Pacific islander workers set to be joined by families in 2023-24

Pacific islanders are generally not a great problem to anyone so this is a pretty good idea. Melanesians are a particularly desirable group. I grew up with them around (mostly TIs) and rather liked them.

Polynesians can be more of a problem. Maori are Polynesians and they have a high crime rate. Polynesians such as Tongans and Samoans are however generally very religious so that has a beneficial influence. The crime rate in Tonga is a small fraction of the crime rates in African populations. See here


The Australian government has committed to enabling Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme workers on one- to four-year placements to bring their families to Australia.

In a statement, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said family accompaniment was "expected to commence with up to 200 families of PALM scheme workers in 2023-24".

"The location of families will depend on the interest from PALM scheme workers and employers participating in the initial phase. This may include several regions across Australia," it said.

But there is a lot to sort out before the first families arrive — Pacific Islands Council of South Australia chief executive Tukini Tavui says there are about 800 long-term PALM workers in the state alone.

He said accommodation was a hot topic during the national stakeholder consultations that ended in November. "As you would imagine, there's a lot of challenges, a lot of restrictions in that space," Mr Tavui said. "So that would obviously be a deciding factor in terms of where [the government] would start a pilot.

"And then, obviously, the family support — how do the secondary [visas work] in terms of health and education?"

The families will not have access to Medicare, meaning employers will need to organise health insurance.

Mr Tavui says Naracoorte near the border of Victoria in the south, where many long-term PALM workers are employed, could be a good place to host the first families.

"Somewhere like Naracoorte looks like it has the capacity, but accommodation would be a challenge," Mr Tavui said.

"That might be the case in a lot of our regional areas, particularly in SA."

Teys Australia employs 137 Pacific workers in Naracoorte and another 1,500 along the east coast of Australia.

The company said in a statement that it was "actively considering how it might support families from the Pacific to settle permanently in Australia".

Alongside affordable housing, schooling and health care, Teys listed welfare support, including community and church groups, as key considerations for the government.

Naracoorte-Lucindale Mayor Patrick Ross said the town would be "totally lost" without its migrant workers.

He said it would be "incredibly difficult" to house the families of workers in any region and that council was looking at strategies.

Mr Ross said schools would welcome new students with "open arms".

Mr Tavui said people had been enquiring about family accompaniment visas since early 2021. "There's clearly more than 60 per cent of workers who are here, with families back home, who'd be interested," he said. "[It] obviously comes with quite a lot of excitement."

Mr Tavui said families would likely be allowed to stay for as long as the term of an applicant's employment.

"I think, from the last conversation, there's definitely an intention to allow a family to stay in the country for the same duration as the primary visa holder, whilst obviously looking at some of the challenges around that in terms of whether the work runs out," he said.

DFAT said consultations about detailed policy design would take place in the first quarter of 2023.

"The Australian government is listening to the views of Pacific and Timor-Leste governments and other key stakeholders to shape the implementation of this policy," it said.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-10/pacific-worker-families-family-accompaniment-visa-palm-scheme/101829572

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New South Wales stamp duty schemes will benefit few and could push prices up, experts say

Both the New South Wales government and the opposition say they're determined to get more singles, couples and families into the housing market by altering the rules on when stamp duty is owed.

If elected in March, Labor is promising to expand the current stamp duty exemption for first homebuyers so it applies to properties up to $800,000 and offer a reduced duty on properties up to $1,000,000.

Currently stamp duty can only be waived on properties up to $650,000.

Meanwhile, the Perrottet government's stamp duty reform, which passed parliament last year, allows first homebuyers to choose between paying stamp duty or a smaller annual land tax.

It's for properties up to $1.5 million or vacant land up to $800,000 and officially comes into effect on January 16.

Both parties say their schemes leave New South Wales buyers better off but the experts aren't entirely convinced.

Stamp duty has long been criticised as the most inefficient and unproductive tax which hinders those trying to enter or remain in the property market.

And Sydney is still the most expensive place in Australia to break into the market; although the median price in many suburbs dropped by more than 20 per cent over the last year, according to Domain.

Some analysts have warned that slashing stamp duty could have unintended consequences.

Suddenly putting more money into the hands of buyers, who will in turn be able to make higher bids on houses, could push up property prices, according to policy coordinator Jesse Hermans from independent research institute Prosper Australia.

