Posted: 8:00 am on 17th May 2012
In a media release on the Indigenous Affairs part of the 2012 Budget, the federal government insists it ‘will continue to prioritise access to the new program for people seeking to move into home ownership on Indigenous land’ – but this is a furphy. The government is well aware that people living on Indigenous land will not be able to access money from the new Indigenous homeownership program as long…
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Posted: 8:00 am on 16th May 2012
At long last, services on Sydney’s highly inefficient rail network are getting some attention. Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian has announced that 750 jobs will be cut in a restructuring effort intended to reduce bureaucratic waste. Even more heartening is that RailCorp’s projected job cuts are relatively mild, consisting of voluntary redundancies to middle management, not to frontline staff who carry out the day-to-day operations on the trains. Of Sydney’s transport…
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Posted: 9:54 am on 14th May 2012
New FIRB chairman Brian Wilson promises greater openness in an interview with Glenda Korporaal: The former investment banker, who has been on the board of FIRB since 2009 and took over as chairman last month, says FIRB is making a greater effort to communicate the government’s foreign investment policies through its website and in briefing sessions for advisers. “It is important for all our constituencies — the Australian public, Australian…
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Posted: 8:00 am on 14th May 2012
The Gillard government has reneged on its promise to reduce the corporate tax rate by 1% – a cut that was part of the package to secure the Minerals Resource Rent Tax (MRRT). Although this backflip will surely anger the business community, there are far bigger problems affecting the bottom lines of Australian businesses. Many small business owners cite a strong dollar, growing regulatory burden, and inflexible labour laws as…
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Posted: 8:00 am on 13th May 2012
It is just a little more than two years since the review of Australia’s Future Tax System (AFTS, better known as the Henry review) was released to the public, with its 138 recommendations. The Gillard government, notwithstanding its enthusiastic embrace of an audacious 40% resources super profits tax at that time, was lukewarm about the Henry package as a whole. Eager to burnish its economic reform credentials, the government now…
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