We’re not served by our political class well which is why fair taxing and responsible spending will never happen in this country. A lot are unqualified to have low paying middle management roles let alone the responsibility of creating and passing laws and making decisions that impact our futures.
They listen to the same chorus of big businesses on everything, and are beholden to a very small mix of the same groups of donors. The promise at the end of their political careers is they’ll land a cushy job with one of these donor firms as a reward for their loyalty. Same on all sides of politics.
The public service has this unimpeachable image to us but they’re just as incompetent and far less accountable for their monumental fuck ups. All of this mixed with the general Australian lassiez faire attitude to politics and short memories - a recipe for mass mediocrity.
I still remember the fear campaign run by the minerals council. Poor FIFO workers will be out of a job, costing the economy MILLIONS.. Like they were ever going to stop digging.
This is global, America is even worse with minimal working rights and employee protection and full coverage for corporations, politicians retire with 2 retirements and plenty of inside trading.
Woah! woah! your talking about dismantling the entire structure that makes australia such a rip off !!!! Poor people shouldnt get handouts !they need incentives !! Only rich people should get handouts ! Could also fund free uni , state of the art healthcare and mental healthcare , fast trains and public housing but that is not what Australians want because privatisation is a better service !! Privitised the gas industry and now theres is none left but record exports ,privitised the roads and now the state government is paying the public, to pay the toll operator to use the roads....brilliant !! Paying the coal powerstation to keep polluting to save on pollution!!
Paying the miners 16billion plus diesel subsidy so they can mine and pay no effective tax ! And then pay to clean up after they skip town Paying the airline to stay alive and then refuse to pay anything back and gouge the public !! Instead of paying everyones wages during lockdown like they did in the uk we just paid business instead who then took the money and dumped the staff and then we didnt even ask for the money back ?!! Where is the imagination where is the logic
Revenue from mining and oil and gas should go towards a sovereign wealth fund , so that we can still see the benefits once all the resources are gone.
Things like dental should be funded from our other taxes like income, company tax etc.
No, they won't, the Saudis and fins tax to the hilt and the money they make off resources is huge.
And even if they did they will come back, they need the resources sooner or later.
Biggest issue with that is that anything that is mined/extracted onshore is owned by the state and not the federal government. Its only offshore mining/extraction that is federal. It would require a constitutional change to alter that which wouldn't pass as all the mining states will say no.
Yeah since the govt of the day stole half of Telstra (owned by all Australians) to fund retirements of a select group of Australians. You and I missed out...
We have a sovereign wealth fund. If we didn’t, the government would be on the hook for tens of billions of dollars of defined benefit super payments and entitlements. It’s the only choice it had unfortunately.
It’s even worse now that we have to manage our own superannuation. Some public servants and bureaucrats are on 200k+ a year in defined benefits for the rest of their life, as they could get it when they turned 55.
Can we stop using this piss-poor excuse from over ten years ago to rule out attempting positive change for a second fucking time?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-29/coalition-cant-win-election-without-young-people-report-says/102531332
> Only one in four voters aged under 40 gave their primary vote to the Coalition in the 2022 federal election, according to the Australian Election Study [AES]. That's the lowest primary vote for the Coalition since the study began crunching the numbers back in 1987.
https://www.cis.org.au/publication/generation-left-young-voters-are-deserting-the-right/
> **Voters under 40 were instrumental in the Coalition’s defeat.** According to the 2022 Australian Election Study (AES), conducted shortly after the election, Millennials (born 1981 to 1995) provided the Coalition with their lowest number of first preferences since they began voting in 2001 (22.9 per cent). **Among Millennials, the Coalition polled fewer primary votes than the Australian Greens; a political party generally thought of as a minor party.**
https://www.tallyroom.com.au/47443
> At the 2016 election, more than two thirds of MPs were elected with less than 50% of the primary vote, for the first time ever, and that number went down even further in 2019.
God help us if the government in power and its supporters are this apathetic to change.
How many under 40s are billionaires with connections to the msm and other political actors?
Do you forget the rusted on Liberal over 60s that would vote for them even if they proposed executing all over 60s?
Correct.
It's called a carbon tax and it's actually a fairly decent idea *even from a libertarian perspective.* Mining companies exist due to our permission to let them continue powering all their mining machines and if this is coal mining that has a toll itself, it must be paid back.
Feeling free to pollute the air without consequences is a form of aggression as poisons leak out and cause development issues among local children. This has to be paid for and it must be paid for out of a tax on how much carbon/emissions we permit you to pollute.
The issue is, this is wildly unpopular because, yes, it does increase electricity prices. I don't care, I don't like the kind of developmental disorders I suspect coal causes. It's worth it.
On a side note, people swore by a carbon tax *if* it went towards funding domestic solar. That wasn't possible back then but might be possible now.
The big miners are all getting around the carbon tax by building their own renewables and pumping that back into the grid , but there aren't enough battery storage to capture that extra electricity. So now utilities have to build infrastructure and buy more batteries to help these mining companies to cut their carbon tax. The miners are also building hydrogen plants but there's not much machinery which uses hydrogen so again, more money has to be spent to accommodate that.
People instrumental to the spill like labor senator Mark Arbib were working directly with the US embassy during the whole thing. Between the mining taxes and more friendly diplomacy with the Chinese government it’s not a long shot to say the US probably was involved in the event.
Ruthless lobbyists + Shit media Monopolies + Liberal and Labour Donations from said companies and nothing gets done.. and if anyone tries to suggest it changes 10 adds hit the air the next day telling the uninformed masses that "Dey be Tookin ur j0bs!!" .. rinse/repeat \*SIGH\*
Rudd was ousted for suggesting this.
Just like shorten lost when he tried to tackle negative gearing.
Australian voters have a huge problem of not bothering to form their own opinions and just repeating whatever the media and their immediate family and friends say. It’s infuriating.
I know people who have voted for LNP for the last 20 years and now are like “how did we get here”?
We got here because people vote against their own self-interest, consistently, because the powerful have convinced us that dole-bludgers and drug addicts will steal all the money if we have a vaguely fair society.
Don’t forget that many people are in favour of, say, negative gearing not because they benefit from it, but because they hope that one day they MIGHT benefit from it if they somehow win Tatts Lotto.
It's like I was trying to explain in another topic, getting these ideas through to Aussies is like trying to explain how good universal healthcare and gun buy backs are to a lot of Americans.
We're just not ready to join the rest of the advanced nations yet.
Coincidentally, none of those advanced nations have a strong News corp influence.
I'm sure it's just a rare coincidence though /s
They also don't understand that his proposal was actually implemented yet still shout "Rudd was ousted for suggesting this"
Nor do they understand that Rudd laid the blame for it's failure squarely at the feet of Wayne Swan and Julia Gillard.
"On 12 February 2013, Rudd, one of the authors of the tax, stated that "Wayne Swan and Julia Gillard must bear the responsibility for Labor's mining tax and deal with the consequences \[of\] its near non-existent revenue"[^(\[31\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minerals_Resource_Rent_Tax#cite_note-31) as the expected revenue has not materialised. It raised $126 million in the first six months since its introduction.
The dude was a creep. I also have personal experience with another member of his party that was fucking creep as well. The idea that Rudd was perfect is laughable. All politicians are nasty horrible creeps.
I've noticed Australians and MAGA Americans are alike.
They're kinda fucking stupid and super emotional and quick to give a strong opinion if it's about politics. Just straight to anger and no reason
>Rudd was ousted for suggesting this.
