Dingo bytes
Remember when PM Howard promised there would "never, ever" be a GST? Then when he brought it in, that it would "never" rise above 10 percent? Well, now an increase in the GST is being promoted with the excuse it's needed to pay for the cost of the "aging population". They're spending $55 million a day on the military, corporations pay next to no tax or pay none at all while being given "incentives" (read government hand outs and tax breaks), but we've got to pay more GST so that the elderly will be taken care of. Makes no sense, does it?* * * When the PM was in Chile last month at the APEC meeting, he did a doorstop interview during which he was asked an unexpected question. His answer was, "I can promise there will be no move to abolish compulsory voting in this term". Never underestimate them: they're capable of anything.* * * Pork barrelling in bush seats has come back to bite the Federal Government. Funding promised for six projects in marginal seats under a Regional Partnerships set-up hasn't appeared. The Department of Treasury and Finance has yet to approve the funding and may not do so. National Party leader John Anderson, who promised the $27.5 million during the campaign, now says the funds will be "subject to due diligence" and will not go ahead if "the business case did not stack up". It's called lying.* * * The announcement last week that air marshals will be able to use stun guns on suspected terrorists on aircraft after a six-month trial by a specialist federal police unit raises the immediate question: who is this unit going to trial them on?* * * I bet you thought escalating police corruption was a product of a corrupt society, run by corrupt governments on behalf of criminal corporations. Well, it turns out that's not it at all. Police corruption, according to a police whistleblower, is a result of "mateship gone mad", a "warped sense of loyalty". No doubt there's an element of it there. But its driving forces are the kickbacks, the bribes, the drug money etc, and they've got less to do with mateship than with gangsterism.* * * CAPITALIST HOG OF THE WEEK: is entrepreneur Rob Foster. The golden rule of business is, never pass up an opportunity to make a buck, no matter how despicable. So it was that Australian businessman Foster operating in that profit opportunity called East Timor, has been found guilty by — of all things — the World Bank, of corruption in the procurement of school equipment. Foster colluded with other business interests in a tender for school furniture. What parasites!