24/04/2015

THERE is an urban myth that negative gearing is the province of the rich and should be for ‘‘the high jump’’.

The facts are negative gearing is used by middle-income Australians, particularly younger Australians, to try to build a financial future for themselves and their families while providing a much-needed capital injection for new stock into our housing market.

As Social Services Minister I have an interest in this issue. The more Australians take responsibility for themselves, the less they will call on taxpayers in the future to draw down on welfare benefits.

We already require eight out of 10 income taxpayers to go to work every day to pay for our welfare bill. Where Australians try to build their wealth and finances for their own retirement, we should just say thanks rather than putting them in our tax sights.

According to the Australian Taxation Office, of the almost 1.26 million Australians who declare a net rental loss, 883,325 earn about $80,000 or less a year, after deductions, and about 80 per cent of them negatively gear.

Also, of the 1.87 million people who declare a net rental interest, more than 70 per cent earn about $80,000 or less, after deductions.

The majority of Australians who declare a net rental loss, about 73 per cent, own just one investment property. A further 18 per cent own just two investment properties — hardly property barons.

A breakdown of net rental losses by occupation shows average workers make up the majority. They include 62,000 clerical staff, 54,000 teachers, 47,000 salespeople, 36,000 nurses, and thousands of hospitality workers. Most people who declare a net rental loss are also aged 40 or under.

Middle-income earners declaring net rental interest are also providing housing for other Australians through their investment and at the same time looking to provide for their own retirement incomes, reducing reliance on government.

http://www.theage.com.au/business/stop-rich-from-using-negative-gearing-to-offset-wages-save-1b-acoss-20150416-1mlio1.html

The ACOSS report said that over half of the benefit of "negative gearing" deductions goes to the top 10 per cent of personal taxpayers, earning more than $100,000 a year.

It also pointed out that more than 90 per cent of investor borrowing is for existing rental properties, not new ones, so investors are bidding up home prices without adding much to the supply of housing.

"The large-scale use of these tax schemes not only threatens public revenue and faith in the fairness of our tax system," the report said. "It also reduces the efficiency of investment by encouraging people to invest with tax avoidance in mind rather than to achieve the best return at the least risk. It destabilises the economy by encouraging people to borrow more than they otherwise would and adding fuel to booms in asset prices – which are often followed by recessions."

We remind ourselves of the timeless truth of what they fought for: the people they loved and the country they believed in.

One in five of the first Australian Imperial Force had been born in Britain, and it is true that our nation had bound itself to Britain’s cause: “to the last man and the last shilling”.

In 2015, as we mark the centenary of Anzac, there is no-one left among us who knew first hand the courage and chaos of April 25, 1915.

Even those left to grow old have gone.

But the Anzac story will always be part of our Australian story.

The Anzacs will always speak to us, and for who we are.

In the coming years of commemorations, I encourage all Australians to honour the memory of those who served by looking up into the branches of their family trees. Try to find out, if you can, the history of your family’s service.

Together, let us learn and tell the story of the ordinary people who found the courage to do the truly extraordinary.

Let us, as a new generation, give new meaning to the solemn national promise we repeat today.

Lest we forget.

Bill Shorten Leader of the Opposition

We have already seen acts of selfless heroism from citizens who courageously went to the rescue of the elderly and infirm. The work of the State Emergency Services and firefighting volunteers has been absolutely outstanding. Regional shopkeepers have put in long extra hours to assist families.

And now The Daily Telegraph has stepped up. On Wednesday, one dollar from the sale of every single edition of our newspaper will go to The Daily Telegraph NSW Storm Appeal.

The appeal’s proceeds will assist The Salvation Army, whose response teams are already working in support of SES personnel.

“The past few days have been incredibly challenging for parts of NSW. We are all moved and inspired by the incredible stories of the spirit and resilience in the affected communities,” said News Corp NSW state director Brett Clegg, announcing the appeal. “I am delighted that we are able to come together with our corporate colleagues to support the outstanding work The Salvation Army is doing on the frontline.”

Those colleagues include the Commonwealth Bank, Qantas, Woolworths, Crown Resorts and the Seven Network, whose hefty donations have kicked off the appeal in fine style.

And there may be more to come from the corporate sector, if Jamie Packer has any say in it.

“This has been a terribly difficult week for many in our community,” the Crown Resorts chairman said yesterday. “As a state it’s time to rally together to help the thousands of individuals and families who have suffered so much during these storms. I urge the NSW business community to get behind this ­campaign.”

24/04/2015

From Today's Speccie not Telegraph 

If he was Sid Vicious dealing with his own side of politics, he was several notches up the bastardry scale when abusing Liberals, particularly as part of his acknowledged campaign to annoy, harass and unsettle Coalition ministers in the Senate.

Not even Keating, who was happy to call John Howard a scumbag, ever descended to the depths that Walsh plumbed in his pursuit of a campaign of personal vilification.

