to show a trend, but it’s the one after that which really counts. The predictions I’ve heard this morning indicate that if there is between about an 8-10% “two party preferred” swing to the coalition, we will see an August election, and the coalition will be almost unbeatable. (And this comes from people at both ends of the spectrum).
Please accept this as my temporary retirement from predicting when I will get things online. I suspect that fifteen cats fighting over a violin would be better at it than me.
Message from the cats: The Sydney photos will be online tonight and the series may be a day behind the latest schedule…but you were expecting that weren’t you?
Further to this issue of being cremated and the fact that generally six people will be cremated at once and the ashes can't be sorted out, the only benefit I can see with cremation is that you get to annoy five other families for the rest of eternity…can you imagine being stuck with me for eternity? I think you'd go peculiar.
And if the ashes were spread on the backyard, the property would get sold every few months by deranged people. I don't think anybody could put up with me all the time…even I need a break sometimes.
And Greens leader Bob Brown claims to have been handed full costings for the budget’s environment spending. He calls the amounts being spent “a massive let down” and “a slap in the face for Australians hoping to see big spending on environmental issues.”
The figures he claims to have been handed and subsequently released, if true, do indeed fit his descriptions, but I think he has been handed a dud…a bit of Liberal trickery to get him all hot under the collar and jumping up and down on the one spot shrieking about how horrible it all is, only to be made look like a fool when the spending is much higher later on in the night…naturally, if that is the case, the environment spending will get an awful lot more coverage than it would otherwise have received, thanks to Senator Brown’s angry noises.
Tonight is federal budget night, and I feel like making a few predictions. Unfortunately these days almost the entire budget is leaked by the government ahead of budget night (possibly so that the public actually know the budget announcement is coming), so my predicting ability is limited.
Tax cuts: Minor changes to income tax, most likely the changing of tax brackets by a few thousand dollars here and there.
Infrastructure: I’m expecting a big spending spree on water infrastructure, probably something to do with recycling storm water and pumping it in to the river system.
Education: Given that the university student unions are still whinging about the (fantastic in my view) move to voluntary student unionism, I believe the federal government will throw money at both tertiary education, and some of the services which may be suffering a bit, on the condition that no money goes towards union coffers. Personally I can’t understand why the universities don’t just do what CIT did and turn the “union membership fees” in to “union service fees”, nobody has to join, but the unions still get the money…perhaps CIT are just smarter than the universities.
There you go, my three predictions. I’m aiming for at least 66% accuracy here. Anybody care to add their own predictions?
My target of more than two correct NRL tips was well and truly exceeded, however my target of at least six in the AFL wasn’t. At least the overall percentage is now above 50%.
Yesterday afternoon Nattie and I went for a walk. As part of that walk we passed a public housing complex primarily for older, retired people. Nattie and I know a few of the people who live in this complex and they are generally nice people, some of them have dogs which, for the most part, Nattie gets on with pretty well.
On this occasion we did not meet any of those people, as we only briefly passed the block, however I did notice something out of the ordinary on one of the patches of grass. I took a closer look and realised that it was an ACT Housing rent payment card which had been dropped. The lost payment card, with identifying information removed
These cards are by no means necessary to pay the rent electronically, however paying in person either at a Canberra Connect shopfront or at an Australia Post outlet is more or less impossible without the card, and in all likelihood the owner of the card will probably not notice it is missing until they next go to pay their rent, which could very easily see them fall behind in the payments.
I picked up the card, and as I didn’t recognise the name and there were no residents outside for me to ask, I made a decision to take the card with me, for the purposes of returning to ACT Housing, who can subsequently return it to its rightful owner. This decision was based on the conclusion that in the area the card was in, the next person to come along and consider picking it up, would most likely not do so for such a noble reason, and the card would probably end up in a bin or some other inappropriate place.
This got me thinking, many cards, be they bank cards, ID cards, membership cards or something else, have a return address on the back in case they are lost or stolen. Often people keep their DVD rental store membership card on their keyring, making the DVD rental store a de facto lost-and-found for keys. In some cases there is no return address, but a few minutes of checking the company name would provide an address.