"If you give buyers more money by cutting their taxes or giving them cash grants, then that's going to up prices and then the vendors are the ones that are actually going to pocket that as an increase in house prices," Mr Hermans said.

"It's like a leaky bucket in that so much of the subsidy is leaking back towards existing property owners."

Property economist Cameron Murray also expects to see property prices climb thanks to a lighter stamp duty burden on buyers, but doesn't believe the increase will be dramatic.

He says this is because of the current decline in property values across Australia — a trend which is expected to continue through 2023 — and the fact fewer first home buyers are looking to enter the market now.

"We've just had this doubling of first home buyers in 2020 and 2021 so we're in the shadow of that and there's a finite pool of potential first home buyers that you can draw from," Mr Murray said.

"Labor's proposed $800,000 cap would also exclude many in a housing market like Sydney so the effect on prices might not be as bad as it could be."

But for many first home buyers, not having the stress of forking out for stamp duty is simply an unequivocal win.

For Noam Okewenwu, it would mean owning a home in Western Sydney six months earlier than anticipated.

He's recently been looking at properties around $400,000-$500,000 in the Canterbury area.

"Stamp duty will cost me about $15,000 dollars up-front. This is a large amount I can do without. It's definitely a no-brainer to me. This will definitely assist me in getting a home," he told the ABC.

Mr Hermans and Mr Murray predict both parties' schemes will speed things up for people like Mr Okewenwu, who are very close to buying, but won't open doors for many other hopeful homeowners.

Nevertheless, the government's First Home Buyer Choice scheme will provide valuable data on people's willingness to choose land tax over stamp duty.

A land tax has only ever been introduced in one other Australian jurisdiction, the ACT, which started its 20 year transition away from stamp duty in 2012.

Mr Murray says giving people a choice between a land tax and stamp duty is the "most minimal policy change I can think of" and believes governments would get more value from investing in more public housing.

"This is why in the 1950s and 1960s the government went and built housing, and let the tenants buy it at a discount and that's one of the ways we got home ownership up ... it increased from 42 per cent before the war to 72 per cent in the 1970s," he said.

But Mr Hermans believes Premier Dominic Perrottet's pet project will be an important test. "We really need to see some pilot projects in terms of these reforms [because] we've been struggling to get any sort of tax reform going in Australia for over a decade."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-10/nsw-house-prices-could-rise-with-stamp-duty-changes/101838172

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A grassroots revival of conservative politics

John Howard and Peter Costello are right to remind the federal government that we are ‘robbing the future to pay for [the] present’. With Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ warning about Australia’s ageing population setting up the scene for an ‘important announcement’ (which will probably mean the stage 3 tax cuts will be removed and taxes will be increased), the time is ripe for the Coalition to put forward what they do best – reforms. Coinciding the reforms required within the party (as set out in the recent review of the party) with a policy platform based on conservative values will provide a clear distinction between Labor and the government-in-waiting. But that alone will not be enough. What is needed is a grassroots revival of conservative politics in Australia.

The green-Left’s long march through our institutions has been facilitated by conservative voices remaining silent. This is the natural disposition for conservatives, but with the green-Left dominating the echo chamber of contemporary politics, this disposition is not sustainable unless we are happy with politics becoming as one-sided as an ABC Q+A panel. But what is conservatism in the Australian context?

Conservatism in its Hobbesian sense is less about a focus on unthinking ‘tradition’ as per Fiddler on the Roof, and more about having a strong government to ensure a stable and free society. Sir Edmund Burke regarded English liberalism as better than the revolution-to-liberty path taken by the Americans and the French to what the English had already achieved through a strong state, the separation of powers, and the Westminster tradition that was stable enough to make daily life predictable, yet flexible enough to allow governments to govern. Until recently, Australia was such a place, where citizens have rights and responsibilities and individuals are rational beings best able to look after their own welfare (as per John Stuart Mill) while tolerating each other’s divergent views (as per John Locke).

This complex intertwining of conservatism and liberalism is at the heart of the Liberal Party’s ideas. Key differences between conservatives and the rest relate to the proper role of government in the economy and society. Limited government, equality of opportunity in healthcare and education, and policies towards an industry that enable profitable businesses are hallmarks of Australian political life. The conservative vision has always been one of facilitating a prosperous, cohesive, and egalitarian society where individuals are free to pursue their own idea of the good life.