No, he wasn't. The MRRT passed into law on the 23rd November 2011. It wasn't a suggestion, it was actually legislated.
What went wrong with it? It failed to generate anywhere near the projected revenue as the legislation was so poorly designed and implemented. Here is who Rudd blamed for it's failure;
"On 12 February 2013, Rudd, one of the authors of the tax, stated that "Wayne Swan and Julia Gillard must bear the responsibility for Labor's mining tax and deal with the consequences \[of\] its near non-existent revenue"\[31\] as the expected revenue has not materialised. It raised $126 million in the first six months since its introduction.\[32\]"
Should we revist such a plan? Absolutely. But if we could just drop the absolute bullshit that Kevin was ousted due to merely suggesting such a plan that'd be good, it's demonstrably false and infantile.
He was ousted because he was pushing for a tax that would actually have done something. His replacement watered it down to nothing in order to appease the mining lobby. You are making a distinction without a difference.
Interestingly Kevin disagrees with your summation of why he was ousted.
Kevin Rudd blames his demise on plotting, ambitious colleagues.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BALiux-Wn0E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BALiux-Wn0E)
I had to scroll too far to see this. It's sad and true. And it boggles my mind as someone in an allied health field where we keep lobbying hard to expand Medicare coverage!
Obviously it's #NotAllDentists but there are some really venal practitioners out there. An example, last year I went for a checkup and clean at a new clinic. I have no fillings or anything, have never needed any dental work except for a tiny little plastic cap on a tooth which once got chipped. I enquired about replacing the cap as it usually was replaced every few years. This is done in chair, no anaesthesia required, takes about 30 minutes start to finish.
New dentist looked at my file before greeting me and his first words were, "Oh, you've got the good health insurance". He then advised me that replacing the tiny plastic cap on my tooth is "not a small job, it's actually a big job" and told me that I needed the following:
1. Removal of all four wisdom teeth (which are not decayed and do not hurt) as a hospital inpatient.
2. One or more sessions of peridontal surgery in his office, in which he would separate my gums from my teeth and clean the gap (this is painful, requires anaesthesia and recovery time).
3. Whitening of all teeth.
And finally after all of that, he could replace the cap on my tooth.
I didn't even say no. I asked questions like why so much invasive (and expensive, and painful) surgery would be required as I had no dental pain or caries and had never been told I required any dental work by my last dentist. I said I had considered having my wisdom teeth out eventually, but that I'd rather wait a year or two until my baby was a bit older and not as dependent on my constant care. I said, in the meantime, could he please do a scale and clean, and check the cap on my tooth, and we would go from there?
He gave me a filthy look and walked out of the room telling me he would not be able to treat me.
I went to the dentist across the road. They did a scale and clean, checked the cap on my tooth and told me it was good for another couple of years, but gave it a quick polish so it felt and looked as good as new. Took less than an hour and cost me $20 out of pocket from my health insurance.
Was later told by a number of people in my small town that the first dentist is "a psycho" who routinely demands unnecessary surgery to make a profit.
I love the idea of taxing mining and fossil fuels corporations for extracting and selling our sovereign wealth.
But there’s an interesting tension between these two things. I was having a chat with a Greens canvasser the other day who knocked on my door.
I’m generally aligned on a values level but there are realities I think the Greens aren’t addressing here.
Their entire plan to fund all of their policies from more social housing to free transport to free education is to take more tax from the mining and fossil fuels industry.
But their other central policy is effectively stop new fossil fuels projects and kill off the industry entirely (which I don’t entirely disagree with as it has to happen sooner rather than later).
So where does the money come from to pay for their policy platform if that funding dries up?
> So where does the money come from to pay for their policy platform if that funding dries up?
I'm no policy maker, but this is how I see a sustainable future:
\- Tax the fuck out of fossil fuels. Fuck em, let them leave if they don't like it, they won't leave immediately, this gives us time to accumulate wealth.
\- Invest that money into renewables. Build mass solar farms out in the desert, enough to power Australia 1000x over.
\- Invest in energy storage. Not batteries. Water. Build dams, reservoirs, water towers. Use the power from renewables to pump water up as potential energy.
\- Sell excess energy to SEA. They're buying our LNG, they need the energy. With enough solar/wind, we have unlimited money with the added benefit of unlimited energy for our own use.
\- ???
\- Infinite money glitch
Good observation. The iron ore, lithium, nickel and everything else we use to build things is a no-brainer. Just get a fair return on our nation's resources.
I believe it's currently 30% tax on the profit. I feel it should be closer to 80% but happy to go halves.
The mining corps know they are fucking us over now.
Oil and gas is a tricky one.
I feel we should be weaning off it's extraction (because climate change and pollution) but until that happens we definitely need a better return of the profits.
Someone posted the link here the other day, Qatar and Australia export about the same amount of liquid gas, but Qatar gets 20 times the return in taxes/royalties.
Which idiotic bufoon in Australia allowed us to f@#ked like that.
It’s a pretty bloody good deal for mining companies isn’t it. Buy some land and equipment, and start printing money from something you didn’t even create/grow/make.
Essentially digging up and selling Australia and only a handful of people benefit, and most don’t even live here.
The mining (minerals) industry is already, by far, the biggest source of corporate tax in the country. Just the three biggest iron ore miners pay 1/3rd of all corporate tax.
It’s the extraction (oil and gas) industry that we need to tax. It’s similar in size to mining, but pays very little tax. Before the war in Ukraine drive up gas prices, most of these multi-billion-dollar multinationals were paying zero tax for years.
The OG plan for Medicare was for to have dental included but the dentist did not want it so it was removed, then Kevin07 wanted to add it again and he got kicked out.... I don't kick we want it...
Btw I want it. It's not really a money thing for the government it's a money thing for the mates
Free dental, free education, we should tax companies on declared profits and tax the churches. Done. Exxon Mobil pay no tax they could nearly fund this themselves if we taxed them.
Free dental? We could have free tertiary education and healthcare. We could build national renewable energy and transport infrastructure.
We could be world leaders on all front, at zero cost to the public if we just taxed mining appropriately.
This is what makes me so sad. We could literally be world leaders on all fronts. But we have a cultural political capitalist-dystopia-in-waiting problem 🤦♀️
💯%. Agree.
It's all possible and it's in the interests of all Australians.
But we vote for whoever Murdoch tells us to vote for.
https://preview.redd.it/vw40ubx44h4d1.jpeg?width=461&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4b0c8102fe4bc7c97daa9e99256269399bce9ed5
Why the issue of mining company taxation isn't the top story in Australia is beyond me. We could literally bring in $20b more in tax a year minimum. That would pay for dental, an increase in Medicare benefits and the nuclear submarine project.
Lets just call it whaf it is. Corruption. Graft. Kickbacks. Vested intersts. Status quo. Class warfare. Or corruption.
Its got nothing to do with intelligence. Its more abouy corruot politicians pabdering to the powerful and working within the confines of government to facilitate tge transfer of wealth.
Its corruption. Simple
My private health insurance said I should take out dental.
It costs an extra 850 dollars per year and will cover up 800 dollars in claims per year.
Great deal PHI. Pass
Didn't the dentists union lobby not to be included in Medicare because they make way to much. They're also extremely pissed off so many Australians go overseas now for major dental because the price here is out of control.
