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Peter Costello: The Heir Unapparent

The 10th anniversary of John Howard’s ascent to the Prime Ministership has not surprisingly seen increased scrutiny of his Deputy, Peter Costello.  In part, Costello has drawn this attention to himself, with the announcement of his international tax beauty contest, as well as a recent foray outside his portfolio responsibilities.  The punditocracy was unimpressed with both efforts.  His speech on citizenship has drawn this response from Greg Sheridan (or at least the sub-editor’s paraphrase):

This shallow, lazy, lucky and opportunistic Treasurer does not deserve to run the country.

On tax, Sinclair Davidson notes:

Apart from some tinkering at the margins, he has done nothing…The top marginal tax rate of 47 per cent has remained unchanged since Paul Keating was treasurer…By calling for a review of the basic facts of the tax system, Costello has shown himself to be years out of date and uninformed.  Costello has relied on three arguments to stymie tax reform. First, that Australian tax rates aren’t that high; second, that the tax take is small; and third, that tax reform would only benefit a small number of Australians. Each of these arguments is false.

Alan Wood, by contrast, attempts this rather lame defence of Costello:

this time Australia has avoided the boom’s inflationary consequences, and “there are grounds for optimism it can avoid a subsequent bust”.

If we do, it will be because of the better economic policy framework Costello has played an important role in putting in place.

Peter Costello has cited ‘Reserve Bank independence’ as one of his greatest achievements as Treasurer.  The August 1996 exchange of letters between the Treasurer and RBA Governor was in fact a mere codification of existing practice.  In 1996, the RBA was already doing what the Treasurer now claims credit for.  This fell well short of the comprehensive statutory reform of central banking institutions seen in other countries during the 1990s.  Along with the US Fed, this has left Australia with one of the most antiquated frameworks for monetary policy governance among the major industrialised countries.

posted on 02 March 2006 by skirchner in Politics

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Costello may be lazy and lucky but you have to appreciate the constraints he’s been operating under.  When your superior is constantly trumpeting middle class welfare as his greatest achievement what hope do you have of reforming the tax system?

Some quotes this week from our glorious leader…

“So much of what I read about gigantic tax changes involves sweeping away the family tax benefit system. Well, that is not going to happen on my watch.”
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/happy-john/2006/02/24/1140670265324.html?page=fullpage


“In fact, one of the great myths of all of this is that somehow or other we’ve made the poor poorer.

The rich have got richer, there’s no doubt about that, but commensurately the poor have improved their position as well.

And most of the analysis, particularly of our Family Tax Benefit system, shows that the greatest beneficiaries have been the low and middle-income families, including in particular single parent families.”
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2006/s1581618.htm


Howard also said something along the lines of “the family tax benefit is my greatest achievement” at the 10 year love-in last night.  I can’t find the transcript of speech, I’ll post his exact words when I do, but it was shown on all the TV news bulletins this morning.

You have to feel for Costello.  When you have this idiot telling everyone that a massive expansion of welfare for the middle class is his crowning achievement, what can Costello possibly hope to do?

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  03/02  at  01:23 PM


Howard was at it again last night, telling us all that no-one is going to interfere with his middle class welfare:
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2006/s1582732.htm

KERRY O’BRIEN: But there is strong pressure for reform, isn’t there?

JOHN HOWARD: But I don’t think it’s a big issue. People would like further tax relief. There’s always a debate as to whether people really want tax reform versus paying less tax. I think it’s mostly the latter. It’s quite hard to bring about a further radical change to the taxation system without interfering with the existing Family Tax Benefit system and I can tell you Kerry, we’re not going to interfere with that, because it’s very much at the core of the help we provide to Australian families in the middle. That’s important to me from a policy point of view. It’s also something that the public supports.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  03/03  at  02:02 PM



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