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Re: State Elections

Reply #75 –
Quote from: northernblue – on
🤣

If any “journo” wants to have any credibility they should refrain from calling the democratically elected leader of the state as a dictator.
Agree...Megalomaniac is a far better description, Dictator tends to legitimise his right to absolute power.

Re: State Elections

Reply #76 –
🤣
Let’s go BIG !

Re: State Elections

Reply #77 –
Someone quoted Terry McCrann  ;D
It's still the Gulf of Mexico, Don Old!

Re: State Elections

Reply #78 –
Andrews had us Victorians  in debt before CoVid and his latest budget is just the man in the street paying for it as per usual.
Using payroll tax to pay off debt is old school economics where big business just pass on the cost to the consumer.
Companies like Wesfarmers will just raise their prices so we all pay more for everyday items , high fee charging private schools now hit with payroll tax will raise their fees sending some kids back to a already over crowded public system.
Disposable incomes in Victoria are now  around seventh out of the eight states.
It's been an unsustainable ponzi economy based on high debt, high immigration numbers fuelling business and poor exports. I'd expect Andrews to do a Hardwick and bail sometime in the future because times are about to get real tough for Victorians...

Re: State Elections

Reply #79 –
Victoria has been run to the ground :(

Re: State Elections

Reply #82 –
Quote from: ElwoodBlues1 – on
Problem is the opposition are equally inept...its worrying for the future.

Possibly more inept - the Coalition government that Dan replaced was mired in inertia and did bugger-all but, at least, it didn't drive the state into its current peril.

Maybe the Labor party will improve if Dictator Dan folds his tent and goes away.

Re: State Elections

Reply #83 –
Quote from: madbluboy – on

Now, I have to say, you’ve got to be impressed by treasurer Tim Pallas’s skill in applying oodles of lipstick on a fiscal pig.


He even tried to smile. 

BTW - I like the term 'fiscal pig' in this context.

Re: State Elections

Reply #84 –
Quote from: RiverRat – on
Possibly more inept - the Coalition government that Dan replaced was mired in inertia and did bugger-all but, at least, it didn't drive the state into its current peril.

The previous Liberal government 'managed' the economy by spending it on absolutely nothing.  No point having no debt while trying to live in a city with 1950's infrastructure.
This is now the longest premiership drought in the history of the Carlton Football Club - more evidence of climate change?

Re: State Elections

Reply #85 –
Im surprised people surprised at project cost blowouts and record debt under a Labour government
2021-Pi$$ or get off the pot
2022- Real Deal or more of the same? 0.6%
2023- "Raise the Standard" - M. Voss Another year wasted Bar Set
2024-Back to the drawing boardNo excuses, its time
2025-Carlton can win the 2025 AFL Premiership
 

Re: State Elections

Reply #86 –
Don’t worry about debt - the Liberals will just sell everything that isn’t bolted down and even the things that are and they’ll have more than enough to splurge on their mates. Surely the transport system can be privatised and a few schools can be sold off again.

Re: State Elections

Reply #87 –
Then again, it could be worse than Labour or Liberal, could be Green.
2021-Pi$$ or get off the pot
2022- Real Deal or more of the same? 0.6%
2023- "Raise the Standard" - M. Voss Another year wasted Bar Set
2024-Back to the drawing boardNo excuses, its time
2025-Carlton can win the 2025 AFL Premiership

Re: State Elections

Reply #88 –
A more nuanced, impartial critique of the Victorian budget by Daniel Ziffer:

Victoria's budget takes an almost aggressive approach to reclaim revenue, and it's not without risk

Chutzpah. The Yiddish word is all about audacious swagger — and confidently pushing into things even if the elements are against you.

You'll know people who've got it: the ones who breeze effortlessly past bouncers into the nightclub, the person who talks staff into the best table in the restaurant, the one that glides past barriers with the air of someone who was meant to be there all along.

This year's Victorian budget is all chutzpah.

It takes an almost aggressive approach: You don't like it … whatcha gonna do about it?

Targets

Consider some of the targets of increased taxes: mega businesses, private schools, absent foreign landlords and holiday-home owners.

A collection of people many may view unsympathetically after the pandemic turbo-charged asset values and corporate profits.
The government is trying to win more revenue to pay down eye-watering COVID debt while continuing to concrete its way to making Victoria — and particularly Melbourne — work as the population surges.

So big business will pay a COVID Debt Levy, something they can plonk on top of the Mental Health Levy slugged to them a few years ago.

Businesses that have a wages bill of more than $10 million nationally will pay an additional 0.5 per cent on their payroll tax for the next ten years.

Those who have a payroll bill above $100 million – that's big household names – will pay another 0.5 per cent on top of that, all up raising $3.9 billion in the next four years.

With corporate profits soaring, they'll whine about it … and pay up.

It's just 5 per cent of employers. The biggest.

Are Bunnings, Woolworths or Telstra going to quit Victoria over this? Unlikely.

High-fee private schools will no longer be exempt from payroll tax.

What are they going to do? Move to Adelaide? I don't think so.

And the tax-free threshold on land tax will be lowered dramatically.

It used to kick in at $300,000 for the land portion, now it's down to $50,000 ensnaring 380,000 new properties, some of them apartments.

The key part is that it's only for homes the owner doesn't live in, being investment properties and holiday homes.
It might push up rents — already rocketing — but for most it'll be a $3.50 a day impost on owners.

Foreign investors who don't live in their properties will also pay more, a 4 per cent levy up from 2 per cent (bringing it into line with New South Wales).

Again, is that enough that you'd sell up when there's been an 84 per cent lift in land value in the past decade?

Dangers abound

The budget isn't without risk and impact.

It's trimming the public service back to pre-pandemic levels, "without affecting frontline services".

Booting 3,000 to 4,000 staff and no-one noticing? Good luck with that.

And despite new taxes, the state debt keeps growing.

But it's three years out from an election, just after the government won more than three quarters of the seats in the lower house.
This is not a typo: in their third consecutive election win, the government got one more seat than four years earlier.

By the next election in 2026, the opposition will have only held power for four of 27 years.

The Andrews government is banking that it can grow its way out of problems.

With Melbourne newly crowned as the biggest city in the land and more people arriving after the COVID shudder, they might be right.

Outlook

To sell the dream, the government does a lock-up where journalists read the budget books and ask questions of officials and Treasurer Tim Pallas before he reads the speech in Parliament.

It gives journos time to digest the documents and check the winners and losers with their colleagues.

From the 45th floor of a Collins Street skyscraper you can see the department store Myer, which dominates Bourke Street Mall — probably the busiest patch of land in the state.

The huge building stretches along a massive section of the street, leading to the Victorian phrase "more front than Myers", a complement to the Yiddish chutzpah.

This budget has both.

It's getting groups like big business and multiple home owners to pay up.

The government has made a calculation that they'll bleat about it, fruitlessly lobby against it, then pay it.

Whatcha gonna do about it … leave?
It's still the Gulf of Mexico, Don Old!

Re: State Elections

Reply #89 –
Big business, landlords, private school boards don't lose they just pass on the cost to consumers or sack staff.
Reality is the mug in the street ends up paying more and the cost of living just goes up. Victorians are seventh out of eight states for disposable income...
I'm just waiting for Dan to sneak another pollies pay rise through parliament during the middle of the night....