Achievements

[pct001wine]

· NBN (the real one) – total cost $37.4b (Government contribution: $30.4b)

· BER 7,920 schools: 10,475 projects. (completed at less than 3% dissatisfaction rate)

· Gonski – Education funding reform

· NDIS/DisabilityCare

· MRRT & aligned PRRT

· Won seat at the UN

· Signed Kyoto

· Signatory to Bali Process & Regional Framework

· Eradicated WorkChoices

· Established Fair Work Australia

· Established Carbon Pricing/ETS (7% reduction in emissions since July last year)

· Established National Network of Reserves and Parks

· Created world’s largest Marine Park Network

· Introduced Reef Rescue Program

· National Apology

· Sorry to the Stolen Generation

· Increased Superannuation from 9 to 12%

· Changed 85 laws to remove discrimination against same sex couples

· Introduced National Plan to reduce violence against women and children

· Improvements to Sex Discrimination Act

· Introduced Plain packaging

· Legislated Equal pay (social & community workers up to 45% pay increases)

· Legislated Australia’s first Paid parental leave scheme

· Established $10b Renewable energy fund

· Legislated Murray/Darling Basin plan (the first in a hundred years of trying.)

· Increased Education funding by 50%

· Established direct electoral enrollment

· Created 190,000 more University places

· Achieved 1:1 ratio, computers for year 9-12 students

· Established My School

· Established National Curriculum

· Established NAPLAN

· Increased Health funding by 50%

· Legislated Aged care package

· Legislated Mental health package

· Legislated Dental Care package

· Created 90 Headspace sites

· Created Medicare Locals Program

· Created Aussie Jobs package

· Created Kick-Start Initiative (apprentices)

· Funded New Car plan (industry support)

· Created Infrastructure Australia

· Established Nation Building Program (350 major projects)

· Doubled Federal Roads budget ($36b) (7,000kms of roads)

· Rebuilding 1/3 of interstate rail freight network

· Committed more to urban passenger rail than any government since Federation

· Developed National Ports Strategy

· Developed National Land Freight Strategy

· Created the nations first ever Aviation White Paper

· Revitalized Australian Shipping

· Reduced transport regulators from 23 to 3 (saving $30b over 20years)

· Introduced NICS – infrastructure schedule

· Australia has moved from 20th in 2007 to 2nd on OECD infrastructure ranking

· Awarded International Infrastructure Minister of the Year (2012 Albanese)

· Awarded International Treasurer of the Year (2011 Swan)

· Introduced Anti-dumping and countervailing system reforms

· Legislated Household Assistance Package

· Introduced School Kids Bonus

· Increased Childcare rebate (to 50%)

· Allocated $6b to Social Housing (20,000 homes)

· Provided $5b to Support for Homelessness

· Established National Rental Affordability Scheme ($4.5b)

· Introduced Closing the Gap

· Supports Act of Recognition for constitutional change

· Provided the highest pension increase in 100 years

· Created 900,000 new jobs

· Established National Jobs Board

· Allocated $9b for skills and training over 5 years

· Established Enterprise Connect (small business)

· Appointed Australia’s first Small Business Commissioner

· Introduced immediate write-off of assets costing less than $6,500 for Sm/Bus

· Introduced $5,000 immediate write-off for Small Business vehicles over $6,500

· Introduced Small business $1m loss carryback for tax rebate from previous year

· Legislated Australian Consumer law

· Introduced a national levy to assist Queensland with reconstruction

· Standardized national definition of flood for Insurance purposes.

· Created Tourism 2020

· Completed Australia’s first feasibility study on high speed rail

· Established ESCAS (traceability and accountability in live animal exports)

· Established Royal Commission into Institutional Sexual Abuse

· Established National Crime Prevention Fund

· Lowered personal income taxes (Ave family now pays $3,500 less p.a. than 2007)

· Raised the tax-free threshold from $6,000 to $18,200

· Australia now the richest per capita nation on earth

· First time ever Australia has three triple A credit ratings from all three credit agencies

· Low inflation

· Lowest interest rates in 60 years (Ave mortgagee paying $5,000 less p.a. than 2007)

· Low unemployment

· Lowest debt to GDP in OECD

· Australian dollar is now fifth most traded in the world and IMF Reserve Currency

· One of the world’s best performing economies during and since the GFC

· Australia now highest ranked for low Sovereign Risk

· Overseen the largest fiscal tightening in nations history (4.4%)

· 21 years of continuous economic growth (trend running at around 3%pa)

· 11 years of continuous wages growth exceeding CPI

· Increasing Productivity

· Increasing Consumer Confidence

· Record foreign investment

· Historic levels of Chinese/Australian bilateral relations

· First female Prime Minister

· First female Governor General

· First female Attorney General

A fiscal strategy to return to budget surpluses over the economic cycle without damaging its economy with austerity measures already proven to fail. A future linked to the National Broadband Network, renewable energy and greater productivity through higher education and infrastructure investment. Improved social equality and has a larger voice on the world stage.

