BARVENNON.COM
14th September 2005
AUSTRALIAN DIARY
- GOVERNMENT -
The first question to ask of anybody with whom you wish to discuss
government, is "What is
Government for?"
In more detail, the question to answer is: "Is government's purpose to maintain and
regulate
resources and essential services and manage foreign relations, or is it
there to equalize income by providing transfer
payments to those who are needy."
At the moment, our Federal government seems to be there to provide
transfer
payments on the basis of need (which they do not think of as buying
votes, but as "compassion",)
although admittedly the incumbent L-N coalition is less guilty of
compassion than is the
opposition Labour. That is not to say that our government does
not maintain armed forces or regulate mining and the electromagnetic
bands. But more than 50% (probably nearly 75% if Parliamentary
perks were removed) of the national Tax dollar goes either directly or
indirectly to welfare for those adjudged "needy". This includes
transfer payments (most benefits - sick, aged, most of child support,
unemployment), most of health expenditure (public hospitals), most of
education (public schools, TEAS) and most of the other
departments (drought relief etc). Our government can never
collect enough money to
provide perfect equality of income, although a recent estimate has been
that about 65%
OF AUSTRALIANS OBTAIN A DIRECT GOVERNMENT TRANSFER PAYMENT.
On the other hand, if our government paid only for military, foreign
affairs, regulation of
bandwidth, regulation of minerals and environment and maintaining a
census of citizens, then income and
corporate taxes would probably be unnecessary. More than
sufficient funds could be obtained from sale or rent of national
resources.
Why unnecessary? Well costs and the Public service will be much
reduced, and many publicly
owned income resources are under taxed or do not pay sufficient
rates. As an example: Rates on residential land are far too
low. Some of that prized Sydney Harbor waterfront is rated at
less than $5,000 pa. Commercial TV & radio stations are paying next
to nothing for the bandwidth that they use. On the other hand,
the GST is totally iniquitous, and the petrol tax and registration tax
(based on a percentage of fuel cost & vehicle weight) should be
flat taxes used to
provide a free, high quality road system, not the ripoff percentage of
fuel price and piddling small weight tax that does not nearly recover
for the damage done by the huge, road destroying mammoths. (The
government should
throw in
free public transport for people while they are at it. It would
certainly reduce ticket compliance costs, and sufficient profit could
be had
from rail transport.). As for petrol taxes
escalating as the price of petrol increases, that is pure robbery.
If we consider the public utilities. Water collection should be
encouraged on a per household basis, and advances in photoelectric
technology and energy storage will, within about a decade, render both
power generation and power reticulation uneconomic & (to a large
degree) redundant. Photoelectric cells and wind turbines will
provide energy to a storage device (such as, for instance, a flywheel
or battery) which will provide energy during dark & calm
periods. On the other hand, efficient communications might well
rely upon the copper network for the foreseeable (20 years) future.
In fact, I suspect that if these things were done, (abandon transfer
payments, and concentrate on defense, transport, civil management) then
increasing the defense budget by 20%), there would be a surplus of up
to
$10,000 per head..
Of course we could give this surplus to our politicians for them to
decide what to use it for. But my
suggestion would be to pay it back (equally) to all people. In
fact,
because our politicians would now have fewer responsibilities, I would
suggest that we reduce their rorts (remuneration, super, free
transport, allowances etc etc.) and give that money back to the people
too.
-
MALCOLM TURNBULL -
Turnbull MP (Woollahra) has again been in the news. He
suggested that the government
provide a free email address for every Australian.
Congratulations, Mr Turnbull, an excellent idea.
While you are at it, why not provide a free savings bank account (for
all
business between government and the individual, such as payment &
refunds of taxes, collection of pensions, payment of stamp duties, and
other government fees and charges.
The
accounts could be exclusively accessible from the internet, and based,
in the first instance, on hospital birth/death records combined with
immigration/emigration records. (I would suggest fingerprints,
voiceprint and DNA identification as well.)
I suspect that
the (competitive) contract for providing such services would probably
be less than the total bank fees that the various Australian
governments pay financial institutions for the services that they
require. I would also suspect that the value of (interest earned
by) the
money on deposit would also more than pay for the service provided.
