5 thoughts on “Monday Message Board”

  1. My background is in Environmental Geography and all througout my studies (it was a while ago) the ECOlogy was looked at for forest rather than the ECOnomy. Today The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald published an article by Martin Flanagan About the use of Tasmania’s forest. Yesterday Guru Bob spoke at a rally and I believe Latham is going to with him for a bushwalk. Gary in “public opinion”also discusses whether the economy of a relatively small state such as Tasmania does benefit from logging of old growth forests. The fact that Tasmania, after growing the trees for ­centuries, gets $10 per tonne royalty, Gunns gets about $100 and the Japanese papermakers get $1200 per tonne. Tasmania, , gets less than 1% of the end price and is losing the nation’s grandest forests in the process.

    While ‘value adding’ is advocated. Can an economy such as Tasmania’s get into what it is considered a more ecologically sustainable use of timber (furniture, boats etc). How much employment would be lost if the logging industry is wound down? I would suspect that the effect on some areas of Tasmania would be quite profound. You cannot expect all loggers to turn into tourism operators.

    Of course I do hope that logging of old growth forest is wound down. As I believe that these forests have an inherent value which cannot be economically measured.

  2. I would like to suggest a largish tax cut in the area of Superannuation.
    There is an enormous amount of complexity in this area which is mainly to do with the government trying to get people away from taking lump sums ( which is obviously ridiculous from a retirement income point of view) and getting them to take income stream products.
    I have a very simple answer.
    1) Eliminate all taxing of Superannuation at present.
    2) tax only superannuation benefits at the person’s MTR.

    This aligns income tax and Super tax.
    Makes Super tax progressive. At present it heavily favours the High Income types. For Example it is possible for a CEO to put a $5m ‘bonus’ into Super. If he takes the minimum annual payment then he will have an annual income of over $110K but will have a taxable income of just over $8K!

    It means the Government gets the revenue when it needs it when people retire. ( At present due to dividen imputation and the 15% rebate on complying or Allocated pensions most of the revenue is gotten from contributions.)

    As both contributions and earnings are not taxed people may put their money into Super rather than the Family home!

    This in turn may lead people by voluntary contributions having a relacement income of around 70%. This can be only gotten at present by adding some of the pension to a person’s super.

    Only the Retirement Income Modelling Unit in Treasury knows what this would cost but I don’t care as this is one tax cut which wouldn’t have inflationary consequences.

  3. Is the Government’s proposal of a reduction in stamp duty for first home buyers really a good thing?

    It seems ludicrous to encourage young people (most of whom can’t affoard it) to buy property with the looming rate hikes and other unfavourable conditions in the market. Surely a more sensible option is to put that money to better use in diversified interests…. away from fads and very poor taste television programs.

  4. You are probably right about not encouraging new people into the market at the moment, particularly since the amounts of money are really terrifying.

    But the stamp duty thing is a real nightmare. Having bought my house in the Kennett Interregnum when he forced first home buyers to pay bloody stamp duty, I can tell you that the extra cash outlay is heartbreaking. If you are financing a house off the back of selling a previous one, then at least you have the cash to cover it.

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