En Passant

The government can put lipstick on a pig but most of us are not going to buy it. It was our basic class gut instincts that stopped Malcolm Turnbull bringing home the GST bacon for his class.

Since the income tax cuts to compensate for increasing the GST will not deliver real and lasting compensation for workers, and since workers are the one group in society with the power to fix that, the task of militants in our trade unions should be to argue for and organise around winning wages increases to compensate for any increased GST. Over to you militant unions and class conscious workers. Just the threat of GST wage increase strikes might cause some ruling class members to hesitate about increasing the GST. And it might help unions win back some working class support.

Someone I know writing in socialist magazine Solidarity about tax reform and the GST scam. To read the whole article in Solidarity click on Turnbull’s tax reform aims to boost corporate profits.

This is the youtube link to my 10 November interview with Sharon Firebrace on Razor Sharp. We discuss tax, including the GST, poverty and inequality, and the need to fight against neoliberalism and austerity.

This is the direct youtube link to my almost 14 minute interview with Genevieve Jacobs on ABC Radio 666 on the GST on Friday 6 November.

If everything is on the table, rather than raising the GST to 15% and further increasing inequality, Malcolm Turnbull has a range of other options to help resolve Australia’s current fiscal imbalance, writes John Passant in Independent Australia.

I wrote this – Abolish the GST and tax the rich instead – over 2 years ago. In light of calls to increase the GST rate from 10% to 15%, it remains relevant today. Hit the link to read the whole article.

Let’s imagine a worst case scenario. It is 2018 and the GST has been extended to fresh food, health and education, and the Medicare rebate is frozen at $32.05. The standard AMA approved consultation fee has risen from the 2014 rate of $75 to $85 to cover increased costs. So here is a typical situation for a person on the average wage(about $78,000) and their family going to the doctor.

You see your doctor and because you are working you are charged $85. On top of that you have to pay ten percent GST, so you pay $85 plus $8.50, meaning you pay $93.50 just to go to the doctor. Under the 3 year freeze on the cut Medicare rebate you get back just $32.05. That simple ten or 15 minute trip to the doctor has cost you 0ver $60 ($61.45 to be precise).

Your wages haven’t kept pace with inflation and are falling rapidly in real terms.

You realise the cost so you don’t go to the doctor. You save yourself $60 but at what cost to the long term health of you or your family?

Here is a snippet from an article in Green Left Weekly on the GST, quoting me, among others.

Bolton and Passant both called for the return to a more progressive income tax system so that those with the highest incomes pay the most tax — the exact opposite of the regressive GST.

You can read the full article here.

They are waging class war against us. The Productivity Commission pension recommendations are just one part of that war.

Isn’t it time we fought back instead of turning the other cheek and being smashed by the bosses and their politicians in both major parties every bloody day?

They are burning us out. Instead of increasing the pension age, cut it to 60.

The time for a 30 hour week is now.  The time for taxing the rich is now.

The time for fighting back is now.