Trust me, I'm an economist
It seems that tax cuts are all the rage with the PM praising Trumps bold initiatives and vowing to push through similar (but smaller) cuts in Australia. Bill Shorten, while not opposed to this form of pea & thimble trick has tentatively suggested that the the government ought to say how these cuts could be funded. Well the answer is all there in the history books. Ronald Regan while not the first to use tax cuts was however the one who tried to justify it by claiming the cuts would so boost the economy that tax revenues would increase even more than the loss incurred by the cuts. It became know as trickle down economics which then morphed into voodoo economics when it was found that the national debt had doubled. To his credit John Howard learnt two things from this débâcle - tax cuts win votes and any problems created will be inflicted on the next government.
So he went in boots and all with a wide range of tax cuts to get maximum voter appeal. He introducing the over-60 superannuation tax holiday and other super concessions, family payments to middle-income households, age-based tax concessions, lots of income-tax breaks for middle to higher-income households and introduced the capital-gains-tax concession; bolstered the first-home buyers' grant; and boosted immigration, particularly skilled immigration which not only reduced the need (and cost) for local training but put pressure on housing demand. In education, he dramatically increased federal funding to private schools, and cut funding to public schools with the result that the number of public schools has actually decreased (58 in 10 years) despite a rapid rise in the number of students.
Supporters of this policy argue that Howard left the nation with a sizeable government surplus which is not quite correct, the actual surplus amounted to only 7.3% of GDP , about half of that held by Chile , a tenth of that in Finland and a twentieth of that of Norway This was a dismal performance considering Howard had the benefit of the minerals boom which boosted government revenue by $334b over the years 2004 to 2007. There was also the sale of assets like airports the National Rail Corp, Dasfleet, Telstra, the remaining share of the Comm. bank and many other valuable enterprises which yielded another $72b. In a somewhat bizarre move they also flogged off nearly all the nations gold reserves, 167 tonnes of it, for $306 per ounce just before the gold price more than tripled. Despite their mantra for lower taxes the Howard government introduced the GST which reduced the burden of providing federal funding for the states by $44.38b in 2007/8 .
Unfortunately the tax cuts made plus those promised by Howard at the 2007 election were matched by Rudd and will be extremely difficult to reverse by any future government which will have to find alternative revenue sources or make even more spending cuts. Malcolm Turnbull intends to put the medicare levy up from 2 to 2.5% , has cut 15,000 public service jobs since 2013, slashed university and even medical and scientific research funding with 700 full time jobs lost in this sector. He has now announced that he intends to cut the corporate tax from 30 to 25%, a move that will cost $65.4b over 10 years. Unlike the Howard years Turnbull is introducing these cuts at a time when the government has a budget deficit of $33.2b and is doing so without explaining how they will be funded. But like any politician he put a positive spin by saying the tax cut was a way of “putting more money into people’s pockets” and the Government’s priority was to “lower middle income tax rates”. He then added that there was “no doubt” taxes in Australia were high, an assertion contradicted by the Organisation for Economic Research and Development (OECD) which put Australia near the bottom at 28th out of 35 nations.
Putting money in peoples pockets does sound attractive and its possible that some corporations would use the tax cut to increase shareholder dividends. But what happens then? If the lucky shareholder decides to buy some new gadget on line the net result is a higher import bill. Alternatively if the corporation decides to spend the tax windfall on increasing their productivity with new equipment the import bill goes up and employees risk becoming made redundant by the new technology. Not exactly a win-win situation.
Animals are losing their trees in droves. The cause is population growth. There is a new tree removing policy for all dams and retarding basins in Victoria, treating small retarding basins as if they were big dams, and treating trees as problems, where previously they were considered desirable. See inside for locations. This policy applies in other states as well. VicRoads is also suddenly 
A community bulletin was issued in November 2017. https://www.melbournewater.com.au/what-we-are-doing/works-and-projects-near-me/all-projects/ryans-road-retarding-basin-upgrade
In a project funded by the Austrian Science Fund FWF, a philosophy research group at the University of Vienna investigated how "structuralism" became established in the field of mathematics and decisively influenced its current success.