So would you, if you spotted an ID card, bank card, or other card of some importance to the owner, try to return it to its owner, either directly or via the agency named on the card? I would imagine that there are a number of people who wouldn’t, and if you’re one of them, I would be very interested to find out why you wouldn’t try to return the card.
To the same extent, do you think I have done the right thing by picking up the card and mailing it to ACT Housing?
Whilst perusing the television guide yesterday I noticed something which pleased me, at 11:40 last night ABC Television were screening a repeat of their excellent political drama series Grass Roots. When I eventually tuned in at 11:50 after remembering that it was on, I was even more pleased to note that it was the first episode of the first series, meaning that I am now able to watch the entire first series once again, albeit at a peculiar hour. I don’t think I’ll ever understand why television stations insist on screening great programs late at night and junk during prime-time, but I suppose I should be thankful that they bother to screen great programs at all.
Grass Roots focuses on the internal rumblings of the fictional Arcadia Waters council, in a suburb of Sydney. The show is in my view the Australian version of Yes Minister, showing a masterful grip on the politics and bureaucracy of local councils, with the necessary addition of mild but biting satire to make sense of it all.
The series currently being shown by the ABC was originally screened in 2000, and the second series was produced in 2003. It was unfortunate that the show never got a third series as the second series (without giving too much away) ended with many open questions, however it could quite legitimately be argued that enough plot points were wrapped up to justify the end of the show, whilst leaving things open in much the same way that politics never really ends.
Prior to the days of Quizmania on Channel Nine I was quite partial to the repeats of another brilliant Australian drama, Water Rats, which used to screen at 1am on Tuesdays, and I’m glad to finally have another Australian drama to enjoy in the wee hours.
Grass Roots currently screens at 11:40pm on Sundays on ABC Television and runs for a bit under an hour.
Seeing as I tipped Richmond to defeat Geelong, I think it is quite fair for me to say that Richmond’s embarrassing loss was, in one word, terrible.
I’m not sure if it’s a record, but Geelong must be very happy with their thrashing of Richmond by 157 points, 35.12.(222) to 9.11.(65).
It must have been an incredibly boring game to watch, most of the quarters went for well over 30 minutes due to the number of goals scored, and whilst I congratulate the Cats, I’m glad I wasn’t watching as I wouldn’t have had any chance of sitting through it, instead I was more than happy to just watch the scores tick by on the MyTalk Live Scores website whilst doing other things.
This week the award goes to one of the best bands of all time, The Monkees, and whilst they have a large array of fantastic upbeat songs, I can’t go past one of their slower, and arguably their most moving song, Shades Of Gray. I have decided to not amend the lyrics to Australian English as the title of the song is widely accepted as being spelled with the American spelling of “Grey” as “Gray”.
When the world and I were young,
Just yesterday.
Live was such a simple game,
A child could play.
It was easy then to tell right from wrong.
Easy then to tell weak from strong.
When a man should stand and fight,
Or just go along.
But today there is no day or night
Today there is no dark or light.
Today there is no black or white,
Only shades of gray.
I remember when the answers seemed so clear
We had never lived with doubt or tasted fear.
It was easy then to tell truth from lies
Selling out from compromise
Who to love and who to hate,
The foolish from the wise.
But today there is no day or night
Today there is no dark or light.
Today there is no black or white,
Only shades of gray.
[instumental interlude]
It was easy then to know what was fair
When to keep and when to share.
How much to protect your heart
And how much to care.
But today there is no day or night
Today there is no dark or light.
Today there is no black or white,
Only shades of gray.
Only shades of gray.
It’s a glorious day today, for the Brumbies are not in the Super 14 Rugby finals. Despite having lived in Canberra all my life, I do not support the local side, in fact I can’t stand them. I’m a Canterbury Crusaders fan (that’s a short but interesting story that I’ll get to in a minute), and despite not following the Super 14 all that closely, I can honestly say that I am very pleased with the way the premiership season has ended.