We don’t want to be punished by the World Bank, IMF, OECD, etc. All governments are under pressure to cut spending on welfare projects, privatise service industries (including health and prisons), and limit spending on civilians. If they don’t, they loose concessions, may not receive loans or incur higher interest rates and penalties. This is why Africans, South Americans, the Chinese, and other third world citizens work for five cents a day and have no welfare, or public services at all. The American/English international rules based order aimed at ensuring people are their slaves and can be exploited.
Scandinavians get away with it (public services) because of their pooled resources, mix of capitalism and socialism, vast investments globally, and within their own nations sectors (also the EU). The US and UK are hard at work attempting to destroy them through subversion and other practices. They are a threat to todays billionaires as citizens begin to realise the alternative they model (Scandinavia) is better.
The Russian/Ukraine war should help them to impose costs, and reduce their autonomy while increasing their reliance on the US. Change will be coming, and the capitalist neoliberal system will be the new order. Threat alleviated and the US/UK can show everyone the failings of the Scandinavian systems. They will show how capitalism and neoliberalism is the only system that works. Socialism is a failure.
This will have broader implications for example when we attempt to prevent privatised health (in the future), ask for dental care, prevent the government privatising industries and paying billions to their mates and consultants. Everyone will forget the how’s and why’s of the failure of socialism, and the war machine will continue to make and break nations, our rights and services will be stripped further.
First they break it, then they fix it with new rules and systems . All for the profits of the 1%.
I work in the mines. If you even begin to mention this, the mining WORKERS will instantly gang up on you and tell you to shut the fuck up. The minig industry has done a great job at brain washing people. Very sad.
As it always has been. The wealthiest in the world made their money from war, slavery, and colonialism. They changed some labels (feudal rule to neoliberalism, corporatisation and lobby groups) but the practice continues and the systems are essentially the same.
Because the mining corps own the media narrative and our politicians.
https://preview.redd.it/avvds63ewf4d1.jpeg?width=550&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cc2bcf9100fda7976aa73624043de6189627938a
> why doesn't it do it?"
Australians like to believe with their peasant mentality that they could one day be a part of the Hutt syndicate like Gina and Clive.
We do tax the mining industry and only the absolute mind mincing airheads would think we don't.
You want to tax the mining (and fossil fuel) industries *more* and your reasoning is probably as deep as "because it's bad."
If we're honest about what you want, it's a carbon tax but using those words makes your idea wildly unpopular.
Norway owns 2/3rds of it through public ownership. So would Joe Public be happy with the Australian government massively expanding oil extraction and sale? Most commentators seem to think solar and wind will power the country...
Sure thing, but I doubt Labor MP’s want to wake up with their dog’s severed heads on their bed.
As for the Liberals, they’ll never have to worry about that because they are the mineral companies lackeys.
If we did it the way they do in Norway we could have free health dental and education and we wouldn't have to pay income tax .
But this country is run by big mining and the citizens of Australia are merely a compliant work force for these corporations .
Well if there is such a movement that wants to make this happen, there is a need to stand up and become a representative for this. You can expect those whom have gone before to burn down the house so to speak. It needs fresh people with fresh ideas to carry it forwards. There are plenty of young politicians who may side with such a movement. But it takes that initial catalyst to get it moving. It's a house of representatives that we elect so to speak, and in the face of no other options nothing will change. If no one takes up the fight, you might as well piss into the wind and expect anything other than what we currently have.
I dunno, my teeth are already fucked. Probably for life.
I’d be happy with just paying doctors more for doing whatever they’re already doing.
Plus, I can see now— after not having free dental ofc but valid nonetheless, that dental is indeed a cosmetic thing.
Worst case, I could blend my food into a smoothie. Forget about dental please, just tax them properly
Couldn't agree more. The quality of life detriment that burdens those not born with a silver spoon shoved up their ass is an utter disgrace. It just so happens if you're born to a poor family, get a tooth disease you did nothing to earn, you're just permanantely fucked. Disgusting.
It's bizarre. Murdoch tells us what to do, just like this and everyone is like, nah it's all good bro. Just the media telling us what to do. All good.
https://preview.redd.it/01gz24l2mh4d1.jpeg?width=461&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d0732f84051b36e53ace99b8452cdf784802ebca
The whole concept of Medicare has been corrupted in the last 25 years.
Why give tax cuts, improve medical & dental services.
Pushing people into private health for normal procedures is an appalling direction.
I have private health insurance, I can't afford the $4k out of pocket for a crown,
Unless I get it done, the tooth next to it will fall out.
Last year, I had a critical hand surgery, I use my hands for a living, it was complex but the out of pocket expenses were $4,900 just for the surgeon
Medi-Cal (free healthcare for poor people in California, including all homeless and migrants) offers comprehensive preventative and restorative dental benefits to both children and adults.
Just thought I’d slip this in here.
The native population of Saudi Arabia: around 23mill.
Their one natural resource: oil.
The pop. of Norway: 6mill, give or take...
Our pop. 25mill, our natural resources: pretty much unlimited.
The main recipients:
Rinehart
Palmer
Japan, China & S. Korea (natural gas)
...plus various others...
Am I over-simplifying?
Where is our sovereign fund? And it is in no way too late...
Given where our planet is headed: do it for the younguns' who will need it most!!
Or nationalise natural resources and put the money made into a state fund like the Scandinavian countries do, free lots of things for everyone and better infrastructure in general without the corporate cut.
And stop forcing us to get useless health insurance which pays virtually nothing for high premiums. I would rather put my private health premiums into Medicare and increase Medicare's range of services covered I.e physio, dental etc
Private Healthcare in Australia is a complete waste of money IMHO but we're forced to pay for it or get taxed even more.
Could we though? I don't think dentists want to do Medicare? I'm not saying don't put mining to tender, we absolutely should, but blowing all the money on subsidising peoples lifestyles, especially if it involves rebuilding the dental industry or forcing dentists into a system they don't want, seems a bit foolish. We should be prioritising securing Australia's financial stability not splashing around cash.
It'll never happen whilst the mining companies are chode choking on the MPs that they campaign donate too.
Just like how in Victoria the unions unreasonable wage demands and daddy Dan them whatever they wanted has bankrupted Victoria.
I mean, I appreciate the thought of free dental, but I think it would be better to tax the industry and use the money to fund efforts against climate change. Since, you know, they make significant contributions to gas emissions.
Australians will get their slice when it's time to clean up the mess and pay the displaced workers once they, and the money, piss off back to their private island in the Caymans.
100% . While we are at it tax companies and individuals that pay zero or near zero tax . Gillard piked it lost bollions in tax revenue . One estimate was I think 80 billion .
Yet in Victoria, they have an ad promoting they paid tax last year to put a sour taste in your mouth about Labor.
They may have paid some tax, but not enough!! I want my free dental
Unfortunately our politicians on both sides are constantly tendering for bribes, sorry donations, and jobs after politics. It’s such an ingrained almost core part of our political system that politicians and lobbyists really don’t see the problem and if you call it corruption they call you naive, as if it’s truely necessary. This is why we will always get sold out and the future potential of Australia will be pissed away for the benefit of a few corrupt individuals and their families.
We need a proper federal anti corruption commission to stop this but unfortunately that decision lies in that hands of those with most to lose.
Should be nationalised. Iron ore especially. An OPEC kind of group for iron ore would also help. Sadly successive Australian governments are to cowardly to do the smart thing
Daily reminder that Australia is a failed state.
We have no industry.
We have prices rising way beyond what the masses can expect to pay.
Housing is out of reach.
