Uneducated economist here, but why do the Libs (I'm looking at the NSW LNP ATM) like selling public assets to build more infrastructure instead of going into further debt? Govt debt is a lot different to personal debt so the same rules don't apply.
I understand their S&P ratings may go down which means their interest rate may go up but I see govt debt as justified if it means increased infrastructure spending whilst still owning all of the public infrastructure.
Agreed, American investment in Murdoch media has paid off dividends already, look at the hundreds of billions(!) in decades long AUKUS submarines contract we have been locked into feeding the American economy.
All these while the Fed government are wrangling over a few billions more to fund social housing and Medicare properly. Interesting to note even mainstream media like ABC doesn't report this obvious big gap in future funding.
It starts from an ideological perspective - State should keep out of anything that involves running a business. But the fail is they are all selling of what are effective monopolies.
But really it’s grabbing money because they spend too much.
It’s a bit of a grind (easy to skip pages) but Ayn Rand’s book in the late 1950s ‘Atlas Shrugged’ advocates a strong form of this that is apparently a popular read amongst entrepreneurs like Elon Musk etc. I’m not an advocate, but she makes some valid points and it helps understand the thinking
If you have a look at where our tax money goes you may find that you disagree with different parts - but the pie is too big and it seems to be easier to loot peoples money through tax than to cut spending. Selling bits of public infrastructure avoids the hard discipline of convincing the electorate to fund the latest excesses….
They sell public assets to corporate buddies and then when they leave politics they get given jobs on the Board of Directors on those companies is one of the reasons not already mentioned.
The LNP doesn't care about you or your lot in life as a citizen. Their key job is to protect corporate interests and the wealth of those already rich. Unless you have a net worth of at $10-15m, if you vote for the LNP, you are voting against your own self-interest.
Agreed, I would watch where the RBA's Philip Lowe heads to for a post-retirement cushy advisory role after his RBA policies increased profits for his banking buddies.
That's how the world works at the top levels. The main currency are trust and favour, just like the Mafia. They are not taxable.
And both LNP and Labor are the same. The illusion of choice. It's like giving a choice to a Toddler: do you want a carrot or a cucumber?
People are easily deluded so they think a wolf in a sheep skin is better than the real sheep. In general, an unknown dirt poor MP candidate from unknown party will have no chance against a candidate from major parties with significant political powers and connections.
Sure they maybe more competent in running the country, but that means they are also more competent in acting against the people best interests too. And competency can be learn, just give the sheep a chance! It does not mean that the elected sheep will not collude with the wolves, so people need to watch and track their elected representative like a hawk!
It would be smart and benefit everyone if we could bring back Government ownership and management of assets. In VIC Dan has said he’ll bring back the SEC (State Electricity Commission) which is a start but we need more - I’d love for there to be a campaign to return the running and management of the Suburban Rail Network to the Government. It makes no sense to prop up foreign companies with millions of dollars whilst they run the system, assets and infrastructure into the ground and export all the profits overseas does it?
We should consider changing the name of federal government debt to private sector savings. I would think we would be more comfortable with that.
It looks better on paper and panders to their base who don't understand that government debt is different to personal debt.
Have you ever sent them an email or called them and asked them why?
And instead of funding veterans healthcare properly, the Libs decided to commit hundreds of billions of debt over decades to buy American submarines. Is the LNP aligned with American rather than Australian interests?
GPs asks veterans to pay for treatment, saying funding too low
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-15/act-gp-refuses-vetera…
They like to sell it cheap to their mates and give the gst to other states (and complain they have to). They also want the government small and the rich to stay rich.
Buy Telstra Shares now. NBNCo will be sold to Telstra in 10 years.
Just punting.
The Liberals do the wrong things right.
Labor does the right things wrong.
After a lifetime of seeing it over and over again, I've given up on both of them.
Selling valuable and essential assets helps make their mates and themselves rich. Australia is a deeply corrupt country so odds are if you were a politician you would sell the country's fine china and rent it back at a steep loss too.
I read in the NYTimes recently that the right-wing (US conservative/GOP/Republicans - equivalent to our Australian Liberal/National Party) when in power cut taxes for billionaires and take out huge loans
then when the left wing (US Democrats) get voted in and start to repay those outrageous loans, Republicans decry the Democrats for 'wasteful spending'
see how that works ? first screw the economy for private advantage, then blame those trying to fix the damage you created.
