Author: Douglasnewscontributor

❝For all his deliciously wicked but misplaced personal invective, there was one big grain of truth in former Prime Minister Paul Keating’s criticism of the AUKUS deal. Of the three nations, it was only Australia that had to open the chequebook.❞

❝Journalists fall into the same trap as generals and politicians: they view the present war with blinkers imposed by the experience of past wars.

This has coloured the reaction to the Albanese Government daring to change tax arrangements on superannuation. There would be a major voter backlash, virtually every commentator argued. The horses would be frightened. Where would the slippery slope end, argued the Opposition – Labor will tax ordinary Australians to the hilt.❞

FNQ environmental activist body, the Douglas Shire Sustainability Group (DSSG), has raised community concerns about a major development project currently underway on the Daintree Coast. The Daintree Coast is once again under threat: the threat of commercialisation and over-development resulting from the construction of a power grid.

Residents living in Mossman and the surrounding areas will soon have the opportunity to save on their annual water bill.

Douglas Shire Council will be installing new smart water meters as part of a $1.1 million investment in water security.

This is the second stage of the smart water meter rollout and will commence next Monday, 6 March 2023.

❝The superannuation system is riddled with these kinds of concessions. In all, superannuation tax concessions will soon cost the Budget more than $50 billion a year – about the same as the old-age pension.

The moral and economic case for hauling them in is unassailable. The only question is by how much and which concessions should be changed and which left..❞

❝Interest rate rises, as we are seeing, apply erratically, unfairly, and unpredictably upon younger, newer home-owners, tipping some into bankruptcy or catastrophic bank repossessions.❞

❝The race is between competing interests. On one hand we have the broad mass of the world’s people who do not want to experience the catastrophes associated with global heating: floods, fires, food and water scarcity and so on. On the other hand, we have big fossil energy corporations and the policy-makers in nations that have large reserves of fossil energy.❞

❝To put it crudely, it seems that the whitefellas opposing the Voice are concerned that it might give the blackfellas too much, and that the blackfellas opposing the Voice are concerned that it will not give them enough.❞

When b/millionaires cry out for higher taxes, it is a sure sign that the low-taxing, privatisation, out-sourcing model has gone too far. The question for Australia is can the Labor Government change direction and do it quickly enough so the benefits become apparent before it faces the electorate?

The whole gaming “industry” in NSW, and other states, is propped up by laundering illegally obtained cash and the immoral plucking of addicted gamblers. Hitherto, state governments have been equally addicted to the tax revenues.