However, former Prime Minister Scott Morrison suggested in the election debate that Labor is the party of visionary government. It was rather sad to hear that the Coalition’s vision under Mr Morrison had been relegated to fixing up Labor’s unfunded policy innovations. Morrison’s admission revealed a key weakness in contemporary conservative politics, one that is neither necessary nor historically the case. An economy that incentivises work, entrepreneurial activity, home ownership, and a comfortable existence have been key to conservative visions past that enabled Australians to flourish.

But in the absence of a conservative vision, the green-Left has been advocating communal living in high-density inner-city housing close to cafes and trams, powered by solar and wind, where people ride electric scooters, eat at vegan restaurants where one chooses what to pay, and generally live their lives with all their household needs outsourced to restaurants and other gig economy service providers. To be sure, there is some demand for such lifestyles, and small businesses can and do flourish in such circumstances, but this is hardly the environment to raise children and it is hardly sustainable as people age and their needs change. Yet much of our investment in infrastructure goes to supporting these lifestyles and subsidising government-mandated technologies while ignoring the regions and the primary and tertiary industries that are the true backbone of our economy.

The appeal of trendy inner-city living was lost during the pandemic lockdowns, with a major exodus from the cities to the regions. Many of my younger colleagues realised that living in a small apartment that was effectively a walk-in wardrobe was a horrid existence when there was nowhere else to go. Suddenly, home ownership became an issue and high-density apartments were revealed as little more than gilded cages.

Home ownership is increasingly a luxury for young people, but it was once a conservative-led vision that was achievable for some 70 per cent of the Australian population. While recent statistics show that overall home ownership rates remain relatively unchanged, the proportion of young people owning homes has dropped markedly. Removing obstacles to home ownership such as stamp duty are key to improving home ownership. Mortgage lending policies that restrict the ability of young people to own their first home might also be mitigated by government guarantees or some other such mechanism. But recent policies by conservative governments that remove stamp duty and replace it with land tax are not consistent with conservative values and avoid the hard work of reform we so desperately need.

Australia’s appetite for economic reform has diminished since the end of the Howard era. The goods and services tax (GST) was a major reform that transformed the Australian economy, but two of the political trade-offs are no longer serving us well. First, when the Democrats’ Meg Lees agreed to support the GST, it was not applied to all goods and services. Yet a consumption tax is the fairest way to raise revenue without disincentivising entrepreneurial activity. Earnings are not taxed as highly therefore consumers can choose to moderate their non-essential consumption rather than having their income taxed automatically beforehand. The doom and gloom that was predicted for the GST never happened. In fact, prices generally were reduced, revenue raised was higher than ever, and people were better off than ever before.

Second, the trade-offs with the states were too restrictive and stamp duty and other state-based revenues were not reduced as originally promised. As a result, removing stamp duty and replacing it with a land tax is antithetical to conservative values – how can you own your own home if you have to keep paying for it to the state government? Tax reform is low-hanging fruit for a conservative vision for Australia’s future prosperity and it will challenge Labor’s tired old higher taxes mantra.

For example, GST should be applied to all goods and services with no exceptions and no compensation, and the rate should be raised, for example, to 15 per cent. All state-based taxes such as stamp duty should be abolished and income tax rates should be adjusted to remove bracket creep and to stimulate the economy. This would (a) remove a major obstacle to home ownership, (b) remove disincentives for additional work and entrepreneurial activity, and (c) fit comfortably with conservative values. It would also go a long way to addressing the cost-of-living increases that are running rampant under Labor.

Comprehensive economic reform would also stimulate investment funding to reduce carbon emissions through nuclear energy. Nuclear would enable existing electricity generation sites to be updated and allow the existing workforces to keep their jobs and the existing transmission infrastructure to continue to be used efficiently. Labor claims nuclear is too expensive while at the same time talking up tax increases to ultimately fund, among other things, the cost overruns of Snowy Hydro 2.0 and the Rewiring the Nation policy. A conservative vision that enables technological neutrality in our energy industry while at the same time providing economic reforms that do not stifle private enterprise has all the advantages and none of the downsides of the green-left’s utopian policies.

