That great sector of the Australian community, retirees, is being set upon again by government. The issue has passed barely noticed in the media but the political consequences for the Turnbull Government are sure to be profound.
On January 1, 2017, changes to the aged care assets test will see more than 100,000 Australians lose their part pension payments in entirety. More than 300,000 will have their pension payments cut.
There is a perception many retirees are rolling in money. They have assets many could only dream of. Perhaps that’s why the media has shunned the issue.
Let me ask the question, who among us could lose 20 per cent of our household incomes and come away unscathed?
It gets worse. With the loss of the pension, the government will also cancel retirees’ pensioner concession cards which allow them to enjoy discounts on council rates, car rego, energy bills and public transport tickets. Back of the envelope, that’s three grand per annum retirees will have to find.
Full column here.
CEO pay of ASX listed companies has dropped to a paltry 62 times that of ordinary workers down from 95 times. Poor guys.
Maddinson dropped on 0. Phew. I hope he at least makes his average of 34.
I must live in some fairyland bubble of Australia or something. Having hit nearly a half century, nearly all of it spent in Australia – and not being a christian in any way – I have never (let me emphasize that, NEVER) had anyone wish me a “happy holiday” at Christmas. Or seen anything like that in any form of writing. Nor have I ever seen this done at a school.
As an atheist I like Christmas. But its basically the Roman tradition of the Saturnalia festiva, held on the same day as Christmas every year – theres a coincidence!l ( no-one holds a census in winter during Roman times). Everyone gets presents and doesnt have to go to work. Whats not to like?
I think the pensioners would be shocked at what is now happening in Sydney now after this dreaded “C” ,…word is causing ,..(steady now folks, I mean C for Christmas.
Not unusual having an outbreak of skirmishes of civil or cultural wars in this part of the world with this disturbance is tearing down these radicals flags. The Rocks and inner city seems to have some dudes sticking up Clover Moore flags saying “Happy Holidays, instead of traditional Merry Christmas”. The resilient team of loyalists on Christmas festivities , is making sure these do-gooders not getting the rails run so to speak in changing the spirit of Christmas.
Happy Saturnalia. Have a relaxing holiday period.
I have to say I’m a bit confused about what the actual “spirit of Christmas” really means anymore, apart from lots of spending, going to endless Christmas parties and eating and drinking too much. I know two families only who go to Church on Christmas morning. It was the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday last Monday, I think Hanukkah is soon and the Chinese New Year is earlier this year at the end of January, so maybe Happy Holidays is relevant.
Having said that we can’t get away from seeing Merry Christmas signs everywhere here in Penang, where the Muslims outnumber any other religion, but they’re not objecting to the Christmas festivities. In fact Islam recognizes Jesus Christ as one of God’s greatest messengers to mankind , so let’s not get carried away here about the term Merry Christmas, as it sure isn’t the Muslims that are offended by it……
Just PC going complete crazy Penny. There seems no end to it these days.
A merry Kwanzaa to everyone.
Its a Festivus miracle!
Rodent.
Thank god our pension entitlements are not based on Greece policies,57.
My poor old good neighbours from Greece next door I look after in times running them to doctors and shops, often tell how how Greece is stuffed and young people using parents taking advantage from them.
Much comes from them how government policies has destroyed their home country plus the fact uninvited gate -crashes from Africa now flood into their country expecting immediate welfare when never paid taxes.
The state of pension early entitlement and government appeasing these boat arrivals , has divided their country socially and young people resilient to stay in family homes , are now saying why should we work to pay for migrants not contributed in taxes.
…”how government policies has destroyed their home country”
Is that your way of saying:
“how everyone decided that they didnt need to pay any tax – all at the same time”?
Because thats pretty much what caused all of Greece’s problems.
Rampant individualism does not make for a strong State. Bear that in mind if youd like a strong, secure, country but like your freedoms on the Sovcit side.
i’m just cranky that i would have to live back in aus for two years to get the pension, or at least that’s what i am told
It doesn’t end there Jack. I have a niece who is ex army. She married an army guy, they had three kids, plus she looked after two he had from a previous marriage. They left the army and went to Dubai, where he trained locals in security.