So, with no evidence whatsoever, he repeatedly falsely accused former POW and Fraser government Minister Senator John Carrick of having got fat in Changi by collaborating with the Japanese. When Carrick’s fellow POW, Labor’s Tom Uren denied it, Walsh recorded in his autobiography: ‘I realised it was not true and understood why Carrick was so obviously angry every time…[so] I stopped proffering opinions in the Senate about Carrick’s diet in Changi’.

For those who suffered from his verbal assaults, his advice was simple: ‘Without a thick hide you should not be in politics’.

But the most striking thing about Peter Walsh was that he fitted the remarkable pattern of offensive vituperative personal discourse used by those senior Labor figures who rejected the traditional Labor/union protectionist, interventionist, over-regulated economic policy approach with its inefficient state-owned enterprises and stultifying industrial relations regimens.

Those that broke the mould and sought to free up markets and reform the financial system, did so accompanied by the unpleasant aura of personal abuse of political opponents.

With an economic agenda far closer to the Liberals than to their own Labor Party, these reformers had to reinforce their anti-Liberal credentials in order to carry their party with them.

The legally-protected forum of parliament provided the perfect opportunity to demonstrate that even though they were wearing the Liberals’ economic clothes, they were still true Liberal-haters at heart as shown by their campaigns of smear, abuse and reckless accusations – all free of the risk of financial consequences from legal actions.

There developed a clear relationship between the closeness to the Liberals’ economic direction and the vehemence of personal attacks on individual Liberals. Having to put up with bastardry is a small price to pay for economic reform; Labor needs another Walsh.

Michael Baume is a former Liberal Senator and The Speccie’s financial guru.

From today's Speccie not Telegraph ....

The British jobs miracle continues, but under EU rules it has become our most powerful tool of foreign aid. Mr Cameron is right to boast about the two million extra jobs he has created but he doesn’t say that half of this rise in employment is accounted for by immigration.

To paraphrase Dr Johnson, the noblest prospect an unemployed Spaniard now sees is the easyJet to London. Cameron now pledges another two million jobs, which implies (under the EU’s freedom of movement) another million immigrants. They’ll need houses, schools and hospitals. We can welcome them, by all means, but let’s be honest about what must be done to accommodate them.

Our political leaders are surrounded by advisers who painstakingly offer counsel from what their bosses wear, how they wear their hair and how they speak.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has frustrated impersonators everywhere by changing his manner of speech. Before becoming PM, Tony Abbott was in the habit of punctuating his speech with erms, ahs and ums , but he doesn’t do that anymore or at least as much.

Now Abbott repeats himself. It’s not done for emphasis. What he’s saying is not so good it needs to be said twice. He does it so often he has become reminiscent of the character in Goodfellas, Jimmy Two Times. He is, in fact, Tony Two Times.

Opposition leader Bill Shorten is different. He has the uncanny ability of speaking almost interminably while saying absolutely nothing. What Shorten says once is often one times too many.

This is how Shorten kicked off an interview with ABC Radio’s Jon Faine on 13 March after Faine posed the simple and obvious question of what Shorten believed in.
“Well the Labor Party believes in lots of things, and it’s a great opportunity this morning to talk about some of them. What I fundamentally believe and I think it was Martin Luther King who said this best, but it’s I think true then and it’s true now: ‘everybody is somebody’. I believe in an Australia where everybody gets the chance to fulfil their potential. Where we’re not a divided society but we’re a united society.”

The rule of thumb in television and radio is people speak at a little less than three words a second. The PM has been clocked at 140 words a minute which is close to a drawl but Shorten hits the almost mathematically perfect figure of 163 words a minute. Thus, in that 26 second reply, he managed to misdirect once (he was asked what he believed in not what the Labor Party believed in), conclude with a meaningless motherhood statement and misappropriate a quotation.

I’ve scanned Martin Luther King’s speeches and he makes no mention of everybody being somebody. The great MLK did say “Everybody can be great” apropos of an individual’s potential to help others. The Baptist preacher, one of the 20th Century’s most powerful orators, would never have lapsed into that kind of trite idiocy.

Shorten speaks in political patois, a kind of turgid, rambling linguistic filibuster that goes nowhere when in terms of brevity and purpose, a short, punchy sentence would not just suffice it would be viewed as a blessing by the audience.
Of course Shorten lives in the politically rarefied air of Canberra where this sort of guff is vaguely tolerated. The question is what would happen if we all started speaking like Bill Shorten?

Pete just thought you'd like to know what a blog should contain: Blogs should have...

 Journal-like entries about the person's life

 
 Articles about the person or something that interests the person 

 Photos inserted into the article or entry 

 Graphs or other data inserted 

 Links to other web sites, usually where they got their information from 

Get the point???

One ray of hope though.... You can write one even if you have no writing skills.

Check google...

"Journal-like entries about the person's life

 
 Articles about the person or something that interests the person 

 Photos inserted into the article or entry 

 Graphs or other data inserted"

Is a  plagarised copy and paste

SOURCE