Nuclear energy is on the cards for the Dutton-led opposition to provide a realistic alternative to the uncosted and socialist vision of our energy future, but there is more to it than just selling the technology. The green-Left’s renewables future leads inevitably to government control over private households’ energy use. Not enough has been done by conservatives to point out this obvious overreach of government power. Unlike the green-Left’s vision of a command economy, a conservative vision can be implemented with costed and adequately funded policies that achieve our social, environmental, and economic goals without reducing our individual liberties.

Saying you’ll be the same horse with a different jockey is non-policy. Simply doing the opposite of what the government of the day is doing is unoriginal. Sometimes it can be difficult to undo the legacies of past policies and it is prudent to be pragmatic rather than attempt to implement party preferences at all costs (as I have written about previously). But the Coalition’s recent electoral defeat provides an opportunity for renewal and to re-establish the conservative brand. A conservative vision should not be utopian, but it should be realistic, measurable, and demonstrably costed and funded. The same criteria can be used to debate Labor’s goals which, as per the party’s ideology, are proving already to be utopian and ultimately unrealistic.

Mr Albanese’s window of opportunity to blame the former government is now firmly shut. Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen’s swiftly sinking energy policy, the rushed jobs and skills ‘pattern bargaining’ legislation, and the obvious hard-left move to socialise industry and the economy provide a unique opportunity for conservatives to present a compelling alternative vision. This vision does not have to be at odds with the general mood of voters or conservative values. But it does require the support of a grassroots movement to counter the green-Left echo-chamber that dominates the news media, academia, big corporates, and the legal profession.

To be sure, Liberals past have tried to protect free speech and academic freedom, but in the absence of a critical mass of conservative voices in the public sphere, winning the hearts and minds of voters is going to require a concerted and sustained effort. Doing so must stem from political leadership and a willingness to defend conservative values and those conservatives who choose to speak out. This is no mean feat with the green-Left’s cohort of gatekeepers ready to shut down anyone who dares question green-Left orthodoxy.

Meanwhile, the left’s utopian policies are already leading us towards a dystopian reality. Only a grassroots revival of conservative politics will facilitate a compelling alternative vision to enable Australians and their families to truly remain one and free.

https://spectator.com.au/2023/01/a-grassroots-revival-of-conservative-politics/ ?

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Jim Chalmers meets with global counterparts to discuss economic coercion, flow-on effects of Russia

Mostly talking about how to deal with China

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has joined his counterparts from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand in calling for co-operation in the face of the “threat and use of economic coercion”.

At a meeting of the Five Finance Ministers, chaired by US Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, perspectives on global economic challenges were swapped.

While the focus of the meeting was around the ongoing economic ramifications of Russia’s illegal war on Ukraine, and the ongoing supply chain constraints caused by China’s Covid-19 management, the group also discussed the threat – and use – of economic coercion.

In a readout, Secretary Yellen said she had “underscored the importance” of close co-operation among partners and allies “to secure our economies”.

“The ministers also discussed the need for co-operation to respond to the threat and use of economic coercion,” the readout said.

“The ministers look forward to future engagements and reaffirmed their commitment to deepen co-operation to further shared priorities in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.”

Discussions of economic coercion have ramped up in recent years, and just last week Japan – as the current head of the G7 – called on the group’s other members to take a co-ordinated approach in cracking down on China’s “economic coercion”.

China’s economic moves in recent years, such as suspending imports of Australian coal and wine, and Taiwanese pineapples, prompted Japan’s Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura to call the actions a “clear and present danger” for global economies.

Secretary Yellen said the group had discussed the need to develop greater resilience against global supply chain disruptions caused by Russia’s war, the ongoing effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, and other factors”.

In his own statement, Dr Chalmers said the meeting was a “really valuable opportunity” to discuss the current state of the international economy, and look to how we can work together to respond to challenges”.

“While each of our nations enters 2023 from our own unique position, we all realise this year is going to be a very tough one for our economies and the global economy more broadly,” he said.

“Co-operation through the Five Finance Ministers group is especially valuable given the uncertain global environment – the insights gleamed from engagements like this one will assist as we continue to prepare for the May Budget over coming months.”

https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-economy/jim-chalmers-meets-with-global-counterparts-to-discuss-economic-coercion-flowon-effects-of-russia/news-story/f2a6221fef4477cafe0d62e1da56b677

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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