The Brumbies needed a few things to go their way to get in to the finals. They needed to defeat the Highlanders, which they did 29 points to 10, but they also needed a rather large victory by last placed Queensland Reds over the Bulls. The match got under way at around 3am Canberra time, and before long it was obvious that the Bulls were going to easily win the match and rub the Brumbies out of the finals. The Bulls did so in style, convincingly thrashing the Reds 92 points to three. A perfect way to end the Brumbies’ season from distant Pretoria, South Africa in my opinion.
Also interesting (and good for the team involved) is the news that the Sharks are the first ever South African team to finish on top of the ladder in the Super 14. Admittedly the Super 14 hasn’t been going for all that long, but it’s an important record which will be carried with pride by the Sharks.
The finals consist of the Sharks, Bulls, Crusaders and Blues, which means that no Australian team is in the finals.
Now, the story about why I follow the Crusaders…it dates back to when my age could still be expressed in single digits, I was about three or four at the time when Dad asked me who I wanted to follow in the AFL, after listening to a list of teams I picked out the Bulldogs (then Footscray, now Western), and subsequently chose the same team mascot in the Rugby League, effectively choosing the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs. Moving on to when I was about seven or eight years old, it was a Sunday night and National Nine News was on the television, and they were reporting on the Rugby Union results, they said that Canterbury had won, I latched on to the name thinking that it was the same area as the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs, and despite it not being the same area, and instead being across the Tasman Sea, the name stuck and I have followed them ever since.
This could be why I despise the Brumbies so much…they are the local team and the local media treat them with some bias, and it is something peculiar about Canberra that we have so few local teams that they all get treated with some favourable bias, but I think the Brumbies are a special case. In the NRL the Raiders get some favourable bias, but the media tend to accept that a lot of Canberrans don’t give two hoots about the Raiders and support other teams, however the Brumbies, being one of only two teams within hundreds of kilometres, get treated like they are the entire competition (RiotACT provide roughly the same amount of Brumbies bias as the rest of the local media, see the linked article for an example), they are an annoying waste of excess media time in this town, and I for one just can’t stand them. The news that a thrashing of another team many thousands of kilometres away has directly affected and destroyed their hopes of a finals berth has made my day, and possibly my week!
One thing that has intrigued me for a while is how much sleep people need. I know that my sleep pattern varies wildly, and I tend to require more sleep if I sleep at night than I do if I sleep during the day. So, this week’s question is as follows:
What I noticed during the week was that the support for Labor’s policy had a large lead for most of the week, but near the end after the “fairness test” changes announced by the federal government, the support for Work Choices rebounded. As people who have already voted can’t vote again, it is quite possible that people who voted earlier in the week may have changed their mind since, but have been unable to change their vote.
As I said last week, I’m quite happy with Work Choices, but then again I’m not employed by someone who has taken unfair advantage of the laws. It’s a good thing in my view that the federal government has sought to fix up the holes in the laws, and for those who think it’s just a petty grab for votes, this isn’t the first time that laws have been changed to fix problems with them…both major parties have a good track record of doing that.
Hooray! For some inexplicable reason Channel Ten are doing two fantastic things tonight. Firstly, they are broadcasting a Saturday night AFL match live rather than on delay, and secondly, they aren’t using their horrible commentary team.
For some reason they are rebroadcasting Fox Sport’s coverage of the Kangaroos V Swans instead of using their own commentary team. Fox do a much better job than Ten, their graphics are better, the camera work is better, and best of all the commentary team is better.
And as a bonus for the Canberra based AFL fans who enjoyed 3AW’s brilliant AFL coverage for the last two years before 2CA canned it, 3AW’s Clinton Grybas is the lead commentator for Fox on Saturday night.
For once I can actually sit down and enjoy a match being broadcast by Channel Ten…they should consider sub-contracting all of their coverage out to Fox Sport!