[Candobetter.net Editor: This submission was made available as a pdf attachment to an 
When listing high-immigration bias at ABC and SBS, we tend to forget the many ABC shows now aimed at the younger demographic (where the ABC had been losing audience dramatically). The ABC have hired a lot of youngish talented comedians out of the vast pool of stand-up comedy talent among young Australians. It’s mostly smart-arse stuff without much pretence to news value, but there are some shows like The Chaser and Planet America that hybridise comedic style with serious debate on current affairs. These are in effect part of the ABC News stable, and their biases matter more.
"Bush heritage makes some rather big assertions about the impact of kangaroos at their Scottdale reserve and the impacts this wildlife species is having on the biodiversity there. If Bush Heritage is serious about their claims then they need to be a little more transparent," writes Craig Thomson, President of the 
The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has unleashed on the revised Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement (dubbed “TPP11”), which will reportedly allow employers unfettered access to ‘skilled’ migrant workers from member nations. From 
"We cannot hide the fact that the European left has a clear agenda. They are supportive to migration. They actually import future leftist voters to Europe hiding behind humanism. It is an old trick but I do not understand why we have to accept it. They consider registration and protection of borders bureaucratic, nationalist and against human rights. They have a dream about the politically constructed world society without religious traditions, without borders, without nations. They attack core values of our European identity: family, nation, subsidiarity and responsibility. [...] We have a heartfelt compassion for the people who left their homes. They are victims of the bad governance of their own countries. They are victims of bad international political decisions. And they are victims of our bad European policy as well which raises expectations that are impossible to be fulfilled. They are obviously victims of the human traffickers. But considering them victims must not turn ourselves into being victims. Just because we do not consider them enemies we must not act against ourselves. Our moral responsibility is to give back these people their homes and their countries. It can’t be our objective to provide them with a new European life. Right to human dignity and security are basic rights. But neither the German, Austrian nor the Hungarian way of life is a basic right of all people on the Earth. " (Speech of Viktor Orbán at the EPP Congress in Madrid, on the 22nd of October in 2015 - more than ever, relevant today.)
U.S. imperialism’s deteriorating position in the Middle East was confirmed on Jan. 17, by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s bold assertion for U.S. plans in Syria. The arrogant statement was followed, within hours, by almost immediate backpedaling. 
Alan Hood is a Flood Researcher. Melbourne Water owns this Retarding Basin and their maintenance contractor, John Holland - KBR Joint Venture intend removing trees and various works in "late January" - any day now. This could be an attempt to cater for increased suburban stormwater runoff without increasing the capacity of the chain of retarding basins. Although prepared for dams which would normally be at least 10 to 15 m high, ANCOLD guidelines can also be used to assist with decisions on smaller dams, particularly where such dams create potential loss of life or significant damage. The attached Planning map shows Special Building Overlays (SBO) for Frankston; the identify areas likely to be flooded. If the Lee St Retarding Basin batters are at least 10 to 15 metres high, there might be some justification for removing the trees, but see more inside this article. [Introduction written by candobetter.net editor.]
The Australian National Committee on Large Dams says: “ANCOLD guidelines are applicable for water or tailings dams with potential to cause loss of life or significant environmental or physical damage through operation or failure. 
The history of Australia as a nation has been brutal to the humans who lived here first, to the animals and birds, and brutal to the landscape. Australia needs a day to stop and reflect on what has been done, where we are now and where we are going. We cannot fix the problem by continuing to do the same thing that caused it. Current discussion about Australia Day focuses on the way colonisation affected and continues to affect the aboriginal population. In addition to the injustices and atrocities, Australian Aborigines have been, and continue to be, overwhelmed by sheer numbers from elsewhere. The non-Aboriginal population born here is now being overwhelmed in the same way. The fast growing population as a whole has ongoing devastating environmental impacts on this land. It has social impacts too, as it enriches a very few members of the growth lobby, while the rest pay for population growth.
