Who should I vote for?

May 8, 2019

Welcome to Finance and Fury, the Say What Wednesday edition

Had a few questions recently which is topical. Mostly from friends and family. They know I take interest in politics and policy, and asked me “Who should I vote for?” Can’t tell you that, nor I did them

 

Today:

• Discuss 2 things to help make an informed decision
• Policy, what each party proposes and where they stand on the political and economic spectrum

Next week: Where your vote is going with preferences

Our political culture:

• Us vs Them mentality
• Voting tribalism
• Creates a dangerous element in any organisation
• Hate and violence towards the other
• Personal disclaimer: whoever provides more freedom in their policies
• Cost benefit and Pros and Cons

Parties:

• 3 main parties: ALP, LNP and The Greens
• Most people are voting for 1 or 2 main issues
  • For Labor voters, the environment was the top issue (40 percent), followed by the economy and health care (each 11 percent).
  • For Coalition voters, the economy was the top issue (44 percent), followed by the environment and superannuation (each 10 percent).
  • Among Greens voters, not surprisingly, the environment was overwhelmingly the major issue (63 percent)
• Run through each parties stance on the major issues and next episode we will go through healthcare and some minor issues

Tax:

• Coalition – 10 year income tax cut package
  • immediately doubling the low and middle-income tax offset - benefit 10m taxpayers
  • raise the threshold for the 19% tax rate from $41,000 to $45,000 in July 2022;
  • flatten tax brackets so everyone earning between $40,000 to $200,000 pays a marginal rate of 30% from 2024.
  • No changes to negative gearing, capital gains tax or Franking Credit rebates
• Labor – tax cuts for people earning less than $48,000
  • Abolish negative gearing for existing properties
  • Halve the capital gains tax discount and end the franking credit rebate – grandfathered for Age pension and existing investments
• Greens – Support Coalition low-income tax offsets, but block everything else
  • Make Deficit Levy permanent, Remove all negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions
  • Remove fossil fuel subsidies to raise approximately $21bn, increase Company tax rate back to 30%

Climate Change:

1. Coalition - reduce emissions and ensuring grid stability in the electricity sector - the national energy guarantee
   1. $2bn “climate solutions fund” to reduce emissions, with funding to be rolled out over 15 years
   2. Look at subsidising the mining and coal industry – based around an emissions study
2. Labor - propose to regulate the electricity sector - set a higher emissions reduction target of 45%,
   1. beef up regulations to drive more rapid emissions reduction – but if these don’t pass
   2. plan B - $10bn for Clean Energy Finance Corporation - $5bn fund to modernise aging transmission infrastructure to retire coal stations over time.
   3. Introduce vehicle emissions standards - 105g of CO2/km - imposed on car retailers (not manufacturers)
   4. Wish to review a carbon emission tax – reduced scope compared to the 2013 tax
3. Greens - proposing a carbon price (tax) – shut down coal exports by 2030 along with coal power
   1. create a new public authority, Renew Australia - a new government-owned energy retailer
   2. ban on new internal combustion vehicles by 2030 – lower EV tax, but raise Luxury taxes on fossil fuel cars
      1. $0 funding if fossil fuel cars are no longer allowed to be sold

Industrial Relations and Economy

1. Coalition - Stop employees who were misclassified as casuals from being back-paid entitlements, preventing them “double-dipping” and accessing both the casual loading and entitlements of permanent workers.
   1. Create a right for casual workers to request permanent full-time or part-time work
   2. Give the Federal Court power to deregister unions or disqualify officials for repeated or serious breaches of law and introduce a public interest test for union amalgamations
   3. Prevent enterprise agreements mandating which fund to pay workers’ superannuation into
2. Labor - Change the rules the Fair Work Commission uses to set the minimum wage, reverse Sunday and public penalty rate cuts for retail and hospitality workers and prevent labour hire setting their own wages
   1. Introduce a new gender pay equity objective and lower the bar for making an equal pay order to boost women’s pay
   2. Amend laws to “improve access to collective bargaining, including where appropriate through multi-employer collective bargaining”
   3. Abolish specialist union regulators, the Registered Organisations Commission and the Australian Building and Construction Commission
3. Greens - Legislate a minimum wage of “at least 60% of the adult median wage”
   1. Change the Fair Work Act so workers are free to bargain “at whatever level they consider appropriate and with whoever has real control over their work, whether at a workplace, industry or other levels” – increasing unions scopes massively

Will it work?

• It is impossible to answer
• Voting is based on rhetorical over dialectic
• Tax - Lower taxes vs the government having money to spend
• Climate – Slow and steady to not impact our economy vs cut CO2 regardless of 2nd, 3rd, and so on consequences
• Economy/industrial relations – Giving Employers and employees ability to negotiate between themselves vs increasing the scope of unions and removing any oversight bodies into their actions
• Fiscal policy is one side of economy management

Summary:

• Voting preferences show what people care about
• Most parties focus on 1 or 2
• Actually breaks down communication and sharing of ideas
• How do some policies go after you play them out?
• Be considerate of what policy issues you are voting for

Next episode: How you may end up unknowing voting against your major concern/issue. Doing a break down of polling and how preferences will affect the ultimate winner.

Thanks for listening, if you want to get in touch you can do so here.