AFAIK in Australia people like Angus Taylor have used secret offshore tax haven trust funds and private equity to (secretly personally benefit from and) give taxpayer-built and funded organizations like water, electricity, public transport, Sydney Airport to their mates to make huge profits from by increasing fees charged to taxpayers like you and me.
left wing (US Democrats)
lol
"Instead of going into further debt"
Uh which government were you watching? They funnelled hundreds of millions of dollars to private industry while decreasing taxes.
It's funny… even though I'm an ALP stooge, when people say this I remember when Anna Bligh raped our public assets circa 2012 here in QLD. I believe NSW Labor did the same thing before the 2011 election and got raked over the coals for it, eventuating in losing.
How else are they going to pay for things like the $550 million war memorial upgrade or the $1 billion they spent to get a seat on the UN security council? Both ALP and LNP are wasteful and only talk about raising taxes or selling assets instead of being more accountable.
Selling land to the Chinese government for $1 so they could build a military airport. What was that all about? No wonder we didn't get spy balloons like the rest of the world. No need to.
I think you need to distinguish between state government debt and federal government debt. The main difference is the federal government prints its own currency. The state governments don't.
So while it might be true that the state governments can borrow cheaply because ultimately they have taxation powers and will be good for the debt, they can't simply print more money to pay it off, so they have to be "somewhat" disciplined.
Debt is expensive, even with government and especially at the state level. Really though it is ideological differences (both Labor and Libs suck donkey dongers at running things). But Liberals is all about small government (when done right) as government is horribly inefficient at running things. I don't think I have ever seen a government run entity that is efficient or cost effective. Market forces tend to make for better run entities in the private sector (obviously lots of exceptions to that rule as plenty of private sectors screw the pooch too, just not as often as government). basically debt is a boat anchor around the economy and the tax payers.
Both major Australian political parties are fundamentally flawed ideologically: But what do I know? I'm just a silly little monkey heheh ooh ooh aah aahh!! 🍌🐒
Yes, we need communism!
jv out here cheerleading for the Libs; keep up the good fight and make sure you have your week's talking points handy.
It should be illegal for governments at all levels to sell off public infrastructure. If you need money to finance more infrastructure spending, either cut middle class welfare or increase taxes on the rich (you know, the people who live on the waterfront, own an expensive yacht, have multiple investment properties and are constantly flying overseas in business class).
that really is an ideological view. Many of us will say it should be illegal for governments to create infrastructure and departments that are better done by private enterprise. Goverment suck balls at running anything liberal or labor.
And using that logic, if a government cant govern, we can outsource this countries governance to china at $10 an hour.
only if you fail at basic logic. Government is for infrastructure projects that are too big or too difficult to get private sector to do. Government are arse at doing them efficiently, but they do have large buckets of funds without the need of financial justification. Governments also provide the incentives, the regulations and governance around needed infrastructure.
@gromit: Thanks for the textbook definition of what Government should be able to do.
The useless turds that make up our coles/woolies style government wouldn't break a grape in a food fight.
Thanks again for sharing your definition of what governance in utopia would look like if we didnt have sh!t stains behind the wheel.
Irony in this statement given that China style of governance has lifted a billion people out of poverty within a few decades without starting any major global conflicts.
What is our goverment even good at other then giving the illusion that us citizens has a choice every 3 years?
Are you a communist since you like high taxes? Do you know the majority of our taxes will soon be paid to fund American submarines and future proxy wars?
Regardless of either of the major parties its cyclical, privatisation to making it public, etc etc
Aren't they just future proofing their position on that private companies board when they lose their seat eventually.
I'll look after you now so you can look after me later.
Yes I would look at where Philip Lowe of the RBA goes to after his public career, most likely a cushy advisory role in a banking or private equity firm.
Debt is good, not sure why the government don’t want to increase services and benefits to the suffering battlers that are doing it tough.
Public assets should never be sold and all infrastructure should be nationalised for the benefit of the Australian people, and the ones that disagree with this obviously have never experienced poverty or homelessness first hand
Debt is good
Not if the money is spent inefficiently and there is minimal cost benefit.
Also, the debt needs to be serviced and interest rates are going up.
Defaulting payments risks being forced to sell further assets to pay off loans.
It also makes our credit rating worse, increase costs further with zero benefit.
