Didn't she resign from the Socialist Forum in 2002 when her political career was starting to kick on to being a leadership aspirant?
I disagree with that too. Social welfare levels haven't varied all that much since the early 80's (adjusted for inflation). Howard was actually the biggest spender adjusted for inflation, but that's as a result of a variety of middle class welfare initiatives, rather than poverty line welfare, where he largely continued the same level of support as before, except that the long term unemployed had increased mutual obligation requirements that included work for the dole, which both Rudd and Gillard have kept. On coming to power, Rudd, and then Gillard, have largely maintained the changes to medicare, kept a surprising number of the changes made by work choices, and kept the changes to income taxation. In practical terms, they are both (near as makes no difference) adherents to Market Liberalism, with the Labor party slightly closer to New Labor's third way approach, and the Liberals adopting a mix of liberalism and soft conservatism (with some hard, Regan-era social conservatism thrown in every so often).
These tiny examples of knob twiddling are not even slightly socialist. The use of the word "socialist" is a logical fallacy designed to reduce an argument to a manageable good verses evil scenario. Both right and left play these games, and neither is acceptable.
Gillard isn't burdened by such mere facts. She has indicate when asked that she had minor involvement and stopped 20 years ago, when in fact she was still registered in 2002 and was part of the mangement of the group.
If she has nothing to hide then why hide it?
Also, the use of the term 'middle class welfare' is, I believe often misguided. Middle class welfare for Howard was just vote buying, and in essence he was just giving back some of the additional taxes the government was reaping from the pockets of the middle class (due to bracket creep and an increased middle class). It isn't like it was coming from the lower classes to pay for the middle class. IMO it is incorrect to classify something as welfare when it came from the people you are giving it to. I'd be surprised if anyone can disagree with this?
This type of stuff gets me really angry Scotty. Are you Alan Jones? For fuck's sake.
We should be talking about actual issues that affect society, this stuff is an irrelevant distraction. I lose respect for anyone who says otherwise, and gives you that bullshit about 'she's our PM, we have the right to know about this'. I don't care, neither should you.
I've been staying out of this for a while, but regardless of where the money comes from (and you're quite wrong about where a lot of that money did indeed come from - it came from a variety of sources, and also Costello was handing back tax cuts at the same time which were countering some bracket creep, admittedly those tax cuts favoured the upper middle class wage earners and higher but still benefited the middle class), government welfare is government welfare. And welfare that benefits the middle class is middle class welfare.
Don't forget that Howard and Costello rode a huge boom through the naughties - and that they were hardly frugal with their spending and tax cuts. In fact, as I have shown previously, the first year of the Rudd government spend less as a % of GDP than Howard and Costello.
Yes, that is right. People's past is irrelevant to who they are what they stand for and what they are likely to do.
Not to mention that the point of my post that you quoted was to note that she has lied when asked the question. I would like to know why she lied, and I fail to see how that is irrelevant.
Go ahead and lose respect for me if you wish.
So if I gave you some money, then you handed it back at a future date, you would consider it a 'loan' to me?
So where did the money come from, Ash. You telling me they didn't get it from taxation? Are you telling me the greatest taxation revenue doesn't come from the middle class?
Norway
Norway introduced a CO2 tax on fossil fuels in 1991.[105] The tax started at a high rate of US$51 per metric ton of CO2 on gasoline, with an average tax of US$21 per metric ton[106] The tax was also applied to diesel, mineral oil, oil and gas used in North Sea extraction activities.[107] The International Energy Agency's (IEA) 2001 Review of Norway in the Energy Policies of IEA Countries stated that "since 1991 a carbon dioxide tax has applied in addition to excise taxes on fuel." It is among the highest carbon taxes in the OECD. Carbon taxation is also applied to the production of oil and gas offshore. The IEA estimates for revenue generated by the CO2 tax in 2004 were 7,808 million NOK [108] (about US$1.3 billion in 2010 dollars).
According to IEA 2005 Review of Norway,[108] Norway's CO2 tax is its most important climate policy instrument, and covers about 64% of Norwegian CO2 emissions and 52% of total GHG emissions. Some industry sectors have been granted exemptions from the tax to preserve their competitive position. Various studies in the 1990s, and an economic analysis by Statistics Norway, have estimated the effect of the CO2 tax to be a reduction of 2.5-11% of Norwegian emissions under a business-as-usual approach (i.e., the predicted emissions that would have occurred without the tax). However, even with the carbon tax, Norway's per capita emissions rose by 43% between 1991 (when the carbon tax was introduced) and 2008.[109