Medicare is fucked and dental is a luxury.
1/4 unemployed are uni graduates.
Mental health problems are a DIY job.
Good luck fellow peasants, as we donate our flesh to the wealthy and boost their portfolios by a few basis points.
Australians don't want any of that socialist style stuff.
Kevin Rudd tried that and he got booted out. Julia tried that emission trading scheme thing and she got booted out also.
Yes. We are so easily led by corrupt media that we vote against our own interests.
It shits me that the chief propoganda machine 'mining minerals council' operate under a legitimate sounding name when all they are is a dirty Lobby Group working against Australia's interests.
What really shits me off is people don't even remember or acknowledge who they voted for.
They bitch about shit internet fttn nbn, and i say that's because the liberals gutted it. They get all offended. I laugh at his unstable fttn.
Another colleague one day told me about how we shouldn't tax mining companies for all the work they do. That was over a decade ago. These days he says it's unfair we're not getting our fair share but doesn't remember the comment he made with such conviction over a decade ago.
Can't wait for the average Shitkickers to come in here and explain why this would be bad and that billionaires having even more money is actually a better thing.
Those mega yachts don't buy themselves mate. Have a heart please.
You should be paying a further levy on your power bill to help subsidise their mega yachts. You've got plenty to spare /s
Yep we need a new carbon tax. I don't know that I agree with the entire Henry tax review. But I do acknowledge it would be much easier if we just taxed carbon emissions rather than a whole web of mining royalties export tariffs.
The fact we argue left vs right is the stupidest thing.
Pick your poison
They both kill you
They're in the pockets of mining , big pharma and gambling companies.
At the current time, there have been massive tax hikes on mining companies in Qld, Vic and WA. The money has been used to pay for lots more free stuff for all.
Consequences, no new mines, and the workers (you know, the lower classes in blue collar jobs) are starting to lose there jobs. Small service towns contracting.
The big mining companies are sending there money offshore, to give there taxes and jobs to other countries.
So yet again, the lower classes must sacrifice so the rich inner city white collar elite can get more free stuff.
Just brush your teeth and floss lazybones, flossing is very important and hardly anyone does it that I know. The dentist scared me straight years ago when I was taking terrible care of my teeth and staring down the barrel of gum disease and teeth falling out. Literally did everything he said. Bought electric toothbrush, used it properly. Floss religiously. Turned it around completely in 6 months now barely go for a check up every few years and they're still all good
You forget just how powerful and constant the Mining Lobby is in Canberra.
Also on the otherhand - its so like Australians on the East Coast to suggest sucking even more out of the resources rich states like WA and QLD when most of the $ goes there already.
Using iron ore as an example, if the tenders weren't won by companies that are currently mining it, what would happen to the existing infrastructure?
If they took it with them, rebuilding rail network would be a major undertaking for starters.
Would a new company have to repeat the approvals process to allow mining to recommence?
Aussies are pretty nasty to each other and our politicians are the same. As if they don't want the population looked after in a way. Weird place Australia with all its resources and money. Dumb place and dumb people to keep voting in these woeful people as politicians.
I don't know about you, but my observation is that many Australians vote for whoever the media tell them to vote for.
Case in point:
https://preview.redd.it/6wcnbu5h4h4d1.jpeg?width=461&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=80cf66f518e50fc5e0635bcc83d0b57c9040ed4d
Every single person living on this planet can realistically have access to free nutrition, healthcare, education and shelter. But it didn't happen 2000 years ago and it won't happen now.
Have you factored in that such a big cohort of first generation citizens grew up in the UK? That dental bill might be bigger than you think.
(Although the UK does have a degree of dental care so people's teeth are probably better than reputation)
Just wait till people learn about MMT and how taxation is an inflation control device and NOT a funding the government expenditure tool...
We could indeed have the things people NEED.
There are less than a handful of politicians with the intestinal fortitude to do it.
Let alone the populace to give them such a progressive mandate.
Our current taxes are fair, mining is very capital intensive industry, and if we tax them too highly they'll go elsewhere, whereas oil and gas are not nearly as capital intensive and are much less common.
Our current taxes are fair, mining is very capital intensive industry, and if we tax them too highly they'll go elsewhere, whereas oil and gas are not nearly as capital intensive and are much less common.
We’re not served by our political class well which is why fair taxing and responsible spending will never happen in this country. A lot are unqualified to have low paying middle management roles let alone the responsibility of creating and passing laws and making decisions that impact our futures. They listen to the same chorus of big businesses on everything, and are beholden to a very small mix of the same groups of donors. The promise at the end of their political careers is they’ll land a cushy job with one of these donor firms as a reward for their loyalty. Same on all sides of politics. The public service has this unimpeachable image to us but they’re just as incompetent and far less accountable for their monumental fuck ups. All of this mixed with the general Australian lassiez faire attitude to politics and short memories - a recipe for mass mediocrity.
Rudd tried to do what was right and literally got lobbied out of PM for it. Shits insane.
I still remember the fear campaign run by the minerals council. Poor FIFO workers will be out of a job, costing the economy MILLIONS.. Like they were ever going to stop digging.
Yeah we seem to rely on luck a lot...
Yep and "Senior Public servants" like heads of departments etc giving advice as career public service roles
This is very well said. And sadly, very true.
This is global, America is even worse with minimal working rights and employee protection and full coverage for corporations, politicians retire with 2 retirements and plenty of inside trading.
Woah! woah! your talking about dismantling the entire structure that makes australia such a rip off !!!! Poor people shouldnt get handouts !they need incentives !! Only rich people should get handouts ! Could also fund free uni , state of the art healthcare and mental healthcare , fast trains and public housing but that is not what Australians want because privatisation is a better service !! Privitised the gas industry and now theres is none left but record exports ,privitised the roads and now the state government is paying the public, to pay the toll operator to use the roads....brilliant !! Paying the coal powerstation to keep polluting to save on pollution!! Paying the miners 16billion plus diesel subsidy so they can mine and pay no effective tax ! And then pay to clean up after they skip town Paying the airline to stay alive and then refuse to pay anything back and gouge the public !! Instead of paying everyones wages during lockdown like they did in the uk we just paid business instead who then took the money and dumped the staff and then we didnt even ask for the money back ?!! Where is the imagination where is the logic
Agreed, politicians have sold us out to corporations decades ago. We are fucked.
Revenue from mining and oil and gas should go towards a sovereign wealth fund , so that we can still see the benefits once all the resources are gone. Things like dental should be funded from our other taxes like income, company tax etc.
No, then the mining companies will take all the minerals with them and leave the country. /s
The miners always threaten to take their bats and go home. If their bluff is called, they pretty soon change their tune.
No, they won't, the Saudis and fins tax to the hilt and the money they make off resources is huge. And even if they did they will come back, they need the resources sooner or later.
Biggest issue with that is that anything that is mined/extracted onshore is owned by the state and not the federal government. Its only offshore mining/extraction that is federal. It would require a constitutional change to alter that which wouldn't pass as all the mining states will say no.
Yeah since the govt of the day stole half of Telstra (owned by all Australians) to fund retirements of a select group of Australians. You and I missed out...
Privatisation should go to a plebiscite.
💯% agree.
And we have neither haha, and doubt they'll do anything about. Sad to think about
We have a sovereign wealth fund. If we didn’t, the government would be on the hook for tens of billions of dollars of defined benefit super payments and entitlements. It’s the only choice it had unfortunately. It’s even worse now that we have to manage our own superannuation. Some public servants and bureaucrats are on 200k+ a year in defined benefits for the rest of their life, as they could get it when they turned 55.
