Private Health loss of Rebate for some

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Not mad? And you mentioned the liberal policies? Besides didn't arm-breaker say he was as mad as a cut snake.




He trained for the priest hood so technically he is a qualified monk.

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:



I can't find the details, but I clearly remember a talking head, or the newspaper write up saying that these things would not be added back. The words were something like it won't be like family tax benefit, which does add in those items as you say. Would appreciate any link you can provide to official information about how it works.



It's not that hard, no doubt they'll do it exactly the same as they currently do family tax benefit, which is reconciled at the end of the year if one claims it up front instead of at the end of the year. There are no penalties involved you just get a bill and/or the extra that is still owed. NB a system designed by the Liberals so it must be entirely beyond reproach.

If you want to make it personal you should have some evidence. He seems like a pretty high-functioning citizen for a madman.


I don't know who "arm breaker" is supposed to be so I don't see that as proof. I suppose the other side of politics counterbalance that with their stability and calm, rational approach to things ;)

Sorry to harp on this but Labor are a policy disaster and their main strategy is to hope Abbott is really mad and self-destructs. I think this approach won't help them.
 
If you want to make it personal you should have some evidence. He seems like a pretty high-functioning citizen for a madman.


I don't know who "arm breaker" is supposed to be so I don't see that as proof. I suppose the other side of politics counterbalance that with their stability and calm, rational approach to things ;)

If you don't know who arm-breaker is then you mustn't have kept up with recent political history. To defend arm-breaker's ability to spot madmen, I will only say they can smell their own.

Other than that perhaps you need to learn to appreciate the origin and background to nicknames like the mad monk. It is certainly more respectful than "kill the red headed witch".

Sorry to harp on this but Labor are a policy disaster and their main strategy is to hope Abbott is really mad and self-destructs. I think this approach won't help them.

Personally, I see a policy that caps expenditure to be vastly preferable to one that makes the government a bottomless cash pit.


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I've been following this thread as it makes for interesting reading.

Just to enlighten others - "Arm breaker" is a reference to Mark Latham.
See the possible similarities to today's scenario with Tony?
 
I've been following this thread as it makes for interesting reading.

Just to enlighten others - "Arm breaker" is a reference to Mark Latham.
See the possible similarities to today's scenario with Tony?
Having gone 1 on 1 with Mark Latham he is definitely not as bad as he is painted.In fact quite a congenial fellow.So i presume thats why Tony is compared with him?
 
Having gone 1 on 1 with Mark Latham he is definitely not as bad as he is painted.In fact quite a congenial fellow.So i presume thats why Tony is compared with him?

I'm sure arm-breaker is rather congenial but he's as mad as a cut snake as well.


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I'm sure arm-breaker is rather congenial but he's as mad as a cut snake as well.


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Anyone that the Australian press decides is mad can be made to look that way.
 
Anyone that the Australian press decides is mad can be made to look that way.

Yeah I do realise that. I think he would have been a really good PM much better than our 3 current options. But he is still mad, in fact he is a keating disciple another maddie.


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If you don't know who arm-breaker is then you mustn't have kept up with recent political history. To defend arm-breaker's ability to spot madmen, I will only say they can smell their own.

Other than that perhaps you need to learn to appreciate the origin and background to nicknames like the mad monk. It is certainly more respectful than "kill the red headed witch".



Personally, I see a policy that caps expenditure to be vastly preferable to one that makes the government a bottomless cash pit.


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While I did think of Latham re arm-breaking, he didn't call Abbott that. It was Hawke that said that. With Gillard by his side grinning away at a Parliament House news conference. Perhaps if these guys were just a bit...I don't know, nicer?...they wouldn't be so torn apart at the moment. I doubt anyone in the parliamentary Liberal party called Gillard a red-headed witch.

As for your last point, I agree anything that caps expenditure is probably a good thing. If I could reduce expenditure by 98% I probably would.

I would have cut out the $3 bil or so wasted on the insulation program.
The $32b (?40 ?50) for the broadband network
$16 bil on school renovations
I'm confused by the half billion going towards set-top boxes for pensioners at $700 each

But I completely agree that winding back Howards middle class welfare is a small step in the right direction.
 
I thought cutting expenditure was quite different from raising taxes.
Our family is ready to cough up our share and it will go on our trusty credit card payment system.
Loss of the rebate is a tax hike for those 2.4 million Aussies who will start paying it from July 1st.
 
. I doubt anyone in the parliamentary Liberal party called Gillard a red-headed witch.

you're right, it was far worse than that (by association), but this is a family forum. However the sentiment was to kill her. IMO anyone associating themself with those sort of people (mad types that want to kill the PM, any PM) have to have something slightly wrong up top.

On the topic of tax increases, yes loss of a rebate feels like a tax increase but if we think about it, it really isn't. I also would remind everyone that when this rebate was introduced 20% of taxpayers were in the top 2 tax brackets, it is now only 15%. So while individuals might still be in the top bracket, the overall burden had decreased.

