[Peetwo]

Sandy comment to - Via the Oz:   

PM’s bid to curb union power, fire up business

SIMON BENSON
NATIONAL AFFAIRS EDITOR

RICHARD FERGUSON
REPORTER
@RichAFerguson

12:00AM JUNE 24, 2019




Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

Scott Morrison will launch a ­renewed offensive on union militancy as an economic imperative while calling on Australian workers to help refuel the economy by spending their tax cuts of up to $1080 amid central bank warnings of slowing growth.

In his first domestic speech since the election, the Prime Minister will today intensify pressure on Labor leader Anthony Albanese ahead of a shadow cabinet meeting expected to thrash out Labor’s position on whether to back the $158 billion tax package.

It comes as former union boss and co-architect of the modern economy Bill Kelty rejected Labor’s tax agenda and backed the Coalition’s move to lower the top rates of personal income tax while calling on both sides to tackle further reform, including broadening the tax base.

“I support much, much lower personal income tax rates and marginal rates across the board, including the top. A top marginal rate of 50 per cent is just crazy,” he told The Australian.

Further calls from within Labor circles to accept the government’s mandate came yesterday from another former union boss and Labor cabinet minister, Martin Ferguson, who said the issue had been debated for a year and had now been decided by voters.

Addressing the WA business chamber today, Mr Morrison will reveal he asked his new ­Industrial Relations Minister Christian Porter to conduct a fresh review of the system to examine barriers to economic gains.

The Prime Minister has also ­issued a second challenge to Labor to also pass stalled workplace reforms dealing with union corruption and industrial militancy which Mr Morrison has said he would make a priority when parliament returns.

With the Reserve Bank warning fiscal stimulus is needed on top of monetary policy, Mr Morrison has also flagged a second wave of deregulation to accelerate investment and fuel jobs growth. “Our job post-election is now very clear — to get Australians off the economic sidelines and on the field again,” Mr Morrison will say according a draft of his first domestic address since the election.

“First, how we will get things moving by lowering taxes, sharpening the incentives to work and invest, and get infrastructure projects under way.

“Secondly, provoking the ‘animal spirits’ in our economy by ­removing regulatory and bureaucratic barriers to businesses investing and creating more jobs.

“And thirdly, boosting the economy’s long-term growth ­potential by unlocking greater economic dynamism and productivity by lifting our skills capabilities and driving uptake of new digital technologies to promote innovation and competition in our financial system.”

Labor Treasury spokesman Jim Chalmers yesterday softened his language ahead of today’s shadow cabinet meeting, claiming there would be more “internal consultation” before a decision was made. But he said with parliament not due to return until next week, there was “no rush”.

The Australian, however, has been told by several senior Labor MPs that they were expecting a position would be set today following intensifying pressure from backbench MPs who claim they were being left with the task of ­explaining to constituents why Labor was rejecting tax cuts.

Mr Morrison will say in his speech: “Labor’s high-taxing ­agenda has now been rejected at two successive elections. The fact Labor are having to be dragged kicking and screaming, putting up one excuse and ruse after another, shows they simply don’t understand that when you find yourself in a hole, you should stop digging.

“Our proposed tax relief doesn’t just have a strong political mandate. It has a compelling policy rationale.”

Mr Morrison will say investment crucial to growth also needs to be protected “from the impact of militant unions”.

The union/Labor dynamic of today, in the wake of the Setka scandal, was a “very far cry from the balanced relationship of the Hawke-Crean-Kelty alliance of the past,” Mr Morrison says.

“When we’re back in parliament next week, another of our priorities is to introduce laws to give greater powers to deal with registered organisations and officials who regularly break the law, prohibit officials who are not fit and proper persons from holding office, and stop the rorting of worker entitlement funds.”

Mr Kelty, who was the co-­architect of the Hawke-Keating government’s 1980s economic ­accord as ACTU secretary, told The Australian that neither side of politics was tackling real tax reform but supported the government’s agenda of driving down income tax rates.

“We have to look back at the Hawke-Keating tax reforms and even the Howard reforms. We need a broader base of taxation,” he said. “There has to be a tax system for the future and draw a line under the two systems. You can either have much, much lower personal income taxes or the concessions — capital gains tax, negative gearing. The government’s plan is not tax reform … it advantages some groups and disadvantages others. Labor’s plan before the election was not real tax reform either.

“Both parties are taking the right steps … I think there needs to be proper consideration of this (tax package by Labor) and we need to actually reform the tax system completely.”

Mr Ferguson, a former ACTU president, called on his own party to move out of the way of the ­Coalition’s tax plans.

The government wants the tax package passed by July 4 to deliver the maximum benefits of $1080 under its first stage.

Now the chair of Tourism ­Accommodation Australia, Mr Ferguson said more than one million workers in the tourism and hospitality sectors would receive immediate tax relief.

“For Australia’s accommodation and tourism businesses to secure growth from increased domestic spending, it is critical that Australians are able to keep more of their own money,” he said.

“Passing the whole of the government’s tax cuts will help everyone — from the businesses who rely on people feeling confident to spend more, right through to the hundreds of thousands workers in the hotel industry who will receive immediate income tax relief.

“We have had a long and comprehensive national debate about the proposed income tax cuts, including a federal election where the government was returned to office with an increased majority. It is now time for the parliament to pass the necessary legislation.”

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, speaking from Berlin where he is in negotiations over a EU free-trade agreement, continued his attack on Labor’s refusal to so far support the bill.