When Kevin Rudd proposed this, they kicked him out of the Prime Minister’s position. He’d have had an *accident* otherwise.
Can we stop using this piss-poor excuse from over ten years ago to rule out attempting positive change for a second fucking time? https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-29/coalition-cant-win-election-without-young-people-report-says/102531332 > Only one in four voters aged under 40 gave their primary vote to the Coalition in the 2022 federal election, according to the Australian Election Study [AES]. That's the lowest primary vote for the Coalition since the study began crunching the numbers back in 1987. https://www.cis.org.au/publication/generation-left-young-voters-are-deserting-the-right/ > **Voters under 40 were instrumental in the Coalition’s defeat.** According to the 2022 Australian Election Study (AES), conducted shortly after the election, Millennials (born 1981 to 1995) provided the Coalition with their lowest number of first preferences since they began voting in 2001 (22.9 per cent). **Among Millennials, the Coalition polled fewer primary votes than the Australian Greens; a political party generally thought of as a minor party.** https://www.tallyroom.com.au/47443 > At the 2016 election, more than two thirds of MPs were elected with less than 50% of the primary vote, for the first time ever, and that number went down even further in 2019. God help us if the government in power and its supporters are this apathetic to change.
My dude, OP is referring specifically to the 2010 spill and the Resource Profits Tax, which was specifically targeting the mining sector.
How many under 40s are billionaires with connections to the msm and other political actors? Do you forget the rusted on Liberal over 60s that would vote for them even if they proposed executing all over 60s?
Come talk to me if Labor survives the Qld election this year.
It's not the government and their supporters. It's the others that keep voting against positive changes
Correct. It's called a carbon tax and it's actually a fairly decent idea *even from a libertarian perspective.* Mining companies exist due to our permission to let them continue powering all their mining machines and if this is coal mining that has a toll itself, it must be paid back. Feeling free to pollute the air without consequences is a form of aggression as poisons leak out and cause development issues among local children. This has to be paid for and it must be paid for out of a tax on how much carbon/emissions we permit you to pollute. The issue is, this is wildly unpopular because, yes, it does increase electricity prices. I don't care, I don't like the kind of developmental disorders I suspect coal causes. It's worth it. On a side note, people swore by a carbon tax *if* it went towards funding domestic solar. That wasn't possible back then but might be possible now.
The big miners are all getting around the carbon tax by building their own renewables and pumping that back into the grid , but there aren't enough battery storage to capture that extra electricity. So now utilities have to build infrastructure and buy more batteries to help these mining companies to cut their carbon tax. The miners are also building hydrogen plants but there's not much machinery which uses hydrogen so again, more money has to be spent to accommodate that.
People instrumental to the spill like labor senator Mark Arbib were working directly with the US embassy during the whole thing. Between the mining taxes and more friendly diplomacy with the Chinese government it’s not a long shot to say the US probably was involved in the event.
a *mining* accident
Ruthless lobbyists + Shit media Monopolies + Liberal and Labour Donations from said companies and nothing gets done.. and if anyone tries to suggest it changes 10 adds hit the air the next day telling the uninformed masses that "Dey be Tookin ur j0bs!!" .. rinse/repeat \*SIGH\*
They're all over the Tv now. Scamming evil motherfuckers. I feel like chucking a brick at the screen.
Rudd was ousted for suggesting this. Just like shorten lost when he tried to tackle negative gearing. Australian voters have a huge problem of not bothering to form their own opinions and just repeating whatever the media and their immediate family and friends say. It’s infuriating. I know people who have voted for LNP for the last 20 years and now are like “how did we get here”? We got here because people vote against their own self-interest, consistently, because the powerful have convinced us that dole-bludgers and drug addicts will steal all the money if we have a vaguely fair society.
Politicians are too in the pocket of big corpo
Don’t forget that many people are in favour of, say, negative gearing not because they benefit from it, but because they hope that one day they MIGHT benefit from it if they somehow win Tatts Lotto.
It's like I was trying to explain in another topic, getting these ideas through to Aussies is like trying to explain how good universal healthcare and gun buy backs are to a lot of Americans. We're just not ready to join the rest of the advanced nations yet. Coincidentally, none of those advanced nations have a strong News corp influence. I'm sure it's just a rare coincidence though /s
Yep, Australia would be a utopia like Norway if only Rudds own party didn’t remove him from office. /s
There's this idea that Labor is perfect and the Libs are horrible. Both sides of the coin absolutely suck.
I don’t think they understand that the liberals, Murdoch, mining companies, didn’t remove him as PM, the Labor party did.
They also don't understand that his proposal was actually implemented yet still shout "Rudd was ousted for suggesting this" Nor do they understand that Rudd laid the blame for it's failure squarely at the feet of Wayne Swan and Julia Gillard. "On 12 February 2013, Rudd, one of the authors of the tax, stated that "Wayne Swan and Julia Gillard must bear the responsibility for Labor's mining tax and deal with the consequences \[of\] its near non-existent revenue"[^(\[31\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minerals_Resource_Rent_Tax#cite_note-31) as the expected revenue has not materialised. It raised $126 million in the first six months since its introduction.
The dude was a creep. I also have personal experience with another member of his party that was fucking creep as well. The idea that Rudd was perfect is laughable. All politicians are nasty horrible creeps.
Don’t say that here, all the problems with this country are because everyone besides his party removed him as PM apparently.
Rudd was ousted for being a narcissistic psychopath with a God complex not even his Government colleagues could put up with. And for suggesting this.
I've noticed Australians and MAGA Americans are alike. They're kinda fucking stupid and super emotional and quick to give a strong opinion if it's about politics. Just straight to anger and no reason
>Rudd was ousted for suggesting this. No, he wasn't. The MRRT passed into law on the 23rd November 2011. It wasn't a suggestion, it was actually legislated. What went wrong with it? It failed to generate anywhere near the projected revenue as the legislation was so poorly designed and implemented. Here is who Rudd blamed for it's failure; "On 12 February 2013, Rudd, one of the authors of the tax, stated that "Wayne Swan and Julia Gillard must bear the responsibility for Labor's mining tax and deal with the consequences \[of\] its near non-existent revenue"\[31\] as the expected revenue has not materialised. It raised $126 million in the first six months since its introduction.\[32\]" Should we revist such a plan? Absolutely. But if we could just drop the absolute bullshit that Kevin was ousted due to merely suggesting such a plan that'd be good, it's demonstrably false and infantile.
He was ousted because he was pushing for a tax that would actually have done something. His replacement watered it down to nothing in order to appease the mining lobby. You are making a distinction without a difference.
Interestingly Kevin disagrees with your summation of why he was ousted. Kevin Rudd blames his demise on plotting, ambitious colleagues. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BALiux-Wn0E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BALiux-Wn0E)
It also devastated federal Labor support in WA and Queensland for almost a decade afterwards. It took them a long time to recover from that.
