Australia'a Industrial Relations Laws

[Montalban]

Australia use to have the of the best health systems in the world till the liberals got in.

Last time Howard was in power - under Fraser, that govrnment got rid of Medibank (except for Medibank Private - a health insurance arm).

When Labor got back into power under Hawke, they brought in a new national health system (sans dental services) called Medicare.

Howard was never a big fan of Medicare either.
alp.org.au/features/lies.php

Luckily people like Cardinal Pell and leaders of other churches spoke up so loudly against it.

It’s funny *you *didn’t get challenged on this!

Many of the great leaps forward were begun under Labor governments, including the Snowy Mountain Scheme, the Australian Car (Holden), Land Rights, and Mabo legislation,* the Sydney Opera House,** independence given to Papua New Guinea; all university education free to its recipients, colour tv was introduced under Labor!

*-which Howard trimmed; the Aboriginal Land Rights Act was passed by the liberal government of Malcolm Fraser, but it had been drafted under the previous labor government.
**Joseph Cahill, Premier of NSW began the project. The designer Jørn Utzon resigned when conflict arose with a later conservative government, especially the minister Davis Hughes

 

[LilyM]

I thought it was the States that funded hospitals! How can Howard underfund something that is not his responsibility to fund?

States rely on the Federal Government for the bulk of their money, since the Federal Government has total control of probably the country’s two greatest sources of government revenue - income tax and the GST - and needs very little of the money coming from either to support itself.

The taxes and duties the State governments raise on their own are small beer in comparison to what flows into the Feds coffers from these two.

The Federal Government always hands a portion of these back to the states. This was the condition on which the States handed over their power to gather their own income tax and GST revenues to the Federal Government in the first place. Since the States could in theory have imposed these taxes themselves and gathered the revenues for themselves.

The problem being the portion the Feds hand back is never large enough. Hence accusations of underfunding.

In addition, the Federal government has the power, if it wishes, to impose conditions on the State governments in terms of how they spend the money it provides. It could, for example, stipulate that they spend x amount of it in funding hospitals or schools. Given the state of our hospitals and schools, it’s more than high time they did so.

 

[Montalban]

States rely on the Federal Government for the bulk of their money, since the Federal Government has total control of probably the country’s two greatest sources of government revenue - income tax and the GST - and needs very little of the money coming from either to support itself.

Absolutely true. And just recnetly Costello admitted to underfunding in health. So all that surplus we’ve got is at the expense of public utlities and services. Howard however wants to buy us off with tax-cuts that will probably be eaten up when interest rates rise.

The taxes and duties the State governments raise on their own are small beer in comparison to what flows into the Feds coffers from these two.

One that was handed back to the states was payroll tax. However what we find is that states try to under-cut each other in order to lure business to their states, so it’s not been much of a windfall

The Federal Government always hands a portion of these back to the states. This was the condition on which the States handed over their power to gather their own income tax and GST revenues to the Federal Government in the first place. Since the States could in theory have imposed these taxes themselves and gathered the revenues for themselves.

The problem being the portion the Feds hand back is never large enough. Hence accusations of underfunding.

There’s a good case that states such as Tasmania (the home of one poster here) get far more back from the GST than other states, such as NSW

In addition, the Federal government has the power, if it wishes, to impose conditions on the State governments in terms of how they spend the money it provides. It could, for example, stipulate that they spend x amount of it in funding hospitals or schools. Given the state of our hospitals and schools, it’s more than high time they did so.

Indeed, successive governments (Labor as well) have increased tied spending.