All this (and more) despite a hung parliament, a recalcitrant press and the most negative and asinine Opposition since Federation.

This has been one of the finest parliamentary periods in our history.

[wareubin]

May I suggest you use the correct term when attempting to lampoon someone ?

I have considered your suggestion but have decided to ignore it.

And could you be so kind as to inform your numerous alter-egos of this

I see you're also one of the elite posters that has access to inside information. 

[j*oono]

Was that a confession, wareubin? :^O

[monman12]

JMK, whilst a C&P of a long list of "feel good" achievements might make you feel good,  I suggest you vet them (research)  a little first. I will grab a couple for you

"Awarded International Treasurer of the Year (2011 Swan)" chuckle, now it is 2013

"Lowered personal income taxes"
Personal income tax cuts to begin in July 2015 to help with the carbon tax deferred until carbon price estimates reach $25.40. As if that will happen, ever?

"Introduced Small business $1m loss carryback for tax rebate from previous year"
Loss carry-back will only be available for companies and other corporate tax entities (which are taxed as companies).
With the vast majority (96%) of Australian businesses being small businesses.
the Government saved around $4.7bn by scrapping the proposed 1% company tax rate reduction.

"Australia now the richest per capita nation on earth."
Really?,  I found one with a: "GDP per Capita of $ 102,768.69" and also another 11 countries before Australia's $41,467.65 (PPP per capita)

JMK if you are prone to pasting without checking a little, posts will be viewed  critically,  and as within your feel good list there is the odd bad apple, the rest of the fruit will be tainted by association, and also past posting reliability.

[lakeland27]

 weathering and conquering the GFC when the rest went into recession was an inspired bit of leadership. it saved 100's of thousands of jobs and many homes.  Labors policy of stimulus as opposed by the libs (who wanted austerity, look to europe to see how that went ) was and is a big achievement. it was a move that saved australia from reccession, when the other guys would have failed the test. swans stocks have only fallen because of writedowns which could happen to anyone.. its not a policy failure.

[pct001wine]

mm, don't tar jmk with the "pasting without checking" brush, it was my OP 😛

It's a fair cop, Guv'.

Yes, you did pluck out a couple of claims with which you take issue, however ...

The fact that Swan was ITOTY in 2011 is immutable - see http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/wayne-swan-named-worlds-best-treasurer-by-euromoney... amongst others ...

Maybe the importance of it in 2013 is open to dispute (I believe it is relevant);

Lowered personal income taxes - well it has happened already - you appear tyo be referring to future, further reductions which is not the issue here ;

Loss carryback for small business - http://www.abl.com.au/ablattach/taxbul190213.pdf

This is in place.   What's the scrapping of the company tax rate reduction got to do with it ?

And for the richest nation on earth - well, I might have to give you that one, I think there was an "11th" missing there according to my sources.  Not bad nonetheless.

🙂

[just_me_karen]

I can't that one's comments, nor its other IDs... but if it was criticism of the info in the OP I would have been proud to post it.

Whether people like it or not, this government has made monumental improvements to Australian society and will be remembered respectfully ... In a few years lol... just like we heard John Howard praising past Labor governments today in Perth... likewise, Alexander Downer. 

Nearly all the big improvements come from labor... Medicare, for example.

[cherry*135]

15 May 2013, 

Has Labor’s tax aversion left them on the verge of electoral defeat?

Regardless of the result of the next election, the ALP will hold an inquiry into what went wrong. How on earth, they will ask, could a government presiding over low unemployment, low inflation, low levels of public debt and a triple A credit rating be seen as poor economic managers at a time when the rest of the major economies are struggling?

And the answer they will find is a simple one. The government simply didn’t collect enough tax.

Last night’s budget papers make clear that if the proportion of national income collected as tax (the so-called tax/GDP ratio) had remained at the 23.7% the Rudd Government inherited from the Howard Government, then last night’s budget would have been comfortably in surplus even after the expensive Gonski and NDIS announcements.

