Tag Archives: budget

Barnaby Rips Into Swan On Live TV

23 Aug

The highlight of the election coverage.

Wayne ‘Goose’ Swan is torn to shreds by Michael Kroger during Channel Nine’s live election broadcast.

As he lays on the mat spitting out his teeth, Barnaby lays the boot in.

If only the Coalition had got stuck into Swan like this months earlier.

Highly entertaining viewing.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Is China Bankrupt?

3 Aug

From MSNBC:

All governments lie about their finances. At worst, as in Greece and the United States, the lies are bold and transparent. Everybody knows the emperor has no clothes, but no one want to say so. At best, as in Canada and China, the lies are more subtle – more like a magician’s misdirection than a viking raider’s ax. Look at these great numbers, the lie goes, but don’t look at those up my sleeve.

There’s a good argument to be made that if you look at all the numbers, instead of just the ones the budget magicians want you to see, China is indeed broke…

… China has a history of taking debt off its books and burying it, which should prompt us to poke and prod its numbers.

A must-read article. Poke and prod China’s numbers here.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Joyce: Labor Fails To Deliver Lower Living Costs

28 Jul

Media Release – Senator Barnaby Joyce, 28 July 2010:

Whilst the rolling Greek tragedy that is the Labor Party continues, the price of utilities continues to take away the spare cash of many Australian families. The Labor Party went to the election saying that they would ease the squeeze and assist with the cost of living but this is another promise which they have never delivered. In fact they were increasing the debt and increasing pressure on interest rates while they made life harder not easier for people. Australians are quickly coming to the conclusion that life under Labor is an erratic roller coaster which the wheels will fly off at any moment.

After promising to reduce the cost of living, since Labor was elected:

Electricity prices have gone up 34%

Water prices have gone up 29%

Gas prices have gone up 26%

Overall, utility bills have gone up 31%

To compare Labor against the Coalition on an annual basis (and correcting for inflation):

Electricity prices are going up 9.3% a year under Labor. They went up 0.5% a year under the Coalition.

Water prices are going up 7.6% a year under Labor. They went up 1.2% a year under the Coalition.

Gas prices are going up 6.5% a year under Labor. They went up 1.3% a year under the Coalition.

Overall, utility prices are going up 8.2% a year under Labor. They went up 0.8% a year under the Coalition.

Australia can’t afford another three years of Labor.

(Figures sourced from ABS)

More Information – Jenny Swan 0746 251500

Tags: , , , , ,

Swan Admits Borrowing $100m-a-day

26 Jul

From the ABC:

Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan has conceded the Opposition is correct when it claims Labor is borrowing $100 million a day to pay back Government debt.

Of course, it takes only a few seconds to keep tabs on Labor’s borrowings.

Just visit the Australian Office of Financial Management (“AOFM”) website to see the current total borrowings – listed as $150.533 million presently.

Don’t forget to add to this total, the amount listed at each link under the “Recent Tender Results” title, on the right hand side of the page. These are the extra amounts borrowed last week, but not yet added to the total.  So that’s another $1,800 million in the past week, giving us a grand total of $152.133 million borrowed up till last weekend.

Then, to see how much the Government plans to borrow in the next week, click on the “Forthcoming tenders” link, also on the right hand side of the AOFM home page. As you can see, on Thursday and Friday this week, the Labor Government will borrow a total of another $1,000 million.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Labor Fails Infrastructure Again

26 Jul

Media Release – Senator Barnaby Joyce, 24 July 2010:

Senator Joyce said today that the Auditor General report on Infrastructure Australia’s first audit report reveals Labor’s politicised, haphazard and sloppy approach to infrastructure investment.

In the 2008-09 Budget, the Rudd-Gillard Government committed themselves to:

‘Decision making based on rigorous cost-benefit analysis to ensure the highest economic and social benefits to the nation over the long term.’

“The Auditor-General’s report today shows that not only did this Government fail to conduct rigorous cost-benefit analysis, some of the 28 ‘pipeline’ infrastructure projects which were identified did not pass a cost-benefit analysis.

This approach disagrees with the advice given by Dr Ken Henry last year when he said:

Government spending that does not pass an appropriately defined cost-benefit test necessarily detracts from Australia’s wellbeing. That is, when taxpayer funds are not put to their best use, Australia’s wellbeing is not as high as it otherwise could be.