Not to mention that if people weren't stupid with their money in the first place, wasting it on new cars and the latest and greatest new thing, they wouldn't have debts and wouldn't end up not being able to buy food and being homeless. Seriously the amount of completely uneducated morons in this country shocks me. I mean I know a few people would have issues because of abusive relationships (needing to move house and the like), but a lot of people are just stupid and have no budgeting skills what so ever.
This includes some people I know with Government jobs so its not just the bogans, I blame our education system spending too much time on woke bullshit.
They need to get back to the basics particularly in primary schools, leave the woke BS for secondary as an elective for those that give a shit.
That way everyone else can focus on actually going about their daily lives.
Asset recycling is an euphemism for privatisation.
Many SOEs are very profitable, because they are monopolistic.
This makes them extremely attractive to big businesses, Warren Buffet calls this the 'moat'. And govt assets have massive moats around them.
e.g. NSW privatised the NSW lands registry.
If you buy/sell property in NSW, you HAVE to deal with the lands registry and pay fees. There is no choice. It's literally a cash cow. Businesses love cash cows. A private consortium bought it, automate and computerise the lands registry services, called it PEXA and voila… rake in the cash.
Why would the Libs sell a cash cow? It's called retirement planning silly.
When these politicians screw up eventually and end up voted out because of some scandal, they'll need a cushy place to land. What better place to land than their mates land registry consortium as a member of the board with a nice $200k pay check and only have to meet 2 times a year.
I have no doubt Dom P. has a nice corporate role lined up in his back pocket.
Lets see where his predecessors ended up.
Gladys B. - resigned due to corruption inquiry - Optus $400k/pa not including bonuses + corp perks
Mike Baird - resigned to spend time with family - NAB $886k/pa not including bonuses + corp perks
John Barilaro - resigned for a 'new beginning' and then went on to apply for a $500k/pa New York government posting that he 'created' as trade minister. He did get the job until the media caught on.
It's also called reaping the return of investment, running for an office is not cheap you know.
The problem is, most humans will think of themselves first, and others later. It's only human.
If we vote for normal candidates who can't even think about their own "retirement planning", then they are not smart enough to govern us!
Underrated comment. Politicians and high-level public servants should be barred from taking up private enterprise roles because the possibility of corruption while in public service is so great!
The Libs have tried to stop the creation of a Federal Corruption Commission for a decade precisely to prevent corruption oversight into their post-political life.
Despite what many people with obvious hatred of Liberals, the true reason for Govt selling GBEs is down to not wanting to expose themselves politically while running these GBEs. An example if Medibank/Telstra were still in public owned, every single year they had to increase premium or sacking people (think of T1/T2/T3 etcs), the Govt would be exposed politically and voters can be influenced by that.
Right now, Australia Post is a bit like that. Used as a political football.
Another aspect of this "why not get into infinte debt", is that Govt debts are funded through selling of bonds by traders/banks. Australia and especially Victoria are fortunate that there are still dumb people wanting to sell their bonds to the country at lower interest rates. Smart people like those in UK when ex-PM Elizabeth Truss decided to go into expansionary policy funded by debts, were insisting on higher interest rates if Govt wanted to borrow more money because they saw the country as much riskier to lend. As happened in UK, the Govt needed the fund to pay for those policies, and hence started into buying into the bond market to restore confidence up to a limit.
https://www.afr.com/chanticleer/three-lessons-for-investors-…
More debts = more interest to pay. Higher interest rates = even higher interest payment to make. That is why debt reduction is important. But I guess it's too late for that.
The same reason other governments like to build stadiums, gift money to corrupt nations, monopolise roads or enforce compulsory medical treatment - the kickbacks and favours are incredible.
With the Liberals it's nice clean corruption whereas with Labour it is grubby like Barrilaro's links to Coronation Properties and Alemadinne family oh wait he was Liberal too …
So, it's a big club and your not in it - every new immigrant is a new fridge from Gerry, a new apartment from Triguboff and a new Toll Road by Transurban financed by the banks - sell the common-wealth.
Labour love to create make-work left voting public servant jobs to satisfy their Union donors.
Australia has devolved into voting for the criminals least likely to steal from you; rather than what's in the best interest for the Country.
We need a Federal Corruption Commission asap, and it has to have the powers to investigate past corruption as well (LNP Peter Dutton is against a a Federal Corruption Commission investigating past corruption crimes, but for what reason??).
The problem though is the likes of Murdock and nine media with their friendly reporting towards the liberals. No party is perfect but it’s the reporting that’s letting Australians down.