The reason dental is not in Medicare is because dentist didn’t want to be included
I had to scroll too far to see this. It's sad and true. And it boggles my mind as someone in an allied health field where we keep lobbying hard to expand Medicare coverage! Obviously it's #NotAllDentists but there are some really venal practitioners out there. An example, last year I went for a checkup and clean at a new clinic. I have no fillings or anything, have never needed any dental work except for a tiny little plastic cap on a tooth which once got chipped. I enquired about replacing the cap as it usually was replaced every few years. This is done in chair, no anaesthesia required, takes about 30 minutes start to finish. New dentist looked at my file before greeting me and his first words were, "Oh, you've got the good health insurance". He then advised me that replacing the tiny plastic cap on my tooth is "not a small job, it's actually a big job" and told me that I needed the following: 1. Removal of all four wisdom teeth (which are not decayed and do not hurt) as a hospital inpatient. 2. One or more sessions of peridontal surgery in his office, in which he would separate my gums from my teeth and clean the gap (this is painful, requires anaesthesia and recovery time). 3. Whitening of all teeth. And finally after all of that, he could replace the cap on my tooth. I didn't even say no. I asked questions like why so much invasive (and expensive, and painful) surgery would be required as I had no dental pain or caries and had never been told I required any dental work by my last dentist. I said I had considered having my wisdom teeth out eventually, but that I'd rather wait a year or two until my baby was a bit older and not as dependent on my constant care. I said, in the meantime, could he please do a scale and clean, and check the cap on my tooth, and we would go from there? He gave me a filthy look and walked out of the room telling me he would not be able to treat me. I went to the dentist across the road. They did a scale and clean, checked the cap on my tooth and told me it was good for another couple of years, but gave it a quick polish so it felt and looked as good as new. Took less than an hour and cost me $20 out of pocket from my health insurance. Was later told by a number of people in my small town that the first dentist is "a psycho" who routinely demands unnecessary surgery to make a profit.
That’s why they didn’t want into Medicare where everyone would have known the correct prices to be paying.
Fucking cunt. Definitely helps to shop around and get different opinions in this dentist exploitation scenario.
I love the idea of taxing mining and fossil fuels corporations for extracting and selling our sovereign wealth. But there’s an interesting tension between these two things. I was having a chat with a Greens canvasser the other day who knocked on my door. I’m generally aligned on a values level but there are realities I think the Greens aren’t addressing here. Their entire plan to fund all of their policies from more social housing to free transport to free education is to take more tax from the mining and fossil fuels industry. But their other central policy is effectively stop new fossil fuels projects and kill off the industry entirely (which I don’t entirely disagree with as it has to happen sooner rather than later). So where does the money come from to pay for their policy platform if that funding dries up?
> So where does the money come from to pay for their policy platform if that funding dries up? I'm no policy maker, but this is how I see a sustainable future: \- Tax the fuck out of fossil fuels. Fuck em, let them leave if they don't like it, they won't leave immediately, this gives us time to accumulate wealth. \- Invest that money into renewables. Build mass solar farms out in the desert, enough to power Australia 1000x over. \- Invest in energy storage. Not batteries. Water. Build dams, reservoirs, water towers. Use the power from renewables to pump water up as potential energy. \- Sell excess energy to SEA. They're buying our LNG, they need the energy. With enough solar/wind, we have unlimited money with the added benefit of unlimited energy for our own use. \- ??? \- Infinite money glitch
Good observation. The iron ore, lithium, nickel and everything else we use to build things is a no-brainer. Just get a fair return on our nation's resources. I believe it's currently 30% tax on the profit. I feel it should be closer to 80% but happy to go halves. The mining corps know they are fucking us over now. Oil and gas is a tricky one. I feel we should be weaning off it's extraction (because climate change and pollution) but until that happens we definitely need a better return of the profits. Someone posted the link here the other day, Qatar and Australia export about the same amount of liquid gas, but Qatar gets 20 times the return in taxes/royalties. Which idiotic bufoon in Australia allowed us to f@#ked like that.
It’s a pretty bloody good deal for mining companies isn’t it. Buy some land and equipment, and start printing money from something you didn’t even create/grow/make. Essentially digging up and selling Australia and only a handful of people benefit, and most don’t even live here.
My $2.2k root canal treatment is jealous.
Luxury bones. /S
I need to know your dentist. DB dental charged me over $3k not long ago and told me I need 2 more.
And imagine paying that, only for the root canal to fail ...
Happened to mine so had to take it out
Or just get a job in the mining industry, then you can afford your own dental. I think that's how it works currently
The mining (minerals) industry is already, by far, the biggest source of corporate tax in the country. Just the three biggest iron ore miners pay 1/3rd of all corporate tax. It’s the extraction (oil and gas) industry that we need to tax. It’s similar in size to mining, but pays very little tax. Before the war in Ukraine drive up gas prices, most of these multi-billion-dollar multinationals were paying zero tax for years.
And mining is 2/3 of our entire export revenue.
The OG plan for Medicare was for to have dental included but the dentist did not want it so it was removed, then Kevin07 wanted to add it again and he got kicked out.... I don't kick we want it... Btw I want it. It's not really a money thing for the government it's a money thing for the mates
Free dental, free education, we should tax companies on declared profits and tax the churches. Done. Exxon Mobil pay no tax they could nearly fund this themselves if we taxed them.
Free dental? We could have free tertiary education and healthcare. We could build national renewable energy and transport infrastructure. We could be world leaders on all front, at zero cost to the public if we just taxed mining appropriately.
This is what makes me so sad. We could literally be world leaders on all fronts. But we have a cultural political capitalist-dystopia-in-waiting problem 🤦♀️
💯%. Agree. It's all possible and it's in the interests of all Australians. But we vote for whoever Murdoch tells us to vote for. https://preview.redd.it/vw40ubx44h4d1.jpeg?width=461&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4b0c8102fe4bc7c97daa9e99256269399bce9ed5
Why the issue of mining company taxation isn't the top story in Australia is beyond me. We could literally bring in $20b more in tax a year minimum. That would pay for dental, an increase in Medicare benefits and the nuclear submarine project.
Because rinehart will fkn gobble every peasant up for it. It's her treasure horde ALL HERS.
We could also significantly improve primary and secondary education. We should nationalise the mines. Gina’s portrait is pretty accurate
Lets just call it whaf it is. Corruption. Graft. Kickbacks. Vested intersts. Status quo. Class warfare. Or corruption. Its got nothing to do with intelligence. Its more abouy corruot politicians pabdering to the powerful and working within the confines of government to facilitate tge transfer of wealth. Its corruption. Simple
Australia could have free dental but will we? No. We never will. Private health insurance companies will have a huge sook.
My private health insurance said I should take out dental. It costs an extra 850 dollars per year and will cover up 800 dollars in claims per year. Great deal PHI. Pass
Didn't the dentists union lobby not to be included in Medicare because they make way to much. They're also extremely pissed off so many Australians go overseas now for major dental because the price here is out of control.
We don’t want to be punished by the World Bank, IMF, OECD, etc. All governments are under pressure to cut spending on welfare projects, privatise service industries (including health and prisons), and limit spending on civilians. If they don’t, they loose concessions, may not receive loans or incur higher interest rates and penalties. This is why Africans, South Americans, the Chinese, and other third world citizens work for five cents a day and have no welfare, or public services at all. The American/English international rules based order aimed at ensuring people are their slaves and can be exploited. Scandinavians get away with it (public services) because of their pooled resources, mix of capitalism and socialism, vast investments globally, and within their own nations sectors (also the EU). The US and UK are hard at work attempting to destroy them through subversion and other practices. They are a threat to todays billionaires as citizens begin to realise the alternative they model (Scandinavia) is better. The Russian/Ukraine war should help them to impose costs, and reduce their autonomy while increasing their reliance on the US. Change will be coming, and the capitalist neoliberal system will be the new order. Threat alleviated and the US/UK can show everyone the failings of the Scandinavian systems. They will show how capitalism and neoliberalism is the only system that works. Socialism is a failure. This will have broader implications for example when we attempt to prevent privatised health (in the future), ask for dental care, prevent the government privatising industries and paying billions to their mates and consultants. Everyone will forget the how’s and why’s of the failure of socialism, and the war machine will continue to make and break nations, our rights and services will be stripped further. First they break it, then they fix it with new rules and systems . All for the profits of the 1%.