All the news today is about Turkey attacking Afrin, a Kurdish governed city in northern Syria and threatening another Kurdish run city named Manbj. This is a very dangerous situation and another devastating assault on the Syrian people who have already suffered so much from a war that that was started by foreign manipulation and fed by foreign fighters, foreign weapons and foreign cash. The war should have ended by now and be winding down, but Syria’s enemies are persistent and cunning. We should not forget, however, that the foremost enemy of Syria, the strongest, most powerful country, the managing force in this war to destroy Syria is the United States [
Syrian Internal Security Forces are sworn in during their graduation ceremony, at Ain Issa desert base, in Raqqa province, northeast Syria, Thursday, July 20, 2017. Some 250 residents of Syria’s Raqqa province are the latest batch to graduate from a brief U.S-training course that is preparing an internal security force to hold and secure areas as they are captured from Islamic State militants. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla) 
Melbourne Water is about to de-tree Frankston koala corridor by removing mature trees from banks of a huge park with a water retarding basin in it at Lee Street Frankston 3199. They are claiming that the trees are 'destabilising' the banks. But of course the trees are holding the banks together and keeping the water-table down. Who is accountable for these kinds of decisions that are based on what sound like lies that make no sense? Frankston Council is apparently going along with this. It seems totally insane and anti-life and nature. Inside is a video alerting us to the details. 
VicRoads recently closed down Hoddle Street for a week to work on streamlining the corridor. The project is expected to continue for the rest of 2018.
Although the US presence in Syria is illegal, the US is talking about putting more troops there, presumably to fire up a war that the Russians and the Syrians have almost succeeded in extinguishing. Erdoğan has accused the US of planning to form 'terror army' in Syria: 'Our mission is to strangle it before it’s even born’, said the Turkish president of 30,000-strong force aimed at dividing and conquering Syria by promoting a Kurdish separist movement. In this edition of The Debate, Press TV has conducted an interview with Hafsa Kara-Mustapha, a journalist and political commentator from London, and Wafik Moustafa, the chairman of Conservative Arab Network, from London, to discuss the United States' plans to station 30,000 militants on the Syrian borders with Turkey and Iraq. This videoed debate was first published on Iranian Press tv on Tue Jan 16, 2018 at 
Wildlife rescuer and carer, Rebecca Koller, has observed an unprecedented number of Spectacled flying fox casualties in a traditional breeding site located near a new hotel construction in Cairnes. The spectacled flying fox is a threatened species.[1] Despite many attempts to get the Australian government to investigate and or intervene, the government has failed to get back to her. This is even though the problem has received extensive publicity and the species is about to have its threatened status upgraded from vulnerable to endangered. The source of this article is correspondence between Ms Koller and The Australian Wildlife Protection Council.
Bob Couch and Michael Roberts will be contesting the Legislative Council on behalf of Stop Population Growth Now at the March election. Their website is at www.stoppopulationgrowthnow.com.
The 
Hoddle Street is a very long road in Melbourne, Victoria. Congestion in Melbourne is reaching ludicrous and unforgivable proportions. The treelined part of Hoddle Street is apparently being sacrificed without public consultation for the no-win race of government-engineered population growth.
Leading real estate rent-seeker, the Property Council of Australia (PCA), is pushing for another idiotic policy “solution” to fix Australia’s housing affordability woes: offering a government-backed low deposit home loan scheme. 
(Article by Sally Pepper.) On New Year's Day, January 1st 2018, as I surfaced around 10.00 a.m, I heard on the news that power prices and tolls on roads around Melbourne will both increase and, that this year many Victorians will experience additional economic hardship. My immediate defensive thought was, "Well I don't use tollroads and I guess I can be more frugal with my use of gas and electricity."
These are photos of horses on a property on Moorooduc Hwy, Mt Eliza, in Victoria, Australia. People have expressed concern at the condition of these horses, which looks dire, and the paddock, where there appears to be no grass at all - only dirt. One horse photographed has gross leg deformities, although this could be a birth defect. The person who took the photos says that the RSPCA has informed them that they are working with the owners. The photographer has expressed alarm at how long this is taking and fears that the delay will doom these horses. Barrie Tapp of Animal Cruelty Hotline has passed this information on to candobetter.net because it needs public attention. Please let your local member of parliament know. Animal cruelty hotline is Freecall 1800751770
Hooray, hooray, it's New Year's Day
A new approach to reducing bulging tummy fats has shown promise in laboratory trials. It combines a new way to deliver drugs, via a micro-needle patch, with drugs that are known to turn energy-storing white fat into energy-burning brown fat. This innovative approach developed by scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) reduced weight gain in mice on a high fat diet and their fat mass by more than 30 per cent over four weeks. This is good news for fat mice, but fat humans will need to wait until human trials start.
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