The marriage failed after he blew their savings (another story) and he was forced to stay to pay off accumulated debts. She came back to Aus with her kids, only to be told because of the time she spent out of the country she was not entitled to ANY welfare benefits nor anything from Vets Affairs. It took months of battling to get any support for her or the kids, whose teeth were falling out because Dubai has no fluoride water treatment.
thats right jack and if you leave Australia your passport is flagged and the info is transferred instantly to centerlink
Robin, I didn’t know that, but it doesn’t surprise me. I guess that means if we stay one week over the six months we are allowed to stay in Australia as non-resident Australians, we’ll have pay tax on money we don’t earn in Australia?
Possibly but not necessarily, Penny. A good tax lawyer can push that. The worst bit is that moving overseas can trigger a CGT event on your worldwide assets. Generally the ATO will miss that but if you come to their attention for any reason and they become aware of your move (and have reason to dislike you) you may find yourself having to provide lists of assets…
TV, i really don’t know if Tim Flannery is an idiot or not,
i do know he was wrong about the drought being permanent, and i thought so at the time.
Dorothea Mackellar knew more about climate than he does, so no, i don’t take much notice of his predictions.
Well he’s not the only one concerned about melting permafrost. Most scientists are.
Here is Tim Flannery’s actual quote. Not the bolt version you seem to be running with. No surprises.
“We’re already seeing the initial impacts and they include a decline in the winter rainfall zone across southern Australia, which is clearly an impact of climate change, but also a decrease in run-off. Although we’re getting say a 20 per cent decrease in rainfall in some areas of Australia, that’s translating to a 60 per cent decrease in the run-off into the dams and rivers. That’s because the soil is warmer because of global warming and the plants are under more stress and therefore using more moisture. So even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and our river systems”
Tim Flannery also said this in a full quote.
“To summarize the rainfall results, drier conditions are anticipated for most of Australia over the 21st century. However, consistent with conclusions in WGI, an increase in heavy rainfall also is projected, even in regions with small decreases in mean rainfall. This is a result of a shift in the frequency distribution of daily rainfall toward fewer light and moderate events and more heavy events. This could lead to more droughts and more floods.”
He was right about Perth running out of water. Were operating on 2 desal plants now.
We are actually using copious amounts more of water than 50 years ago. The population of WA was less than a million in 1970 and is now around 2.5 million.
In the mid 60s a policy was adopted of vegetating the catchment areas of the dams. This had a huge impact on stream flows into the dams necessitating alternative sources of water. The huge amount of water in the mounds was put mostly off limits. The two desal plants were made vital by these decisions.
Here is a graph of the streamflows into the dams.
https://www.watercorporation.com.au/water-supply-and-services/rainfall-and-dams/streamflow/streamflowhistorical
Notice they have become almost non existent. A bit of judicious land clearing would restore a lot of water to Perth dams.
http://www.warwickhughes.com/water/
Here we go again, robin. We’ve already had this discussion. Id just remind you – again – that a government doesn’t build 2 multi billion $ deal plants just because it feels like they might be handy. Thats the only measure that really matters.
The Qld Bligh gocernment built one it seems for just that reason….
They do if they are labor governments and want to appease the greens
Maybe in QLD, Razor. I dont know anything about that so I cant comment. But the WA government built 2 because we dont have enough water for this city. It aint rocket science.
well three state government did just that
Show me where he said that the drought was permanent jack. He was taken out of context countless times.
yeah TV, taken totally out of context. Here’s a brief summary from Wiki. not to mention his waterfront property on the Hawkesbury. His PHD was in the study of kangaroos, should have stayed on topic.
Climate change
In May 2004 Flannery said, “I think there is a fair chance Perth will be the 21st century’s first ghost metropolis” and in April 2005, “water is going to be in short supply across the eastern states”. In June 2005 Flannery said, “the ongoing drought could leave Sydney’s dams dry in just two years”.
In September 2005 Flannery said, “There are hot rocks in South Australia that potentially have enough embedded energy in them to run Australia’s economy for the best part of a century”. Also for the Cooper Basin, he proposed the establishment of a fully sustainable city where, “hundreds of thousands of people would live”, utilising these geothermal energy reserves. He named the city, “Geothermia”. Subsequently, in 2007, an exploration company was established. The company expected to raise at least $11.5m on the Australian Stock Exchange.Flannery took up shares in the company. In 2010 the Federal Government provided the company with another $90m for the development work. In August 2016 the geothermal energy project closed as it was not financially viable.