Perhaps I should mention that I'm facing a 100% increase in my taxable income this FY (all going to plan), which will mean losing all benefits. I'm just looking forward to paying them back with my credit card.


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My employer pays my health care premiums as part of my salary package. Not to the fund I would choose but it seems silly to knock it back. Now I am going to get slugged by the tax system to the tune of $1500 (I think) and my only alternative is to tell my employer to stop paying for my family's health care (costing me $3K) and then will get slugged by increased medicare levy to the tune of .... about $1500. My maths is probably creaky here but the concept is sound.

I suppose that I should be grateful that the government doesn't force me to send my children to private schools because I earn too much for them to be "subsidised" in the public system.

Now it probably will surprise you to know I am from the left side of politics - which puts me left of most people in the government. But I am sick to death of overly complex tax/rebate/subsidy/cap/benefit/penalty systems. Every $ that people earn should be taxed and everyone should be entitled to a good health and education system. The current merry-go-round is a waste of space and the only positive aspect is the number of people it employs to maintain it. Of course it would be better for Australia if they were actually producing something.

And don't make me choose between the arm-breaker and the mad monk .... I wouldn't know which one to garrote first.
 
loss of rebate/tax/levy - its all the same - $ in the governments hands and not in the individuals hands with the consequent administrative costs and the dead weight of government on the economy.

I would bet my house that when the next federal election campaign comes (and if the opposition are promising to remove the whole carbon tax) then the ALP will be running their own scare campaign about Tony Abbott taking away the over-compensation to pensioners and low income households.
 
My employer pays my health care premiums as part of my salary package. Not to the fund I would choose but it seems silly to knock it back. Now I am going to get slugged by the tax system to the tune of $1500 (I think) and my only alternative is to tell my employer to stop paying for my family's health care (costing me $3K) and then will get slugged by increased medicare levy to the tune of .... about $1500. My maths is probably creaky here but the concept is sound.

I suppose that I should be grateful that the government doesn't force me to send my children to private schools because I earn too much for them to be "subsidised" in the public system.

Now it probably will surprise you to know I am from the left side of politics - which puts me left of most people in the government. But I am sick to death of overly complex tax/rebate/subsidy/cap/benefit/penalty systems. Every $ that people earn should be taxed and everyone should be entitled to a good health and education system. The current merry-go-round is a waste of space and the only positive aspect is the number of people it employs to maintain it. Of course it would be better for Australia if they were actually producing something.

And don't make me choose between the arm-breaker and the mad monk .... I wouldn't know which one to garrote first.

No it's not surprising - personal politics has nothing to do with liking / not liking the system.

My view is an economical one - not a political one.

My political perspective only plays into it when opposing the ideology behind the new legislation.

Whilst you and I are not on the same place on the spectrum - the challenge/dilemma for your personal views is that you prefer the public service to actually be productive (me too).

Most on your side of the spectrum are simply happy for there to be a big public service with no regard for actual output, efficiency or value.

Are you sure you haven't got your left and right confused ;)
 
And don't make me choose between the arm-breaker and the mad monk .... I wouldn't know which one to garrote first.

Start with the person that was a member of a "Women's Communist" type movement in her early years.
 
I thought cutting expenditure was quite different from raising taxes.
Our family is ready to cough up our share and it will go on our trusty credit card payment system.
Loss of the rebate is a tax hike for those 2.4 million Aussies who will start paying it from July 1st.

And I'm not sure if Abbott would overturn it?
 
I'm sorry the research you quote is for men and women doing "similiar"work-not the same.

Come on, don't play semantics. You're a doctor - you know how research / statistics / etc works.

It would be impossible to conduct any study looking at identical work only: apart from the extreme difficulty (impossibility?) of accurately singling out people who perform identical work across employers, you would end up with a sample size that is way too small to be statistically signficant, would only be able to conduct the study in one industry segment at a time (which may not be representative of society as a whole), etc.

If you tried to do this you'd have to limit your study to a single employer at a time, and the results would be different for every employer (and wouldn't tell you anything meaningful). So, you instead run your study across multiple employers in each industry segment examining people in as similar roles as possible (correcting for age / education / whatever), and then aggregate these results across all industry segments to give you a decent sample size and a useful and meaningful result. I can't see any particular flaw in this methodology - it certainly beats trying to look at people in exactly the same job (for the reason I described above) - unless you can somehow explain how this biases the study "towards" women?

Look at the figures for first year medical graduate salaries-women are supposedly paid $500 a year less than men.I dont know one State or Territory where there is a different pay rate in first year for men cf women.

I can't explain that either (zero knowledge of the industry, amongst other things), but with due respect, a specific unexplained example does not outweigh an entire (actually, many entire) research studies.

I'm not sure why you are criticising my googling skills. I can find similar articles but they don't impress me at all.

