But as K. Davidson of The Age (11/16/07) notes: “Indexed to inflation, the tax cuts deliver nothing to taxpayers. It (the $34 billion tax cuts) is a chimera designed to give back to wage earners the growth in the tax burden as wages rise with inflation, pushing workers in higher tax brackets and it looks huge because it aggregates four years’ of cuts.

“If wages don’t keep pace with inflation or if inflation moves above the upper band of 3 percent set by the Reserve Bank to manage monetary policy, wage earners’ real disposable incomes could fall despite the nominal tax cuts.”

In fact the Reserve Bank has just forecast that inflation will go up to 3.25 percent in the next six months (West Australian 13/11/07, front page).

Income tax revenue is now $120 billion, the GST (Goods and Services Tax) now collects more than $35 billion per year and with the billions of dollars of tax cuts – where are the basic services and infrastructure for the average Australian?

It seems we might get some of them if we sell our votes to the current government as Howard has now pledged $9.3 billion for education rebate, housing and child care (not for public housing mind you or HECS free-education) topping his last electoral spending spree of $6 billion of pledges in 2004. (12)

The Reserve Bank has warned that this government spending this time around could push up interest rates and inflation to dangerous levels for the economy. (13)

The question is: why is the Howard government now throwing money on these basic services when this infrastructure and services should have been made available years ago – and not just because it is election time?!

2. Labour and any other opposition are supposedly unable to manage the economy

The second belief seems to be that Labour and any other opposition are unable to manage the economy – only the Liberals can do it, e.g., Howard’s government.

Contary to the claim of the Liberal’s induced economic prosperity for Australia, it was arguably the Labour Party’s Hawke-Keating major structural reforms to the economy in 1983-1996 which laid the foundations and led to the current economic prosperity. (14)

Only Labour has been able to bring together competing sections of society – industry leaders, union leaders and governments to secure agreements for economic growth, as it has done under the Prices and Incomes Accords.

Under the Hawke-Keating years, the dollar was floated, tariffs and protection on basic industries were removed and wage controls were established via the Prices and Incomes Accord with the unions. (14)

These Labour-initiated reforms led to business expansion with the resultant lower labour unit costs and rise in productivity. (14)

The introduction of superannuation in 1985-1987 by Paul Keating as then ALP (Australian Labour Party) Treasurer created a massive pool of capital for investment of $1 trillion of mandated savings which “fired the Australian capital markets”, as Keating himself points out. (15)

Keating also removed the double taxation of dividends in Australia in ’85.

The removal of centralized wage fixing under the then ALP government’s agreement with Australian unions on broad incomes policy under the Accord in 1985 led to productivity which more than doubled to 3 percent annually and there was 2 percent real increase in incomes each years of the 1990s, a 20-percent increase in all. (16)

This fundamental economic transformation of Australia -bringing together competing sections of society to a common national economic goal – by the ALP with Keating as Federal Treasurer in 1983-1991 under the Hawke government and then as PM in 1991-1996 has resulted in the 15 -year expansion of the economy to date and a low inflationary one at that. (17)

In addition, the Coalition government has failed to get even one calendar quarter when the balance of trade was not in deficit. Despite massive export income from our resources boom, this government has been unable to control the spending on foreign goods which exceeds sales. It is a negative situation to be so dependent, as we are, on foreign goods and services.

3. Australian unions are supposedly ‘thugs’ who will destroy the economy and country

The third belief is espoused in the government’s latest pronouncements about organised labour. Running a hard-core vilification and demonisation campaign against the unions, the Howard government has for its electoral catchcry the message that: Australian unions are thugs, they will destroy the economy and the country.

This attack on organised labour – is in fact arguably an important plank of the government’s Workchoices legislation and ultimately of its deregularisation of labour and opening of it to big business, big capital locally and overseas (workers to be “traded” on the global capitalist market)

There are three facts tearing down this negative belief about unions.

Indeed corruption might exist among some unions and strikes might have temporarily reduced productivity but: Australian unions have been the sole force for the foundation of a solid 100-year old pro-worker industrial relations system – with assured working conditions, privileges and benefits for workers and a centralized wage-fixing system with the Arbitration Relations Commission which allowed yearly reviews of wages to be tied to inflation and an inexpensive method for workers to ensure they had a platform to fight for their grievances. The 8-hour day, four weeks paid holiday, penalty rates and shift loading, sick leave and maternity leave and other benefits, a stringent OH & S regime were part of this whole world-renowned system.

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