“The Auditor-General’s report just shows another example of Labor’s wasteful and reckless approach to spending taxpayer’s dollars. After the Coalition left Labor with $60 billion in the bank and a $20 billion surplus, Labor rushed $90 billion of stimulus spending, with only 14 per cent of it spent on economic infrastructure.

“Labor seats have attracted 84 per cent of spending from the Education Investment Fund and 73 per cent of spending from the Health and Hospitals Fund.

“The result is that the Building Australia Fund has only $705 million left.

“Australia can not afford another three years of Labor.”

For more information: Matt Canavan 0458709433

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Joyce: The Labor Government Is Dodgy

15 Jul

Media Release – Senator Barnaby Joyce, 15 July 2010:

In trying to think of a metaphor to describe the Labor government in one word, it is this – dodgy! Their figures are dodgy when they talk about a $7.5 billion reduction in revenue but apparently only causing a $1.5 billion reduction in income. Their approach is dodgy when they talk about net debt as if the people who lent us the money don’t want the money back in gross terms and just for the record, we currently owe $150 billion and are currently borrowing an extra $150 million a day.

They are completely dodgy with how they change Prime Ministers in the middle of the night without telling the Australian people. They are even dodgy amongst themselves with the deals they make, such as the one between Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard on the process of leadership transition which Julia obviously didn’t honour because the backroom boys told her not to. They are dodgy in how they talk about future surpluses, yet their past prescriptions about current surpluses have been so totally wrong and actually end up as deficits.

They are dodgy in how they describe solutions for the processing of boat people in East Timor when they haven’t actually done the homework to get the deal through East Timor. They are dodgy in how they employ mates such as Mr Kaiser for $450,000 a year without even putting an advertisement in the paper so that other Australian’s can apply for the job. They are dodgy in how they go forward with a $43 billion capital infrastructure program such as the NBN without doing a cost benefit analysis as to whether it will actually work.

They were dodgy in the way that they allowed the importation of beef from countries with Mad Cow Disease until we found out about the deal and then they changed the decision around again. They were dodgy in how they told people that the ETS was the greatest moral challenge of our time, but the person who was crucial in changing that moral paradigm is now enjoying the benefits of the Prime Minsters office. They were dodgy when they inferred that an ETS would change the climate when quite obviously it was never going to.

They were dodgy with how they told the Australian people that they would fix the hospital system by July 2009 or they would take it over and in the end, they did neither. They were dodgy when they decided to build school halls across our nation for $16.2 billion whether you wanted them or not and at three times the price. They were dodgy when they decided to put ceiling insulation into roofs and burnt down over 180 houses causing tragically the deaths of 4 people that we know of.

However, where they are really dodgy is this – they told people that they would assist with the cost of living. They had the dodgy fuel watch scheme and the dodgy grocery watch scheme which were announced with fan fare but achieved zip.

The cost of living in Australia is going through the roof because this crowd in government is dodgy and has absolutely no idea how to get the basics right. You cannot keep borrowing money at the rate they are, putting upward pressure on interest rates, and squeezing the last drop of blood out of working families and then claim to know something about the cost of living.

You cannot talk about reducing coal fired power replacing it with renewables at many times the cost and not expect that this is going to make working families poorer. You can’t fail to develop the inland and not expect the result to be far greater pressure on the social and economic infrastructure of urban Australia. If you don’t develop water infrastructure then you have to expect the price of a limited resource, water, to go through the roof. If you keep on making it difficult for farmers to farm, with continual new laws on vegetation, and everything they do from sunrise to sundown and in between, while at the same time failing to oversee that farmers are getting a fair price at the farm gate, then the farmers will disappear and the price of food will go through the roof. You can’t borrow hundreds of billions of dollars from overseas and not expect that it has to be repaid by people who have to pay taxes, working families, who could have otherwise put that money in their pockets.

In summary, many people at the supermarkets and at the pubs and clubs and at the church on the weekend and at the sport with their kids understand one thing – that they seem to be poorer under this crowd then they were before, they have less money than they did before. They seem to be watching a political soap opera that has more episodes than Blue Hills standing in proxy for decent government.

My statement to the Australian people on behalf of the National Party in the Senate will be this – Do you honestly believe that you can carry on with this crowd for another three years? What do you think will be left of the show if you do?