“It is very important for Jim Chalmers to understand that we won’t split the bill giving effect to our plan,” he said.
“Our first priority is tax cuts for low-income earners, but Australia needs our entire plan ­legislated.”

Sandy in reply:

Alexander

12 HOURS AGO

“Secondly, provoking the ‘animal spirits’ in our economy by ­removing regulatory and bureaucratic barriers to businesses investing and creating more jobs.“

This will cut no ice with the few thousands left in the General Aviation (GA) industry which has been devastated by years of Parliamentary neglect while the independent corporate regulator has run amuck with the worst, most expensive and unworkable rules rewrite, still not finished after 32 years. 

The National Party has had the Ministerial portfolio throughout the many years of Coalition Government but those ministers abrogated their responsibilities and allowed the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) to feather it’s own nest without regard to the reasonable aspirations of aviation minded Australians. Thus the loss of hundreds of flying schools and maintenance businesses and the importing of airline pilots. CASA has imposed swinging operational fees for all sorts of unnecessary permissions and whole miserable bureaucratic paraphernalia is supported by Parliament. 

Parliament having rubber stamped the wholesale migration of what used to be (appropriately) civil aviation law into the criminal code with strict liability and huge penalties for even the slightest and most innocuous infringements, many of which supposed criminal acts don’t ever rate a mention in the most mature and successful GA industry, that of the USA where increasingly Australians are heading for their flying training. 

Incumbent since the demise of Barnaby Joyce, Minister for Transport Michael MacCormack talks but does nothing. ScoMo and the Libs have no way to force reform for fear of upsetting their socialist partner, the Nationals. 

Plus this week's SBG via the blog: In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

ScoMo's RTR promise - light on the horizon or empty rhetoric...   

And further to Sandy's Oz article catch - from Stevie E, via the Mandarin ...  

Red tape crackdown renewed: Morrison prefers ‘animal spirits’ to endangered animals

By Stephen Easton

Monday June 24, 2019



Prime Minister Scott Morrison has reinforced his intention to remove “regulatory and bureaucratic barriers” that increase costs for companies, closely guided by common complaints about government agencies from business people.

The PM told the Western Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry he believed “the much-needed animal spirits in our economy” were being held back by regulations like environmental protection laws as well as public service regulatory processes, in a speech on Monday.

Following up his victorious address to Australian Public Service leaders asking them to help the government reduce “congestion” in their departments, Morrison said he was building on the policy of “cutting red tape” and light-touch regulation that began under his predecessor Tony Abbott.

“Removing what governments identify as excessive or outdated regulation is one thing. Whether we are really focusing on the barriers that matter to business in getting investments and projects off the ground is another,” the PM said.

Morrison has assigned responsibility for the Coalition’s return to red tape to his assistant minister Ben Morton and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, who was also Abbott’s red-tape lieutenant. There would be “a renewed focus on regulatory reform but from a different angle” so public servants would look at the regulatory experience from the perspective of particular kinds of investment or business.

“Rather than setting targets for departments or government agencies, we’ll be asking the wider question from the perspective of a business looking, say, to open a mine, commercialise a new biomedical innovation, or even start a home-based, family business,” the PM said.

“By focusing on regulation from the viewpoint of business, we will identify the regulations and bureaucratic processes that impose the largest costs on key sectors of the economy and the biggest hurdles to letting those investments flow.”

He repeated his previous criticism of the WA Environmental Protection Agency for its implementation of new greenhouse gas regulations for major projects, which also drew the state government’s ire, and said some federal regulators were also unnecessarily impeding investors in similar ways.

Another local example for the WA business people was the increase in regulatory requirements for mining in the state, over a timeframe of over half a century to exaggerate the point.

Morrison noted that in the mid-1960s, “the late Sir Arvi Parbo took the Kambalda nickel mine near Kalgoorlie from discovery to operation in 18 months” while the Roy Hill iron ore mine in Port Hedland had required “around 4,000 approvals” and took about 10 years to get running.

“There is a clear need to improve approvals timeframes and reduce regulatory costs, but in many cases regulators are making things worse,” the PM said. “Look at the WA Environment Protection Authority and the uncertainty it has created over new emissions requirements for the resources sector. Business will also make valid criticisms of many Commonwealth agencies and departments.”

Later, a medical analogy served to explain the new plan to remove and reduce federal regulations. Speaking to the business group, Morrison focused almost entirely on the costs to business and made no attempt to defend the importance of government regulations in general, given they create level playing fields and aim to protect the community, or the fact that business rightly wears the cost of compliance.

“Step one is to get a picture of the regulatory anatomies that apply to key sectoral investments. Step two is to identify the blockages. Step three is to remove them, like cholesterol in the arteries.”

Morrison inspired by Trump’s small-government policies

While Donald Trump’s performance in government is not universally considered inspirational by leaders of other nations, Morrison appears to find plenty to admire in the Republican President’s small-government policies.

He enthused that while he also wanted to cut taxes, like the US President, “it was actually the Trump administration’s commitment to cutting red tape and transforming the regulatory mindset of the bureaucracy that delivered their first wave of improvement in their economy” in his view.

“You can be assured I have begun this term by making it clear to our public service chiefs that I am expecting a new mindset when it comes to getting investments off the drawing board,” he added.

In a segue to the Coalition’s industrial relations policy, Morrison confirmed that unions are the one type of organisation he would like to subject to a greater regulatory burden.

According to the PM, his government now “believes in cooperative workplaces” and Christian Porter will be looking for “impediments to shared gains for employers and employees” in his new capacity as Industrial Relations Minister.

MTF...P2