Similarly, if the government had simply maintained the Howard-era level of tax it wouldn’t have had to cut payments to single mums last year, it wouldn’t have had to scrap the buyout of coal-fired power stations and it wouldn’t have had to cut funding to universities.

Much was made last night by the political commentators of Wayne Swan’s attempts to “booby trap” the budget for an incoming Abbott government. But it was Rudd, Gillard and Swan who walked into John Howard’s booby trap. In fact, so effective was Howard’s trap that many in the ALP don’t even see that they are in it.

Last night the treasurer bragged that “if we were taxing Australian families and Australian businesses like our predecessors did, we’d have an extra $24 billion in taxes in 2013-14 and be comfortably in surplus every year of the forward (estimates)”.

That’s right, that was the Labor Treasurer bragging that he was much better at lifting the “burden” of tax on Australian families and businesses than his neo-liberal counterparts.

The fundamental problem for Labor, however, is not that some of them want to be low taxing neo-liberals; it’s that most of them want to be big spending reformists. Gonski, NDIS, hospital reform, public transport and homemade submarines all cost serious amounts of money. And while a country as rich as Australia can easily afford them, it can only afford them if it’s willing to collect the requisite amount of tax.

So, how did Labor wind up with a strong economy and a weak budget? The same way it wound up with the Pacific solution: John Howard set them up to fail.

In the lead-up to the 2007 election the economy was booming and revenue was flooding in. Howard and Costello had used that revenue to fund substantial income tax cuts and for the 2007 election campaign they promised even more. The Labor party promptly promised almost identical tax cuts which it implemented in the years following Kevin Rudd’s election win.

Those tax cuts have had a big impact on the current budget. Along with those Howard and Costello made in their last three years in office, these cuts are now costing the budget $40 billion a year.

Costello was able to keep the budget in the black because of the cyclical increase in revenue from the boom. But this increased revenue was always going to be temporary. With that temporary windfall gain they funded a permanent cut to income taxes. This was always going to be unsustainable; when the economy returned to more normal economic conditions the structural budget problems were revealed.

These income tax cuts have made the budget unsustainable by creating a structural hole in the ability of the government to collect revenue. Last year’s budget lost a quarter of the income tax it could have collected because of the tax cuts. Such a big change to the ability of the budget to generate income was always going to have an impact when the boom slowed down.

The income tax cuts were also heavily skewed to high income earners. Over the past seven years they have cost the budget $169 billion, of which 43% or $71 billion went to the top 10% of income earners. This was more than the total benefit of tax cuts to the bottom 80%, who together received only $63 billion.

The income tax cuts mainly increased the threshold at which the top marginal tax rate applies. In fact, this threshold was increased so much that as of last year only 2.7% of taxpayers faced the top tax rate.

Of course, it isn’t just the income tax cuts that have prevented the Gillard government from achieving its big reforms and cherished budget surpluses. There was the mining tax – designed to appease miners rather than collect revenue – and the carbon price that came with such generous compensation it runs at a loss.

Australia is one of the richest countries in the world, living at the richest point in world history. The idea that we can’t afford to invest in excellent health or education is ridiculous; the claim that we can’t afford to provide more help to poor countries is appalling.

Australian governments can afford to do anything they want, but they can’t afford to do everything they want. Especially when they want to brag about how little tax they collect.

One day soon the ALP is going to have to decide if it wants to chase the Liberals down the low tax/fend for yourself American path or talk honestly with the public about the fact that tax is the price we pay to live in a civilised society. Hopefully the party chooses the latter. And hopefully it hurries up and actually makes a choice, because the current farce is as destructive to public debate as it is to policy development.

Richard Denniss is the Executive Director of The Australia Institute, a Canberra based think tank. Matt Grudnoff is The Australia Institute’s Senior Economist.

[polksaladallie]

This is pct001wine's post from earlier (hope you don't mind)

http://community.ebay.com.au/topic/Community-Spirit/Achievements/600159213

[pct001wine]

🙂  You're most welcome, anything to counter the hysteria 😄

[crystal-gems]

According to all credible international credit rating organisations.....out of a total of 139 nations only 12 have a AAA credit rating.

Hong Kong, UK, Switzerland, Sweden, Singapore, Norway, Liechtenstein, Germany, Finland, Denmark, Canada and Australia. 

The government must be doing something right, including avoiding the global meltdown from the financial crisis.