Peter Martin has set out the types of ‘error’ Treasury identified in the Coalition policy costings.

The Charter of Budget Honesty sets out guidelines for election costings, in order to make sure they are done on the same basis. One forbids the counting of proceeds from expected ”second-round effects” such as a saving on the dole from a job creation program. The Coalition counted such an effect because it says the National Centre for Economic Modelling told it its program would take 51,000 people off the dole.

That and a similar ‘error’ amounts to some $3.5 billion. But I’m not sure the Charter of Budget Honesty forbids second round effects. Here are the criteria.

The following are standard conventions for the preparation of fiscal costings. Read more »

Bob Katter has issued his own log of claims, which is an apposite term, given that one of his claims is a return to collective bargaining (note, Bob, - this was achieved in the Fair Work Act on which you voted) and compulsory arbitration. 

He also wants the right of collective bargaining extended to farmers without, it would seem, him realising that this right exists within the Trade Practices Act, again an amendment on which he voted.

At least, he seems to have the grace to accept that all his demands would not be met by either party, so here are the ones that both parties need toss quickly in the policy waste paper bin, bound for the shredder: Read more »

There has been a lot mission slippage in Project Wickenby. It started off investigating tax evasion and tax havens, but quickly degenerated into into tax evasion and any offshore activity – including that well-known tax haven New Zealand.

Robert Agius was allegedly involved in a very simple scheme employing New Zealand banks to engage in round tripping. Clients would end up lending money to themselves and would claim interest payments as a tax deduction.

Under the scheme, Australian customers would transfer money to accounts in Vanuatu and New Zealand, claiming them as a business expense.

The money would then be returned to Australia less commission in the form of a loan, and a repayment would be treated as a tax deduction.

This is illegal and IMHO should be illegal. I have no problem with the tax authorities trying to prevent this sort of thing. Do we really need a special $400 million taskforce to prevent simple crime like this? Read more »

There really is some strange stuff appearing on Drum/Unleashed on the ABC website.

Today’s is a piece by Michael Head a law teacher at University of Western Sydney under the title Stoking Fears of Terrorism. The thesis is that the Howard government and the subsequent Labor governments have provoked fear of terrorism “To provide a pretext for anti-democratic ‘terrorism’ laws and to justify its participation in the US-led military occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.” A raid just before the election on homes of Kurdish Australians was timed to show that the Labor government was tough on terrorism, we are told.

Head seems to be close to the Kurds in this country and writes:

“the PKK is not a terrorist group, but a political organisation. While the PKK has been involved in actions targeting civilians in Turkey, successive Turkish governments are responsible for the armed conflict. The Turkish military and allied fascist gangs have a long history of terrorism against the Kurdish minority and other political opponents.”

He goes on: Read more »

The ALP costing (mind you not including the impact of the Greens alliance).

The Coalition costing.

The Coalition does a lot better in the new future – where forecasts are more likely to be more accurate – and worse in the further furture – where the forecasts are more speculative. In those future years the ALP is reliant on income from the mining tax. If that mining tax income is less than forecast (a very likely outcome IMHO) the budget under an ALP-Greens government starts looking very dodgy.