Treasurer Joe Hockey is right when he says Australia’s taxation level is the second highest among OECD countries. But when it is compared to GDP, it’s a different story.
Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey told the ABC this week that 50% of all income tax in Australia is paid by 10% of the working population. Is that statement supported by the data?
Hockey v Fairfax illustrates that recent legal and technological developments still pose challenges for defamation law, which has not been reformed to keep pace with these changes.
The elephant in the room in the just-concluded defamation case between Joe Hockey and Fairfax Media was the actual story being attacked. Media organisations ought to be able to instigate the debate without fear of reprisals by litigious politicians.
In trying to help a colleague out of a hole, there’s always the danger of slipping into one yourself. Shoring up Joe Hockey after the treasurer’s advice to young homebuyers to get a good job, Tony Abbott…
Treasurer Joe Hockey has always been wary of going on Q&A. He was right. Hockey made policy on the run on the program when he agreed that GST shouldn’t be applied to women’s sanitary products and promised…
Joe Hockey’s second budget has two large deficits: the fiscal one, plus the lack of a coherent and creative plan for Australia. The Abbott government failed to ‘have a go’ at building the future.
A budget speech that fails to discuss basic measures of how the economy going is revealing in itself. Joe Hockey is the first treasurer since at least 1981 not to mention GDP.
Joe Hockey’s first budget was a declaration of ideological belief. The second is about political survival and depends on breathing life back into the economy – the ideological urgency can wait.
The budget will toughen anti-avoidance measures to crack down on the profit-shifting being undertaken by 30 multinational companies that have been identified by the Taxation Office.
With his reputation and confidence already badly dented, Treasurer Joe Hockey has been further damaged just two days before delivering his second budget.
In just a year, the Abbott government has gone from a radical nation-changing budget to promising a ‘dull’ one. Are we to believe the ideological zeal is gone, or has the survival instinct kicked in?
Here we are with the budget almost upon us and Tony Abbott has had to assure the public, and Joe Hockey, that the Treasurer won’t be sacked if it’s a flop.