Such a savings account would guarantee the security of the savings of
ordinary Australian punters, since the federal government would be the
only borrower from the savings bank. Interest could be paid at
the same rate that the Federal government is prepared to pay for it's
own public sector borrowing, Chequing accounts, credit
cards and
other risk management accounts business which would pay higher interest
on
borrowing and lending of funds would remain the exclusive preserve of
corporate financial institutions.
Of course we would have to educate everybody on the use of the
internet, and several hours internet access should be readily available
to everybody each week at publicly operated POPs. For those who
could not, under any circumstances, operate the internet, the default
would be automatic transfers from the government account to existing
accounts, and alternative (public library, social security etc)
assistance for access to email.
Once each person has free, government secured, government provided
email and savings bank accounts, we could all vote by email. In
fact, maybe we
could instruct our elected representatives, without the possibility of
fraudulent
polling, on just how we think s/he should vote on any legislation that
comes
before parliament. Something along the lines of the
online opinion polls operated by the communications (TV, radio,
newspaper) websites.
Eventually, we might not even need representatives to govern us.
Whoopee.
-
TELSTRA -
After the first (T1) tranche, selling Telstra was always a conflict of
interest. On the one hand, the government has got to kid the
buyers that it is not going to regulate the copper, (which is, of
course, half of Telstra's value) so their investment is as good as
money in the bank. On the other hand, unless it does deregulate
the copper, then Australian consumers are never going to get a
competitively priced copper network. And in my opinion, copper is
going to retain it's value, no matter what technological advances are
made. This is because, like real estate, there is only so much
bandwidth, and although we might use what we have more efficiently, God
is not making any more bandwidth. The alternative is copper.
This is the issue that Trujillo has brought to our attention. If
the copper is deregulated (and I have no doubt but that, the minute
Howard has ridden himself of Telstra, it will be regulated that Telstra
must give free access to it's copper at a maintenance price), then
Telstra is only worth something between $2.20 and $3.50. Those
who bought T1 & T2 will not be happy. Those who bought T3 on
ambiguous promises will probably not be happy.
On the other hand, perhaps TLK (The Little King) might decide that he
should do
what I suggested and give the copper (local loop) to local
government. This will be popular, although it will cost the
federal government somewhere between $5 - $30 billion (depending on
what they expected to get, and on how much municipal councils can be
persuaded to cough up). It will also solve nasty
little problems with the selling price of T3 with respect to the price
of T2.
15th September 2005
Parliament enacted a sale of Telstra bill last night. I suspect
that in a few weeks, Telstra will be worth a punt. Then wait for
TLK to do his magic, and up it's price. At all costs, however,
sell before T3 is foisted onto the public. There is one caveat -
If TLK promises on his mother's grave - no, on his preselector's head
that he will never force
Telstra to share it's copper at cost, then it might be worth holding on until
the next election.
- GAZA -
In the past few days, the Israelis have handed government of Gaza to
the Palestinians.
Palestinians have burned the Synagogues that were left. So much
for the supposed Moslem "respect for other religions" theme.
Not that we Christians always show a Christian attitude. Our past
shadow prime minister, currently Foreign Affairs minister, scion of an
Australian political dynasty has been living up to the label put on him
by journalist Liz Hayes. (I think it was her). In an interview
she called him "the cream". When questioned by her (dubious)
interviewer, she explained "rich & thick".
Foreign minister upside Downer congratulated the Indonesian Government
on sentencing to death some of those who plotted the Jakarta Embassy
bombing. Quite apart from the unsavouriness of approving of the
taking of life, I believe that he was premature, and it was improper of
him to approve the death sentence on behalf of Australians. In
Australia we have not executed anyone for decades.
The PLO and Hamas are both claiming the credit, Hamas because
they have harrowed the Israelis into leaving, the PLO because of their
negotiating
skills. Perhaps it is a bit of each. It was probably
uneconomic for the Israelis to hold Gaza while Hamas was keeping
the army there on a war footing, on the other hand, it is unlikely that
the Israelis would have handed control to those who had sworn to
eradicate Israel.
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