Perhaps I was wrong to criticise your Googling skills - I assumed you had not taken the time to Google it (or similar) and read the results, whereas instead it sounds like you have but are choosing to ignore what you've read. If that's the case then so be it - if you choose to ignore the evidence in favour of your opinion then I find that disappointing, but I also doubt any amount of argument from me is going to convince you to change your mind.

The Sydney article concludes that "The persistence of the gender pay gap continues to be largely related to work being undervalued in female-dominated industries of employment. "

I don't see your point? The study is looking at gender pay gap between men and women performing similar work. The above quote is highlighting that this gap is biggest in female dominated industries.

It isn't a research paper, it is a briefing sheet useful to lobbyists and compiled by a who's who of union organisations.

Err, I think you might want to go back and re-think the "it isn't a research paper, it is a briefing sheet" statement.

The link I posted is a brief summary of 2010 gender-pay-gap findings coming out of the "Australia at Work" study, which is "...a longitudinal study of 8,341 Australians... contacted once a year for five years (2007 to 2011) to find out how their working lives were changing" being conducted out of the Business School at the University of Sydney. I'm not sure what you consider a research paper to be, but that sure sounds like one to me.

And making comments like "...compiled by a who's who of union organisations" does not help your argument. Apart from the fact that I'm not sure on what basis you make that claim, it just makes it sound like you're trying to appeal to people's emotions when the data does not back up your point of view.

The other article is uncontrolled for the workers' work history.

I realise that - I specifically said "[the second fact sheet] is also interesting, but is raw data rather than results controlled for age / education / etc.". I just posted it because I found the raw data interesting and thought others might too.

Unless the government centrally controls all wages and forces social workers to earn as much those barriers will remain. Work that has high barriers to entry, is dirty or dangerous will always have a premium financially in a market economy and traditionally has been more skewed towards male participation.

I think you've missed the point - the study I linked is comparing men and women performing similar work (and finding, on average, a ~8.5% pay gap between them), not men and women performing entirely different jobs.

Believe me, as a company director if we can find senior female professionals willing to take on boards roles they will be snapped up in a second.

That's great - but you are not necessarily representive of everyone (unfortunately, by the sounds of it).

PS, to both drron and rechoboam: I hope none of the above comes across as personal / rude / etc - that is not the intention. I'm just being blunt, which is my way. I will argue till I'm blue in the face to try and change your minds, but I still respect your right to have a different opinion to me :)
 
certainly not rude.just a good robust argument.
So to an industry where this is I believe about to be played out-nursing.
Now if you go to public hospitals nurses whether male or female are paid the same.the same goes for privaye hospitals and nursing homes.
The problem comes when you compare nursing homes to hospitals.Similiar but definitely not the same.Those in nursing homes get paid less so if you compare female nurses in nursing homes to male nurses in hospitals there is a gender gap-however it would be the same as comparing male nurses in nursing homes to female nurses in hospitals.
It is how you define but more importantly pick which workplaces are similiar.
 
certainly not rude.just a good robust argument.

Good - glad it's being received the way it was intended. Just wanted to make sure, as I can be overly blunt for some people's tastes sometimes ;-)

So to an industry where this is I believe about to be played out-nursing.
Now if you go to public hospitals nurses whether male or female are paid the same.the same goes for privaye hospitals and nursing homes.

I know that public hospital nurses are all covered by award / EBAs meaning they should get paid the same, but does the same hold true for contract nurses? Aren't they all on individual contracts that may award different pay rates to each person?

The problem comes when you compare nursing homes to hospitals.Similiar but definitely not the same.Those in nursing homes get paid less so if you compare female nurses in nursing homes to male nurses in hospitals there is a gender gap-however it would be the same as comparing male nurses in nursing homes to female nurses in hospitals.

That's not what these studies are looking at though. They're not saying "let's compare the average pay of female nurses in nursing homes to male nurses in hospitals" - they're saying "let's compare the average pay of male and female nurses no matter where they're working" (or, more probably, "let's compare the average pay of male and female nurses in nursing homes, and let's separately compare the average pay of male and female nurses in hospitals, and then aggregate these results with similar comparisons across a wide range of industries to come up with overall results/ conclusions).

I'd alo caution against focusing only on one industry. I don't doubt that in an area like health, where the vast majority of people are paid according to EBAs / awards, there won't be a big (or even any) discrepency between men and women. It's in other industry sectors that are not so heavily regulated / unionised (think finance, insurance, other professional services) where the differences would become more apparent.
 
The problem is solved by regulating minimum service criteria in licensing arrangements - not by creating inefficient government enterprises.
 
But since the licenses have already been given you cannot then change the rules, unless you want government to pay billions in settlements in changing rules.

Anyway, this thread needs to end as the outcomes are already set in cement.

What we need is a change of topic to raising GST level to cover a dental plan and free public transport. Caught a bus the other day, was shocked by the price
increases...
 
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