Mr Palmer rejected the suggestion that it was a conflict of interest for him, as a politician with mining interests, to be negotiating on the repeal of the mining tax.

"We all pay tax, does that mean that members of Parliament don't vote on income tax bills?" he said.

Mr Palmer said his party had only reached a deal with the government on Tuesday and as recently as Tuesday morning talks were continuing over sticking points.

Labor and the Greens attacked the government for what Labor Senator Penny Wong called "a dirty deal".

"We have another deal… another dirty deal where they try to ram through the chamber just like we've seen before," she said.

Greens Leader Christine Milne called the move to gag debate on the amended bill "contempt for the Senate".

"I can't remember a time when we had amendments dropped on the desk with no attempt to explain what they mean," she said.

Senator Cormann rejected accusations the government was rushing the legislation through.

"This is three hours more than the previous government spent on the whole debate in the first place," he said.

Senator Cormann said the deal  would benefit the economy.

"A strong mining industry... is good for Australia, good for the economy and it's an important part of generating more jobs," he said.

Senator Milne called the deal "an absolute disgrace" that would hurt the super entitlements of millions of working Australians.

"This is exactly what the Australian people were concerned about at the prospect of a mining billionaire coming in here."

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/palmer-united-party-and-government-reach-deal-on-mining-tax-20140902-10bdqd.html#ixzz3C9rAxa1O


I would remind readers that one of the biggest miners in Australia, Glencore, pays so little tax on a profit of about $15 billions, one needs a microscope to see it.
The Mining Tax was designed to remedy this unsavoury situation somewhat...

The millionaire Palmer United party leader had presented himself as the protector of the little man – determined to keep three of the programs that had been “paid for” from the mining tax and that the government had promised to axe along with it.

He said he would never agree to the axing of the low income superannuation contribution – $500 a year paid by the government into the super accounts of people earning less than $37,000 a year – or the schoolkids bonus – a means-tested payment of $420 for every primary school child and $840 for high school students – or the income support bonus – a $200-a-year supplement to help pensioners get by.

But in fact he did agree to their abolition, just delayed by three years. And the trade-off was that he also agreed to freeze for seven years the superannuation contribution paid by all employers to all employees.

That was also another big broken promise for a government that had pledged “no further adverse changes” to superannuation – although the prime minister (who takes a black is white approach to these questions) insisted it wasn’t a broken promise at all because he had promised a two-year freeze and a seven-year freeze was pretty much the same thing.

Not really, according to examples provided by Labor. A seven-year freeze would mean a 25 year old earning $55,000 will have $9,215 less in retirement savings by 2025 and a 35 year old earning $75,000 will have $12,977 less.

And as for that hero of the little guy, Palmer, he saved the $500-a-year low-income super payment for someone on $37,000 a year for the next three years, but cost them so much in superannuation payments that in the long term that they’ll be $10,000 worse off by 2025. Great deal, Clive.

Perhaps it’s because, like some in the government, Palmer is not so keen on compulsory superannuation in the first place.

Abbott once described compulsory super as “one of the biggest con jobs ever foisted by government on the Australian people”.

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/02/clive-palmer-pattern-repeats-proving-costlier-than-ever

 

I am now waiting for Sir to be added to Clive Palmer... Sir Clive Palmer "for service to the Abbott's nation"... A con job by shit people...

Australian workers will be "demonstrably worse off" under the Federal Government's deal to scrap the mining tax, the superannuation industry says.

The Government announced yesterday it had reached an agreement with the Palmer United Party (PUP) to get rid of the controversial tax, whereby the schoolkids bonus would be retained until after the next election and super increases put on hold until 2021.

Treasurer Joe Hockey said the deal - which will cost the budget $6.5 billion - was not the Government's "preferred option" but was still a "damn good deal" for the Australian people.

However, Industry Super Australia chief executive David Whiteley said the freeze was not good news for Australians.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-03/australians-worse-off-under-mining-tax-deal-super-industry/5714754

 

The government proposed the delay, with no warning or consultation or discussion, as an “offset” to claw back budget savings, but it was no great sacrifice because the Coalition has never been an enthusiastic fan of increases in compulsory superannuation.

The Financial Services Council, headed by former NSW liberal leader John Brogden, said this would reduce Australians’ retirement savings by $128bn by 2025. The government insisted this was not true, because workers would get the same amount of money in the form of pay rises “in their pockets” every week.

But this argument is obviously baloney. While it follows that legislated increases in superannuation will probably reduce pay rises in that year, and it follows that if the superannuation rises don’t happen, employers will be better able to afford pay increases, it does not follow that employers will top up pay increases by exactly the same amount as they would have paid in super.

Business leaders freely admitted this.

The chief executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Kate Carnell, said it was absolutely true that employers who were not required to pay increased compulsory superannuation would have greater capacity to pay higher wages, but the correlation would “obviously not be linear”.

“Many factors come into the mix when employers and employees negotiate over wages, including general business conditions, which have been subdued, but obviously if employers don’t have to pay the extra money in superannuation they will have greater capacity to pay higher wages … [but] in the end employers will pay what they can afford to pay,” she said.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/05/senate-machinations-too-difficult-to-decipher-ask-yourself-who-wins

 

There is a strong collusion between Palmer and Abbott... The crux of the matter is that they HAVE TO appear like fighting cat and dog (or Laurel and Hardy) to lure the public unto believing that the result of all what Abbott does is :

a) not a given. Thus we believe there "genuine concerns" for the little guy in the mind of Roly-poly....

b) that at least the Abbott disaster is negotiated and spread over time to minimise our alertness to the disaster.

c) that it's our best interest to be shafted with a stick up our butt because it could be worse...