More Information – Jenny Swan 0746 251500

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Labor’s Debt: $3,500 Per Person

25 Jun

From the Federal Liberal Party’s Friday Facts –

Despite inheriting a $20 billion surplus, zero net debt and $60 billion in the Future Fund, Labor is delivering:

  • $78.5 billion of net debt in 2010-11 – $3,500 per person
  • $4.6 billion of interest paid on net debt in 2010-11 – $205 for every Australian (and as the graph below shows, it will get worse)
  • A Budget deficit of $40.8 billion in 2010-11 (the biggest deficit since World War II)
  • To fund its reckless and wasteful spending, Labor needs to borrow more than $100 million every day.

Tags: , , ,

Joyce: Gillard Set To Outspend Rudd

25 Jun

Media Release – Senator Barnaby Joyce, 25 June, 2010:

Rudd borrows $95 million a day, Julia set to break record

Senator Barnaby Joyce today said that the new Labor Government has a lot of work to do to get this country back on track.

“The new appointee of the faceless factional bosses, Prime Minster Gillard, has already stated that she wants to get the Government “back on track”, and it certainly is a long way off-track at the moment” said Senator Barnaby Joyce, Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Infrastructure and Water today.

When this Government came to power Australia’s gross debt was $59 billion. It is now $147 billion. This Government has spent $88 billion in 935 days. This is a new record for Australian Prime Ministers.

“This Government has been an unmitigated disaster for our country, and even the Labor party now agrees. They have been racking up debt on the national credit card at $95 million a day.

“Every day of the Rudd Government, that money could have built almost 500 km of sealed country roads or repaired and refurbished over 100 bridges in regional Australia. Instead, thanks to Julia Gillard and her team we have overpriced trinkets at the back of school yards. .

“If the new PM really wants to get this great country back on track, she needs to stop this reckless and wasteful spending. The budget that the Deputy Prime Minister handed down less than two months ago forecast borrowing of $150 million a day for the next financial year. Gillard is already on track to smash Rudd’s record and things look like getting worse before they get better.”

“Australia can’t afford another term of pandemonium from the Labor party.”

More Information – Matthew Canavan 0458 709 433

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Tanner Is GAWN!!

24 Jun

Is it Christmas?  Seriously … is it Christmas?!

Not only is Liar And Incompetent of The Millennia, former PM Kevin Rudd, now confined to the dustbin of ignominious history.

Breaking news has it that Lindsay Tanner will not contest the next election.  From Business Spectator:

Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner has announced he will not be contesting his seat at the next federal election.

Mr Tanner made the announcement to parliament this afternoon, saying his decision was unconnected to the Labor leadership change.

“I want to assure the house that this decision is … totally unconnected to the events of the past 24 hours,” Mr Tanner said.

“It involves no reflection on the government’s policies.”

It is Christmas!

One of the primary motivations for launching this blog, was your author’s outrage at the blatant lies and vicious, underhanded misrepresentations by soon-to-be former Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner, and his singular role in feeding the media with lie after lie after lie, all aimed at vilifying the then-new (now former) Shadow Finance Minister, Senator Barnaby Joyce.

Not only that.

As regular readers will know, your author has written many columns and analyses, using the official Government Budget documents, showing the countless lies and misrepresentations of truth by Tanner.  In fact, much of this blog has been devoted to exposing his lies and deceit.

While we joyously await his departure from Parliament, enjoy catching up on all these lies and misrepresentations made by Tanner in recent times.

Just click on any of the links to your right, under the main title “Pages“, and sub-heading “Resources & Articles“.

Ahhhhhhh … our work is done 🙂

Barnaby – thank you.

You’ve seen off the ETS.  And Kevin Rudd.  Now, your arch-enemy Lindsay Tanner is gawn too.

And you’re still here for us.  Well done champ!

Tags: , ,

Barnaby: The Economic Illuminati

9 Jun

Opinion piece for The Punch – Senator Barnaby Joyce, 7 June 2010:

The Mining Tax:  Treasury’s Own Love Formula

Every now and then, a select group from the economic illuminati retire to their monastic study and devise a splendid idea to try and pay off their previous splendid idea.

Splendid idea number one was to borrow so much money that we put ourselves in more strife than the early settlers in our desire to adorn the nation with an eclectic mix of rubbish that apparently was going to save us from Asia ceasing to purchase our minerals. The relationship between our stimulus and mineral exports was as clear as mud, but there was an emphatic defence of this fantastic proposition by Labor.

