The opinion polls predicted a Labor victory in 2019 but got it horribly wrong, and the election was instead won by the Coalition. It’s unlikely to happen again.
Bill Shorten would have been a far better PM than Morrison. The people urging reform of capital gains and negative gearing should reflect that Shorten promised to act on those things, but people voted against him, worsening the present housing situation. If Shorten had won and acted, we might not now have such a shortage of rental housing.
Will a cautious Albanese, encouraged by winning a second term, act to rebalance the housing market to assist renters, who are about a third of the housing market? He could limit investment concessions to one investment property, or to a certain maximum property value, while also boosting the existing Build to Rent scheme.
He would also have to boost public housing funding significantly, which should appeal to a PM raised by a single mother in a housing commission house in struggling inner western Sydney.
Another obvious reform Albanese could take up would be to bring a limited dental scheme into Medicare, perhaps for people who already qualify for the pensioner concession card, maybe limited to $1000 a year, just as they also receive concessions for GP bulk-billing and medications. Limiting dental into Medicare to the most needy would be practical cost-capping while also helping the most needy.
Spending has to be paid for. Cost-cutting, while appealing to LNP propaganda, actually has little scope for savings. This government claims to have made significant savings by ousting the contractors who Morrison allowed into government businesses, which allowed Morrison to claim savings by reducing staff numbers, but actually raised costs because contractors inflate their short-term charges and are more expensive than actually hiring people to do the job.
Personally, I would pay for dental into Medicare, and more of the actual cost of Medicare, by raising the 2% Medicare levy to 2.25% or even 2.5%. After all, the promised increase in bulk-billing payments to GPs to get bulk-billing to 90% is predicted to cost about $8.5b, which has to be paid for. If all the extra revenue from a higher Medicare levy went into paying for Medicare, then I think most people would regard that as money well spent.
Australia's Medicare universal healthcare scheme is regarded as one of the best in the world, the best on some comparisons. It only costs 6% of GDP, compared with 16% for the USA's grossly expensive and inefficient private health fund scheme, with its many flaws, including millions of people unable to afford medical treatment and growing medical bankruptcy. I wrote about this in a previous Substack post.
Fully funding Medicare from the Medicare levy would release existing funds to go into other priorities, such as housing and defence, which both need boosting. Health, housing and defence - these are all vital national priorities.
Will a re-elected Albanese Labor Government have the boldness to really improve them for the future benefit of all? If it moves fast, it could have these reform functioning before it has to face the voters again in three years. That would really give Albanese, or whoever is the leader then, a great story to tell to seek a third term in office.
An optimistic view, Michael, but not inconceivable - and I hope you're right.
It seems to me (at 68 years old) that the old Australian competition between a centre-left Labor and centre-right Coalition has slowly wasted away. In part, this came from Hawke "seizing the centre", leaving the Coalition with nowhere to move but rightward, to maintain differentiation. This seems to me to have continued, to the point where Labor are now pure centre and the Coalition relatively hard right.
If current politics followed the ideological patterns of the past, it would now be more a competition between a centrist Labor and a centre-left Greens (look back and I think you'll find that the Greens are not, by Australian standards, "hard left" - as the Mullahs of Murdochristan proclaim - but more a traditional and quite moderate left-to-centre-left).
Exactly. Electoral suicide and that they even thought anyone would vote for that shows how out of touch with reality they are. I was very anxious in case a significant number of our population didn't recognise that and I am so relieved that they did. Dutton with his far right agenda would have been almost as dangerous as Trump. We dodged a bullet.
Bill Shorten would have been a far better PM than Morrison. The people urging reform of capital gains and negative gearing should reflect that Shorten promised to act on those things, but people voted against him, worsening the present housing situation. If Shorten had won and acted, we might not now have such a shortage of rental housing.
Will a cautious Albanese, encouraged by winning a second term, act to rebalance the housing market to assist renters, who are about a third of the housing market? He could limit investment concessions to one investment property, or to a certain maximum property value, while also boosting the existing Build to Rent scheme.
He would also have to boost public housing funding significantly, which should appeal to a PM raised by a single mother in a housing commission house in struggling inner western Sydney.
Another obvious reform Albanese could take up would be to bring a limited dental scheme into Medicare, perhaps for people who already qualify for the pensioner concession card, maybe limited to $1000 a year, just as they also receive concessions for GP bulk-billing and medications. Limiting dental into Medicare to the most needy would be practical cost-capping while also helping the most needy.
Spending has to be paid for. Cost-cutting, while appealing to LNP propaganda, actually has little scope for savings. This government claims to have made significant savings by ousting the contractors who Morrison allowed into government businesses, which allowed Morrison to claim savings by reducing staff numbers, but actually raised costs because contractors inflate their short-term charges and are more expensive than actually hiring people to do the job.
Personally, I would pay for dental into Medicare, and more of the actual cost of Medicare, by raising the 2% Medicare levy to 2.25% or even 2.5%. After all, the promised increase in bulk-billing payments to GPs to get bulk-billing to 90% is predicted to cost about $8.5b, which has to be paid for. If all the extra revenue from a higher Medicare levy went into paying for Medicare, then I think most people would regard that as money well spent.
Australia's Medicare universal healthcare scheme is regarded as one of the best in the world, the best on some comparisons. It only costs 6% of GDP, compared with 16% for the USA's grossly expensive and inefficient private health fund scheme, with its many flaws, including millions of people unable to afford medical treatment and growing medical bankruptcy. I wrote about this in a previous Substack post.
Fully funding Medicare from the Medicare levy would release existing funds to go into other priorities, such as housing and defence, which both need boosting. Health, housing and defence - these are all vital national priorities.
Will a re-elected Albanese Labor Government have the boldness to really improve them for the future benefit of all? If it moves fast, it could have these reform functioning before it has to face the voters again in three years. That would really give Albanese, or whoever is the leader then, a great story to tell to seek a third term in office.
An optimistic view, Michael, but not inconceivable - and I hope you're right.
It seems to me (at 68 years old) that the old Australian competition between a centre-left Labor and centre-right Coalition has slowly wasted away. In part, this came from Hawke "seizing the centre", leaving the Coalition with nowhere to move but rightward, to maintain differentiation. This seems to me to have continued, to the point where Labor are now pure centre and the Coalition relatively hard right.
If current politics followed the ideological patterns of the past, it would now be more a competition between a centrist Labor and a centre-left Greens (look back and I think you'll find that the Greens are not, by Australian standards, "hard left" - as the Mullahs of Murdochristan proclaim - but more a traditional and quite moderate left-to-centre-left).
One lives in hope...
Yes, our so-called Liberals are not liberal at all, they're conservatives.
The 'teal' Independents would once have been moderate Liberals, but moderates are not welcome in the Liberals now.
The Greens are basically Labor-left now.
One Nation and Palmer's mob are extreme right ranters, like Trump.
The centre is now a Labor- Greens- Independents coalition.
Do you agree or have I been too harsh?
That's how I see it too. With the centrist independents in play, by moving too far right, the libs are making themselves obsolete.
One commentator said the Liberals have moved so far towards the right that they no longer have enough supporters to win government.
The LNP has marginalised itself.
They promised to increase taxes, sack 40,000 people and waste up to $600b on nuclear power. Who would vote for that?
Exactly. Electoral suicide and that they even thought anyone would vote for that shows how out of touch with reality they are. I was very anxious in case a significant number of our population didn't recognise that and I am so relieved that they did. Dutton with his far right agenda would have been almost as dangerous as Trump. We dodged a bullet.
We did. Things look so much better now.
Dutton was proposing to RAISE taxes! Seriously? Bizarre.