En Passant

I know. The idea of Corbyn leading the Australian Labor Party is ridiculous. For a start, he is a British MP.  Second, he has his hands full leading the British Labour Party, on the way to possibly becoming Prime Minister in the near future. But of course, you know the reason why I have framed […]

On Wednesday night, the leaders of the two major parties debated how best to manage Australian capitalism. One showed a little compassion, tempered by continued cruelty to asylum, seekers and refugees. The other talked about budget costs, taxes and strong borders. Both leaders promised to continue to be tough on refugees and asylum seekers. Shorten […]

Negative gearing just means an investments ongoing deductible costs are greater than its income. In other words the investment is losing money. Many types of property can be negatively geared. The most obvious example is a rental property. Let me use that as an example. Say I borrow $1 million dollars to purchase a property […]

Labor has announced a few tax proposals. Let’s have a go at explaining the capital gains tax changes. Until 1985, capital gains in Australia were not taxed. As any tax economist will tell you, capital gains are income. As any tax lawyer will tell, the judges say they aren’t.   When Keating made net gains […]

In Independent Australia John Passant analyses Ged Kearney’s Batman by-election win and what it says about left-wing policies.

The stunning election results of Jeremy Corbyn’s UK Labour Party prepare a path for the ALP, writes John Passant in Independent Australia

This is a Queensland Labor Party ad in the run up to the Queensland State election in 2015, when they were elected. The Party, in government, approved the Adani mine.

Labor thinks it is on a winner with its Australia First propaganda. Expect to see much more Aussie jobs rhetoric and dog whistling from the ALP. Of course, like Trump, most of this will be verbiage without action.  Where was Labor for example when the car industry was shutting down?

Labor, rather than dog whistling about foreign workers, could make some real changes to industrial relations law in Australia. The first one would be to enshrine the right to strike at any time in legislation. The second would be to allow unions access to all workers to explain pay and conditions, and for building industry and other dangerous workplaces, to enforce safety standards

Jim Casey may or may not win Grayndler from potential Labor Party leader Anthony Albanese in this election. It is however pretty clear that the Greens will not go away and the reason for that is that the ALP is now so right wing and so pro-market and pro-capital in government that some of its previous supporters are shifting and have shifted to what they perceive as a progressive alternative. No amount of abuse from the likes of Keating is going to change that. To win labour votes the ALP should have labour policies.

A pre-occupation with Triple-A ratings mean Labor’s economic policies are only marginally more considerate of Australia’s rising inequality than those of the Coalition, writes John Passant in Independent Australia. To read the whole article click here. How can there be fairness in an unfair economy?