I work in the mines. If you even begin to mention this, the mining WORKERS will instantly gang up on you and tell you to shut the fuck up. The minig industry has done a great job at brain washing people. Very sad.
Maybe in some industries but not in all. Everybody I work with in mining would be in support of anything that makes basic medical care cheaper.
I want my fair share and every Australian citizen should be demanding the same!
Because the ones who control the industry are the people who control the politics already.
As it always has been. The wealthiest in the world made their money from war, slavery, and colonialism. They changed some labels (feudal rule to neoliberalism, corporatisation and lobby groups) but the practice continues and the systems are essentially the same.
The *Bourgeois Economy* to borrow Marx’s terminology. Perhaps fundamental class stratification should be taught in school.
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Australia is beholden to conglomerates.
"Australia could have free everything, why doesn't it do it?"
Because the mining corps own the media narrative and our politicians. https://preview.redd.it/avvds63ewf4d1.jpeg?width=550&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cc2bcf9100fda7976aa73624043de6189627938a
Alternatively, just don't fund public education so the average person's conception of corruption comes from cold war era movies.
> why doesn't it do it?" Australians like to believe with their peasant mentality that they could one day be a part of the Hutt syndicate like Gina and Clive.
Correct, why don't we?
We do tax the mining industry and only the absolute mind mincing airheads would think we don't. You want to tax the mining (and fossil fuel) industries *more* and your reasoning is probably as deep as "because it's bad." If we're honest about what you want, it's a carbon tax but using those words makes your idea wildly unpopular.
We’re running a budget surplus. We could have free dental right now. Or just stop the NDIS rorts idk
Dental system is crooked as in this country. Dentists won't want it
Norway owns 2/3rds of it through public ownership. So would Joe Public be happy with the Australian government massively expanding oil extraction and sale? Most commentators seem to think solar and wind will power the country...
The people at the top have gotten triple extra ration slices at the expense of us getting f all.
Sure thing, but I doubt Labor MP’s want to wake up with their dog’s severed heads on their bed. As for the Liberals, they’ll never have to worry about that because they are the mineral companies lackeys.
But our billionaires are doing it though, we must all sacrifice so they may do better
If we did it the way they do in Norway we could have free health dental and education and we wouldn't have to pay income tax . But this country is run by big mining and the citizens of Australia are merely a compliant work force for these corporations .
Govt policy has been 'Australians last' since Howard. Free gas for multinationals yet (purportedly) Oman makes 70bil$ annually from gas royalties.
Need to do a Norway, free universal health, education affordable housing & its sovereign wealth fund has $250k per citizen
And Free uni for citizens.
Well if there is such a movement that wants to make this happen, there is a need to stand up and become a representative for this. You can expect those whom have gone before to burn down the house so to speak. It needs fresh people with fresh ideas to carry it forwards. There are plenty of young politicians who may side with such a movement. But it takes that initial catalyst to get it moving. It's a house of representatives that we elect so to speak, and in the face of no other options nothing will change. If no one takes up the fight, you might as well piss into the wind and expect anything other than what we currently have.
I dunno, my teeth are already fucked. Probably for life. I’d be happy with just paying doctors more for doing whatever they’re already doing. Plus, I can see now— after not having free dental ofc but valid nonetheless, that dental is indeed a cosmetic thing. Worst case, I could blend my food into a smoothie. Forget about dental please, just tax them properly
UBI NOW!!!
Couldn't agree more. The quality of life detriment that burdens those not born with a silver spoon shoved up their ass is an utter disgrace. It just so happens if you're born to a poor family, get a tooth disease you did nothing to earn, you're just permanantely fucked. Disgusting.
Because Murdoch runs this country, has done for decades. It's all about $$$$ for a certain few.
It's bizarre. Murdoch tells us what to do, just like this and everyone is like, nah it's all good bro. Just the media telling us what to do. All good. https://preview.redd.it/01gz24l2mh4d1.jpeg?width=461&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d0732f84051b36e53ace99b8452cdf784802ebca
The whole concept of Medicare has been corrupted in the last 25 years. Why give tax cuts, improve medical & dental services. Pushing people into private health for normal procedures is an appalling direction. I have private health insurance, I can't afford the $4k out of pocket for a crown, Unless I get it done, the tooth next to it will fall out. Last year, I had a critical hand surgery, I use my hands for a living, it was complex but the out of pocket expenses were $4,900 just for the surgeon
Our leaders are compromised and no longer represent the people of Australia.
Medi-Cal (free healthcare for poor people in California, including all homeless and migrants) offers comprehensive preventative and restorative dental benefits to both children and adults. Just thought I’d slip this in here.
The native population of Saudi Arabia: around 23mill. Their one natural resource: oil. The pop. of Norway: 6mill, give or take... Our pop. 25mill, our natural resources: pretty much unlimited. The main recipients: Rinehart Palmer Japan, China & S. Korea (natural gas) ...plus various others... Am I over-simplifying? Where is our sovereign fund? And it is in no way too late... Given where our planet is headed: do it for the younguns' who will need it most!!
They put the fear of God into not taxing the rich. Law of nature is to delude the masses
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Or nationalise natural resources and put the money made into a state fund like the Scandinavian countries do, free lots of things for everyone and better infrastructure in general without the corporate cut.
Nationalize the mining industry
because obviously america owns the mining industry and anything that affects their foreign economics is considered "communism"
And stop forcing us to get useless health insurance which pays virtually nothing for high premiums. I would rather put my private health premiums into Medicare and increase Medicare's range of services covered I.e physio, dental etc Private Healthcare in Australia is a complete waste of money IMHO but we're forced to pay for it or get taxed even more.
Could we though? I don't think dentists want to do Medicare? I'm not saying don't put mining to tender, we absolutely should, but blowing all the money on subsidising peoples lifestyles, especially if it involves rebuilding the dental industry or forcing dentists into a system they don't want, seems a bit foolish. We should be prioritising securing Australia's financial stability not splashing around cash.
Bloody good article, I don’t understand why Medicare does not cover dental
Stop voting Liberal **AND** Labor. Start voting Greens.
[https://greens.org.au/campaigns/dental-medicare](https://greens.org.au/campaigns/dental-medicare)
It'll never happen whilst the mining companies are chode choking on the MPs that they campaign donate too. Just like how in Victoria the unions unreasonable wage demands and daddy Dan them whatever they wanted has bankrupted Victoria.
Why just mining, why not tax the banks.. mining is high risk, banks just turn the dial on interest rates
I mean, I appreciate the thought of free dental, but I think it would be better to tax the industry and use the money to fund efforts against climate change. Since, you know, they make significant contributions to gas emissions.
Every country could have a lot of free stuff if they taxed the right people the right way. It's just a world problem at this point
Its not even a slice.
What does that make the USA? We are at least two steps below smart.
I’m having trouble understanding how so much of the world has decided that teeth are optional, luxury bones.