The Treasury corruption of the graphs depicting the relationship between our and other nations’ fiscal stimulus packages and the effect on their respective economies shows that when the graphs were corrected the relationship was hardly apparent. We really were sold a lemon on Labor’s “go hard, go early, go household strategy” in response to the North American and European financial crisis and are currently lumbered with in excess of $144 billion gross federal debt while on our merry way to in excess of $220 billion gross federal debt.

The next chapter in the Labor Party Magnus Opus was called “massive debt” and the next problem for Treasury was “how do we pay it off?” The Labor Party thought to increase their revenue stream in the most politically parochial way. They explained to Australia that the big miners are morally lacking, are exploiting the workers, and they as a government, Robin Hood – like, would restore the balance of fiscal morality. It would mean the partial nationalisation of our whole mining sector, however. They had it on good advice from the Secretary of the Treasury, that he had studied a theorem at high school that no matter how you flog this mining sector, it’s going to hang around and continue to support you.

The sobering reality is this, despite the Secretary of the Treasury stating that you can put taxes up in the mining sector and not affect the investment profile, he is wrong on this occasion. If taxes go up at an exponential rate to where they formerly were, people will make the logical decision to go where the taxes are less. If the Secretary of the Treasury tells you that a new tax will assist in cooling the planet, you really have to ask yourself if this is necessarily so. If you surround yourself with hedges of economic theorems and carpets of policy papers and spend your nights fanatically trying to turn human emotion into predictable mathematical models, and don’t recognise what is yelled to you as common sense by the peak industry groups, you will come unstuck when you find that your models don’t match their experience.

During Estimates one can get quite frustrated with well meaning pontificating by well paid bureaucrats about a perfect world they have created and what happens in it. This world has created a Newtonian expectation of preciseness to economics as required to match government policy desires. It supposes that gravity and economics are the same and that people’s actions are as predictable as other items of physics- like a mathematical model for love. Commonsense expectations on actions and reactions are put aside for superb anodyne reflections on economic issues. The basic premise that must be first applied when analysing the RSPT is this – if a miner can make more money in another venue, then to that other venue they will go. Unfortunately it appears that this statement of the bleeding obvious, that one cannot predict the economic speed of sound, has meant that a realistic gut instinct of what happens when you put a 40% tax on mining has not been followed.

The reality of the RSPT, which was blatantly obvious to virtually everyone, has now of course come to be in the actions of such companies as Xstrata in the reduction of their investment decisions in Australia. How can we believe the Labor Party’s lauding of their so-called management of the GFC and take for granted their endorsement that it was their school halls program that saved us from a recession, when it is the same Labor Government inspired brains trust that is creating this stuff up?

Dr Henry, in answer to my question at the Economics References Committee Inquiry earlier this week, stated that it didn’t matter whether the RSPT tax was at 40, 60 or 70 percent, as to how it would affect investment in Australia. I was left no choice but to believe that he was correct in his description of a theory but had completely departed from reality as to what was actually going to happen.

This new tax will not only be a bombshell to such mining areas as Gladstone, Townsville, Wollongong Newcastle and Mackay and the whole of WA, but ultimately it will affect those other big coastal towns such as Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney as they come to the startling reality that these Labor Party splendid ideas are going to have dire consequences to the investment and export structure of our nation.

In the town of Wandoan, there are some farmers who are happy today due to the fact that a major mine is not going ahead and yes we should not be mining prime agricultural land because this is the ultimate non renewable resource. This Labor Party package was not to protect prime agricultural land but to prop up Treasury with a new tax. In fact the Labor Party hoped the mining would go ahead in Wandoan. However, there are some other families who were hoping that the income from the mine will increase their standard of living, and they are very unhappy, because Labor Party hopes are not their reality.

There were people who were going to build a $1 billion railway line from Wandoan to Banana and they are unhappy today as they are not going to build it anymore. There was supposed to be the development of a massive income stream to support lots of shops, chemists, school teachers, nurses, contractors, metal fabricators, diesel fitters and they are all going to miss out. They are all very unhappy. They are all unhappy because some group of individuals in Canberra decided that they were beyond questioning and resolute in a desire to inflict on the Australian economy what would have to be the most incongruous economic policy since the 1949 desire by the Labor government to nationalise the banking industry.

Tags: , , , , , ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started