Australian Libertarians Revealed

It seems left-wing economic journalist Ross Gittins has just discovered the word ‘libertarian,’ and the revelation seems to have him spooked. 

Taxing the poor to pay for teeth

Raising the Medicare levy to fund Denticare could place a disproportionate burden on low income earners.

In the middle of a global recession, the government is considering a regressive increase in income tax.

Specifically, they want to increase the marginal tax rate by 8.5 percent for low-income workers and by 0.75 percent for everybody else.

Australia’s recession in perspective

The fact that Australia's recession will be smaller and shorter than the rest of the world is due to our better starting position and our relatively strong trade performance.

A War on Charity

Proposed new rules will likely lead to a less efficient and effective allocation of philanthropy.

Having launched wars on unemployment, drugs, inflation, whalers, disadvantage, downloads, pokies, doping in sport, bankers salaries, greed, neo-liberalism and most other things… Kevin Rudd is looking to extend his targets to include charity.

Rudd’s war on charity is a strange one. The government’s plan is to over-regulate charitable funds (called "Prescribed Private Funds" or PPFs) and require them to distribute 15% of their assets every year. This will lead many PPFs to close down and it will deter people from setting them up in the first place.