 

Of course all these fixes are illusions of goodness from the neo-fascist Abbott camp. Australia is going down the gurgler at speed unimaginable before hand on all fronts, including the morality and moral of this country being more and more corrupted as the day passes... Abbott is the grand priest of hypocrisy and soft ruthlessness, typical of sociopath. You be the judge in your fair heart. One of the problem of HIS ATTITUDE is that in order to survive, a lot more people will have to become sociopath or full-blown psychopath... May you resist the temptation and Abbott's guidance. 

See: the double cross of australian politics...

 

The con here is that Abbott will get ALL OF WHAT HE WANTS, except it will be spread over time to soften the blow and reduce our understanding of what's happening... It's like the frog being boiled slowly... Palmer here is the foil that makes the cooking slower but cooked, we're being done over... 

 

Instead of running, Abbott and Palmer together make the torture look like a bondage picnic... Be aware, this is a con...

 

 

 

If you seriously believe that ridding the country of a minerals tax will boost income and create jobs, it stands to reason the same logic should be extended to the petroleum tax, writes Ian Verrender.

The mining tax is dead!

As the nation rejoiced over the removal of yet more potential budget revenue last week, basking in the reassuring glow that foreign investors can now reap the benefits from Australia's mineral export boom, one can only hope the Government turns its attention to eliminating the one remaining impediment to national development: the dreaded Petroleum Resources Rent Tax.

The what? That's right, the petroleum version of the mining tax, the one that's quietly been in operation for a quarter of a century.

In the interests of consistency, surely its elimination must be a national priority.

Ever since the Minerals Resources Rent Tax was introduced in July 2012, the mining industry has thundered and roared that it would drive every miner out of the country, that it would kill the goose that laid the iron and coal egg.

If you seriously believe that ridding the country of a minerals tax will boost income and create jobs, it stands to reason the same logic should be extended to petroleum.

So where are the anti-resource-tax storm troopers now, those willing volunteers eager to campaign for the removal of what surely must be an equally evil and useless impost? Missing In Action.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-08/verrender-why-stop-at-the-mining-tax/5726276

 

See toon at top...

 

Table 5 of this week’s Treasury document shows that in just seven weeks between the May budget and June 30, expenditure on ‘legislative and executive affairs’ blew out by a staggering $68 million.

That was not Labor’s doing.

Other unjustifiable spending by the Abbott Government includes its punitive border protection regime and an $8.8 billion grant paid to the Reserve Bank that it didn’t ask for and doesn’t need. On the revenue side, equally damaging failures include abolishing the carbon and mining taxes without adequate replacement income. Those were not Labor decisions.

This week’s proof of the debt expansion follows confirmation after the May budget that Abbott and Hockey had more than doubled the projected budget deficits over Labor’s levels.

ABC Fact Check unit showed in June that government decisions increased the deficits for the four-year forward estimates period by more than $68 billion.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/abbott-and-hockeys-debt-and-deficit-disaster,6943

 

Prime Minister Tony Abbott is being urged to "correct" his Treasurer Joe Hockey, who has said the Labor opposition should pass stalled budget measures if it is "honest" about supporting the Iraq mission and its associated costs.

Mr Abbott on Thursday was asked several times whether he backed Mr Hockey's comments, but he declined and instead praised Labor's leader Bill Shorten for his bipartisan approach to the military action against Islamic State extremists.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/treasurer-joe-hockey-pressures-labor-to-pass-stalled-budget-measures-to-pay-for-iraq-war-20141009-113eox.html#ixzz3FdVSNSPt

What a lot of rot... Go and play in your sand box, you CONservative twerps... And Bill, don't give them a cent! Otherwise you're just another hypocritical psychopathic twerp... 

 

Greenpeace has accused the mining lobby of "breathtaking hypocrisy" in its attempt to silence environmental groups by stripping them of charitable status when minerals and oil industry groups are themselves bankrolled by tax-deductible contributions from mining companies.

Greenpeace is calling for the terms of reference of the parliamentary inquiry into tax-deductibility of environmental groups to be expanded to cover groups such as the Minerals Council of Australia and the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association.

The inquiry has heard donations from the public to 600 registered environmental groups cost the Tax Office about $45 million in forgone revenue last year – about 3.5 per cent of all tax deductions to charity.

A Fairfax Media investigation has found  various mining lobby groups conservatively receive $50million a year from miners –  which can be deducted as a business expense under the Income Tax Assessment Act.

Documents reveal the top 10 executives at the Canberra-based Minerals Council were paid an average $340,000 each to push the interests of their industry.  

The Minerals Council received a total $16.6 million from miners, according to its 2014 annual report, while the  Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association received "membership fees" of $6.3million, plus $5 million in industry contributions to its "our natural advantage" advertising and lobbying campaign.

In its submission to the inquiry, the Minerals Council called for environmental groups that fund trips to mine site blockades, pay court fines of protesters and brief activists to be stripped of tax-deductible status.

Greenpeace chief executive David Ritter said it was hypocritical that the miners were seeking to "extend their unholy power over the Australian political system" while seeking to dry up donations to groups that fight for the environment.

 

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/miners-hypocritical-on-tax-status-says-greenpeace-20150612-ghm235

 

 

See toon at top