Many Australians believe that we pay too much tax and yet we are at the lower end of tax paying nations globally per capita, according to the data. There are many lies dumb Australians believe like this. Another is that all politicians are full of shit and they are all the essentially the same. This belief makes democracy worthless and brings us much closer to the alternative, which is authoritarianism. If a majority of Australians go around disparaging politicians and therefore democracy – what do you think will happen? We are heading in this direction and have been for some time.
“Australia ranks 9th lowest for all taxes and, when adjusted for social security contributions (SSCs), 7th lowest for income taxes out of the 38 nations in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
While income tax in Australia as a proportion of GDP is just 11.5%, it represents more than a third (39%) of total tax collected each year.”
Fictions Fools Believe Downunder
The paradox with the taxation data is that we pay a lot of income tax in comparison to other countries but collect much less tax revenue from corporations and the wealthy. For some crazy reason we, as a country, fail to tax the mining sector to the level of nations like Norway and, indeed, we subsidise the fossil fuel industry. Is this fair? It does not make sense democratically or economically. Australians have been lied to by our governments and those in these industries, representing the foreign owned corporations mining our natural resources. Many Australians believe that these multi-billion dollar companies need these subsidies to operate in our country and that they would go elsewhere without them – this is crap. Australia is a great deal for these huge multinationals and exceedingly generous to the point of stupidity. Australia is a safer place to extract minerals than Africa or South America. Australia is a much more comfortable place to operate and do business in than most others. Plus, there are local billionaires like Clive Palmer extracting mining right leases and fees from international miners to their benefit. The rentier economy is flourishing downunder. Gina Rinehart eats our heart out!
Neoliberal Assumptions In Our Economic Thinking
The lies dumb Australians believe are many and well established. Why do we have an absence of competition in almost all of our sectors? Why do we have a couple of massive corporations dominating each of our markets? Woolworths and Coles, the big 4 banks, a couple of giant insurers who use lots of different names, Qantas and Virgin, the 4 big accountancy and consulting firms, News Corp and Nine Fairfax, Telstra and Optus, private health insurers, the gas industry, and the list goes on. ACCC, where is the competition? ASIC what have you been doing? Aussies are so dumb that they take pride in these big Australians! No competition means no consumer power and price gouging high inflation has been the result. The RBA, our central bank, is stuck in the thinking of the 1970s and 1980s to the detriment of working Aussies.
Disengaged Aussies Missing the Main Game
Australians, despite being compelled to vote have disengaged from the political and democratic debates that matter. This has been encouraged by some politicians who feed the punters cultural enragers like stuff about transgender folk and refugees, blowing them out of all proportion. Aussies are making voting decisions on matters, which do not really affect them and ignoring where the money is really going. It is a con and a scam. This has been going for some time, but now when money is too tight to not mention, Australians are looking around for somebody to blame. We all should be talking about who is taxed and where our tax dollars are being spent and what we want from our country. Why is nobody talking about those not paying tax but profiting from our resources at record levels? Resources run out and if we do not tax these super profits the economic opportunity is gone forever. Wake up dumb Australia!
“Increases in labour costs account for just 18% of the inflation above what the RBA wants to see before it eases interest rate increases. The most recent GDP data shows Australian businesses increased prices by a total of $160bn a year above taxes, labour and other costs.
Stanford says the evidence shows the additional billions of dollars in company profits have led the soaring inflation Australia is experiencing.”
Cui Bono?
The lies dumb Australians believe are costing them big time. Getting upset over what a tiny proportion of our population do viz a vis with their sexuality is neither here nor there really. Wake up and see who is stealing your lunch on a daily basis. Have a proper look at who has all the wealth in this country and why. A good detective always asks cui bono? Who benefits and who stands to gain? We need to ban all donations to political parties and fund elections nationally instead. This is the only way to stop influence being bought by vested interests at the top. Otherwise democracy is a sham. Why do our politicians fail to tax those extracting our mineral wealth properly? We need to ban these pollies and senior civil servants taking jobs in the private sector after they leave public office. This is another scam which has been running for decades. There are too many holes in the current system, which are being exploited by big corporations. It is not about who you might rub shoulders with on the train station platforms but those pulling the strings unseen.
Stop being a sucker and blaming other poor people who might have different coloured skin. Wake up Australia!
Growing Wealth Inequality In Australia
There is a culture war going on, which is being manipulated by those looking to distract us from the fact that they are stealing our wealth. The wealth share is all out of whack, with the top 3% enjoying 90%+ of the growth in wealth over the last decade.
“Inequality has been on steroids in Australia over the last decade with new data revealing the bottom 90% of Australians receive just 7% of economic growth per person since 2009, while the top 10% of income earners reap 93% of the benefits. The data shows a radical reversal on the long term trend from the period between 1950-2009 in Australia. Australia is a now global outlier in the maldistribution of gains from economic growth, falling behind the EU, US, UK, China and Canada.”