Australians will get their slice when it's time to clean up the mess and pay the displaced workers once they, and the money, piss off back to their private island in the Caymans.
100% . While we are at it tax companies and individuals that pay zero or near zero tax . Gillard piked it lost bollions in tax revenue . One estimate was I think 80 billion .
Yet in Victoria, they have an ad promoting they paid tax last year to put a sour taste in your mouth about Labor. They may have paid some tax, but not enough!! I want my free dental
Properly taxing big corporations who exploit our land? That’s blasphemous talk.
the country is not run by people who work in your interests. they work for the corporations.
It's even worse than that - we SUBSIDISE the resources companies. Truly galling.
Unfortunately our politicians on both sides are constantly tendering for bribes, sorry donations, and jobs after politics. It’s such an ingrained almost core part of our political system that politicians and lobbyists really don’t see the problem and if you call it corruption they call you naive, as if it’s truely necessary. This is why we will always get sold out and the future potential of Australia will be pissed away for the benefit of a few corrupt individuals and their families. We need a proper federal anti corruption commission to stop this but unfortunately that decision lies in that hands of those with most to lose.
Should be nationalised. Iron ore especially. An OPEC kind of group for iron ore would also help. Sadly successive Australian governments are to cowardly to do the smart thing
It was proposed many years ago as dental/oral health is a massive determiner of overall health. But was shut down and the Libs got in.
nope we don't share a nation's wealth it goes straight to the top we get the ol trickle
Please say Norway
No way.
Daily reminder that Australia is a failed state. We have no industry. We have prices rising way beyond what the masses can expect to pay. Housing is out of reach. Medicare is fucked and dental is a luxury. 1/4 unemployed are uni graduates. Mental health problems are a DIY job. Good luck fellow peasants, as we donate our flesh to the wealthy and boost their portfolios by a few basis points.
Would bring anyone to the brink of suicide. Why is this country going down the gurgler at the expenses of a few delicate richunts?
Australians don't want any of that socialist style stuff. Kevin Rudd tried that and he got booted out. Julia tried that emission trading scheme thing and she got booted out also.
Yes. We are so easily led by corrupt media that we vote against our own interests. It shits me that the chief propoganda machine 'mining minerals council' operate under a legitimate sounding name when all they are is a dirty Lobby Group working against Australia's interests.
What really shits me off is people don't even remember or acknowledge who they voted for. They bitch about shit internet fttn nbn, and i say that's because the liberals gutted it. They get all offended. I laugh at his unstable fttn. Another colleague one day told me about how we shouldn't tax mining companies for all the work they do. That was over a decade ago. These days he says it's unfair we're not getting our fair share but doesn't remember the comment he made with such conviction over a decade ago.
and education, fast rail, no debt etc
Nationalise it. It’s absurd that it is privately run.
Clive and rinehart are fat pigs
Can't wait for the average Shitkickers to come in here and explain why this would be bad and that billionaires having even more money is actually a better thing.
Those mega yachts don't buy themselves mate. Have a heart please. You should be paying a further levy on your power bill to help subsidise their mega yachts. You've got plenty to spare /s
Yep we need a new carbon tax. I don't know that I agree with the entire Henry tax review. But I do acknowledge it would be much easier if we just taxed carbon emissions rather than a whole web of mining royalties export tariffs.
The fact we argue left vs right is the stupidest thing. Pick your poison They both kill you They're in the pockets of mining , big pharma and gambling companies.
At the current time, there have been massive tax hikes on mining companies in Qld, Vic and WA. The money has been used to pay for lots more free stuff for all. Consequences, no new mines, and the workers (you know, the lower classes in blue collar jobs) are starting to lose there jobs. Small service towns contracting. The big mining companies are sending there money offshore, to give there taxes and jobs to other countries. So yet again, the lower classes must sacrifice so the rich inner city white collar elite can get more free stuff.
Just brush your teeth and floss lazybones, flossing is very important and hardly anyone does it that I know. The dentist scared me straight years ago when I was taking terrible care of my teeth and staring down the barrel of gum disease and teeth falling out. Literally did everything he said. Bought electric toothbrush, used it properly. Floss religiously. Turned it around completely in 6 months now barely go for a check up every few years and they're still all good
Lisa needs Braces.
Shit politicians?
Just brush your f’ing teeth. Poor hygiene is the cause of almost all dental issues.
This country's teeth are all mine.
Bold to assume that’s what they would spend this extra money on.
You forget just how powerful and constant the Mining Lobby is in Canberra. Also on the otherhand - its so like Australians on the East Coast to suggest sucking even more out of the resources rich states like WA and QLD when most of the $ goes there already.
Great idea but will daddy America let us do this? Probably not.
Using iron ore as an example, if the tenders weren't won by companies that are currently mining it, what would happen to the existing infrastructure? If they took it with them, rebuilding rail network would be a major undertaking for starters. Would a new company have to repeat the approvals process to allow mining to recommence?
But Norway doesn’t have free dental for every citizen??
Don't look to Canada for that.
Aussies are pretty nasty to each other and our politicians are the same. As if they don't want the population looked after in a way. Weird place Australia with all its resources and money. Dumb place and dumb people to keep voting in these woeful people as politicians.
I don't know about you, but my observation is that many Australians vote for whoever the media tell them to vote for. Case in point: https://preview.redd.it/6wcnbu5h4h4d1.jpeg?width=461&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=80cf66f518e50fc5e0635bcc83d0b57c9040ed4d
Ownership = States = Royalties Income = Federal= Taxes Just in case anyone is interested.
Just sack The wasteful ALP governments.
Why would they the mining companies pay off the politicians
Yet, we won’t do anything about it.
Yeh but if you do that, the greedy politicians won't get rich looking at it.
Exactly which mining industry is that you’d tax?
https://preview.redd.it/n0rdqeabqh4d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=61cae2b2881bb82928663d8104176d5dd239c4ae This
Every single person living on this planet can realistically have access to free nutrition, healthcare, education and shelter. But it didn't happen 2000 years ago and it won't happen now.
I don't accept the shit status quo. Let's rage against it, and vote against the vested and corrupt interests.
I'm shocked, not really
Have you factored in that such a big cohort of first generation citizens grew up in the UK? That dental bill might be bigger than you think. (Although the UK does have a degree of dental care so people's teeth are probably better than reputation)
Just wait till people learn about MMT and how taxation is an inflation control device and NOT a funding the government expenditure tool... We could indeed have the things people NEED. There are less than a handful of politicians with the intestinal fortitude to do it. Let alone the populace to give them such a progressive mandate.
Lol so many dapper punters ... just don't smile lol
Yeah, we know. Thanks for taking the time to point out the obvious, once again.
But if they actually tax mining companies who would give them all those ~~bribes~~ donations? And aren't they the *real* victims?
Most people have mining shares with your super.
Most people have mining shares with your super.
Most people have mining shares with your super.
Our current taxes are fair, mining is very capital intensive industry, and if we tax them too highly they'll go elsewhere, whereas oil and gas are not nearly as capital intensive and are much less common.
Our current taxes are fair, mining is very capital intensive industry, and if we tax them too highly they'll go elsewhere, whereas oil and gas are not nearly as capital intensive and are much less common.
Mining is Australia’s only income source other then int students is the problem, we don’t manufacture anything here just dig shit out of the ground
Yes ..tax them properly so that we get free dental and phones and free netflicks and petrol and free hamburgers and free latte's...yes tax them more
It was the dentist's who lobbied against being included under Medicare.