Efficiency, revenue, efficiency...

Kevin Rudd:

"Improving the structure of the tax system by replacing inefficient taxes with more efficient ones and streamlining governments and administrations reduces complexity and makes the Australian economy more productive.

"Australia needs to respond, to remain an attractive place to invest and to do business.

"That's the reason the government's aspiration is to reduce the level of tax faced by the vast majority of Australians."

Sooo… taxes which are "inefficient" will be replaced by taxes which are "efficient". One can therefore expect that taxes which "inefficiently" collect revenues will be replaced by those that will collect revenue very efficiently. All the while Kev "will reduce the level of tax faced by the vast majority of Australians." But not the amount. The level which we face might change but never the revenue (amount). That will simply be collected far more efficiently.

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Australian Workplace Agreements: non-existent figures released

From an Australian Government press release:

The Workplace Authority has provided the Government with data compiled and analysed from a sample of over 1700 Australian Workplace Agreements lodged between April and October 2006, data the previous Liberal government claimed didn’t exist.

The analysis of the 1748 AWAs shows that 89 per cent removed at least one so-called protected award condition:

• 89 per cent excluded one or more so-called protected award conditions
• 83 per cent excluded two or more so-called protected award conditions
• 78 per cent excluded three or more so-called protected award conditions
• 71 per cent excluded four or more so-called protected award conditions
• 61 per cent excluded five or more so-called protected award conditions
• 52 per cent excluded six or more so-called protected award conditions
• 40 per cent excluded seven or more so-called protected award conditions
• 30 per cent excluded eight or more so-called protected award conditions
• 16 per cent excluded nine or more so-called protected award conditions
• 8 per cent excluded ten or more so-called protected award conditions
• 2 per cent excluded all eleven so-called protected award conditions

The analysis also revealed the so-called protected award conditions that were most frequently removed:

• 70 per cent removed shift work loadings
• 68 per cent removed annual leave loadings
• 65 per cent removed penalty rates
• 63 per cent removed incentive based payments and bonuses
• 61 per cent removed days to be substituted for public holidays
• 56 per cent removed monetary allowances
• 50 per cent removed public holidays payment
• 49 per cent removed overtime loadings
• 31 per cent removed rest breaks
• 25 per cent removed declared public holidays

The limited data revealed that 75 per cent of the 1487 AWAs sampled did not provide for a guaranteed wage increase.

These are the statistics the former Liberal government didn’t want to tell the Australian people about. These are the individual statutory agreements that the Liberal Party brought to Australian working families.

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