Australia used to be a far more equitable place to live and work. The trend over the last few decades on the back of neoliberal economic policies has changed that. Lots more things used to be free for all in Oz. Now, a user pays mentality ensures fees and charges are imposed on everything so that these companies can grow fat on our everyday lifestyles. Property prices are so inflated in our cities that many working people can no longer afford to live in their own country.
This is a failure of governments who have been bought and coerced by the business sector. Apathetic Aussies just suck it up and plod along in quiet misery. Meanwhile, in countries like France the workers and residents march and protest in the streets about economic imposts on their lives.
Downward Envy Thrives Downunder
Meanwhile, our politicians and right wing media seek to distract folk with BS about LGBTQI people and the plight of refugees. They want us to worry about and get angry over stuff that is not the economic fact that we are being shafted on a daily basis by the big end of town. The conflict in Israel and Gaza is a good example of this of divide and conquer. If Aussies are too busy getting upset over who they support or don’t over there they are not examining why our economic settings are screwing us at home. The culture war being fanned by social media is split down gender lines. Angry blokes want to beat up on someone or something and usually like to pick on the weak. The wealthy stakeholders have rigged the system to have law and order on their side. They are too high up and protected for average folk to have a swing at them. Better to pick on someone gay, female, or a poor refugee. Downward envy thrives downunder. Robodebt was the perfect example of this. Domestic violence has been on the rise and stabbings are occurring almost on a daily basis. Frustration bubbles and erupts into acts of violence seeking something weaker to hurt. Cowards and bullies the lot of them. When you create an unfair society uncivil stuff ruptures the fault lines in your makeup. Australia is well on its way in this direction.
When you have the profit motive unrestrained in Corporate Australia and happy to see record profits accumulated during a cost of living crisis something is morally wrong. If we had more guns on the streets those stabbings would be mass shootings like our role model America.
Australia’s Open Door For Money Laundering In Property
As long as conservative folk still believe the stories being promoted by their pollies about woke being to blame for the cost of living and not the rapacious greed of the big end of town, then, the culture wars will remain. Stuff does not get done in Australia because of political stalemates down party lines. Things do not change because of these. We have been waiting for 17 years for governments to close the money laundering loopholes in our property sector by international investors. This has pushed up our property prices and seen ill-gotten gains washing into our real estate markets.
Why? So that lawyers, accountants and real estate agents can make fat fees on the back of these property purchases by despots, drug dealers, arms dealers, and organised crime. Pigs with their snouts in the trough who swan around in nice suits and own salubrious homes themselves.
“Australia’s financial crime laws are unfit for purpose. The problem: there are many professionals currently facilitating money laundering within the country who are exempt from the laws and regulations set up to stop it. To illustrate the extent of the problem, nine people were arrested on money laundering charges this year. They were allegedly involved in a Chinese-Australian syndicate that moved around A$10 billion offshore and amassed at least $150 million in luxury assets and properties. The suspects allegedly relied on lawyers, accountants and real estate professionals to launder such large sums of money. These are the industries currently not regulated by our anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing laws.”
The lies dumb Australians believe are legion and massaged daily by the Murdoch News Corp networks and newspapers. They want to get you riled up at transgender athletes and other miniscule problems, which do not actually affect your life directly. Sky News Australia wants to enrage its viewers about ‘woke’ stuff, which is another distraction from the main game. Murdoch is backing Peter Dutton and his stupid nuclear distraction. Ever wondered why News Corp always attacks renewable energy, even though this is actually generating free power for Australians? These guys and their organisations are dependent upon the fossil fuel industry for ad revenue and campaign donations. No one in their right mind is seriously suggesting nuclear power stations for Australia. It would take decades and cost hundreds of billions of dollars. It would be obsolete for our grid before it ever got off the ground. Most Australians do not understand what electrification of the grid will actually mean and how we are already seeing renewables and large batteries taking over. We have so much rooftop solar in Australia already supplying heaps of power. Electrification means a much more efficient use of energy and generation. Fossil fuels waste a lot of energy in how they work and this is disappearing from the equation. However, with a dishonest media in News Corp Aussies are not receiving the objective picture of what is occurring but a distorted negative rendition of it.
Ask yourself, have you ever read a positive news story about renewables in the Murdoch media? Why is that?
If you are angry or upset over the way you are struggling financially at the moment direct your energy into who is benefitting at your expense. It is not other poor people, whether they are black, brown, LGBTQI, or women. Have the courage to really investigate what is going on and stand up for your rights. Seek out your elected representatives and let them know how you feel. Use your vote to make a positive difference and don’t let yourself be manipulated by those wanting to distract you from the core issues. Get together with other folk similarly wanting to do something about the inequality in Australia. Check out Richard Denniss, the economist at the Australia Institute who is doing great work in this space. If we do not do something now it is only going to get worse.
Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump.
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