In October 2006 Flannery said, there may be, “no Arctic icecap in the next five to 15 years . . . with the ocean [to] rise by six metres”. He also quoted, “arguably the world authority on climate change” who said, “we have just a decade to avert a 25-metre rise of the sea”. In February 2007, “even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and our river systems” and in in June 2007 he said that, “Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane, water supplies are so low they need desalinated water urgently, possibly in as little as 18 months”.
Lot of words there. None of them are “them drought is permanent”.
See Flannery’s FULL quotes above, not the cherry picked lines from them. You can retract your misinformation at any time.
The hot rocks are a future option, the wells were proven and steam generating electricity was also tested and proven. Petratherm is still operating in Australia and around the world. They are working on a 600 MW power station in SA .
I’ll answer that when I get a chance Lou. Which could be any time in the next 4 weeks or so. Or tonight. All depends.
TV, i’m a little lazy and a lot busy, though my wife would say i have that arse about, so i will leave the trawling through flannery’s statements to others who are doing so, and will simply bat this back across the net and ask the relevant question, are there any examples where a Tim Flannery prediction has come true?
Jack – first, look at the time frames. He didn’t say next week. No-one seems to get their heads around that.
I’m about to bolt to foreign shores for a couple of weeks. I really want to address this and I will when I get a chance. I’m not saying he’s never been wrong or said anything dubious, but he is so much better qualified than 99.9% his detractors that the bagging he gets is laughable. I also think that he probably exaggerates to get people’s attention, because if he’s in the ballpark, there is some serious bother in the making and awareness is important.
Anyhow, have a good Christmas.
PS The comment that started this thread, the melting of the permafrost – that is one of his predictions (and not his alone)
TV, Best wishes for Christmas wherever you are at the time.
i confess to having had a bad attitude to Flannery ever since that show he did with John Doyle, Two Smug Bastards Talking Down to People, i think it was called.
the one on china was the best, all the depth of knowledge of subject matter of a year 10 b minus project.
besides i generally have a cynical approach to predictions of catastrophe like his, having lived long enough to see quite a few of them proved wrong,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9LG2CJzvro
Jack, I never watched those two blokes thingies. Could have done so on the odd long-haul flight but there was always something more attractive. I’ve read his Weathermakers book and I’ve heard him speak. Maybe he just has a way of getting up people’s noses but he’s very far from being the clown that certain crowds and cartels make out. I mean, that’s obvious from a cursory glance at his quals, positions and gongs.
And just to point out that I’m not ‘religious’ about all this, I do hope he’s wrong. I want Plimer et al to be right. But I don’t think they are.
TV, i am not religious about it either, haven’t a clue really what will happen, i just have an instinctive distrust of people jumping up and down predicting catastrophe, and i think the idea of settled science is a very strange one.
The attempt to lodge a late appeal in the QUT case seems to he on the grounds that the FB post “QUT fighting segregation with segregation” was offensive – presumably towards Aboriginal or TSI people
Um…. Could not the white students have felt equally offended? But they didn’t bother to bring an 18c claim. Because they made light of it and moved on… Not interested in trying to make a fast buck out of the system or ignorant of how to play the system and waste taxpayers money and the courts’ time
.
Because, of course, there arent a shit load of cases in our courts that involve people trying to “make fast buck out of the system” or “playing the system”.
Is there, Yvonne?
Plenty of them probably Darren. This is just one example
We are just over a month away from the Inauguration of President Elect Donald Trump on January 20th Mr Insider and time will tell whether all his bluster can be turned into being a good US President. He has made many claims so its almost “put up or shut up” time for Trump. God bless America.
Well it certainly seems like he’s not going to back away from issues a la Turnbull. Maybe he will make a go of things. Hope so.
This business of QUT, Prior and the students now moves from the ridiculous to the truly lunatic.
And then we read that in Victorian government departments the inmates – and I use that word advisedly – are being instructed not to use the terms ‘husband’ and “wife” – when referring to their husband or wife. Have we gone completely crazy?
I believe in future they will be referred to as the arsehole and the handbrake. And the answer to your question is yes!