En Passant

These are the notes for a talk on the Panama Papers I gave for socialist group Solidarity at ANU on Thursday.

Has the time come to consider criminalising tax avoidance and making boards and senior officers liable for prison sentences, asks former ATO Assistant Commissioner, John Passant in Independent Australia.  

We demand that those on Manus and Nauru all be brought to safety, to the Australian mainland, to be processed fairly in the community.

I am speaking this Thursday at the ANU in Canberra on the Panama Papers, inequality, taxing the rich and much much more. The Panama Papers have revealed yet again that the rich rig the game and pay little tax. Instead of taxing the rich the Government wants us to ‘live within our means’. This is code for […]

Scrap the $50 billion on submarines and the $24 billion on the F-35 joint strike fighter planes. Spend the $74 billion on public health, education and supporting and rehabilitating veterans.

Instead of just pissfarting around with negative gearing changes, a genuine party of the people would propose a strong public housing program, paid for by taxing the rich. This could address homelessness and give first home buyers security at an affordable price.

The poster, and the growth of the IWW, highlight part of the hidden history of World War I. Not only was it an imperialist slaughter but working class opposition to it grew rapidly; so much so that the 1916 and 1917 referenda on conscription were both defeated. In 1917 there was a general strike in New South Wales.

No doubt you will be shocked to learn, as I was, that it is the rich who overwhelmingly benefit from negative gearing losses, and the superannuation and capital gains discount tax concessions. Here are some facts.

Here are some pesky facts.

As the full implications of the Panama Papers are still being unravelled, John Passant analyses the IPA’s Mikayla Novak’s argument, which favours tax havens and maintaining privacy for investors. This is the link to my article called Australia as a tax haven in Independent Australia.

Shorten’s comments today on penalty rates signal a retreat from the ‘hint of class’ approach the ALP seemed to be developing around themes like the Royal Commission into the finance industry and their ‘crackdown’ on tax avoidance and other minor tax the rich changes. The back down might slow or even reverse Labor’s momentum and support. If they want to win in July we need more class rhetoric and action from them. The capitulation on penalty rates suggests they may have abandoned the softly softly ‘touch of Bernie’ approach and with it, perhaps, the election.