The Son Of Zaky
Last Monday night Q&A host Tony Jones concluded the show with an announcement and a challenge. The announcement was that the Federal Leader of the Opposition is appearing on the show next week. The challenge was for the Prime Minister to join him on the show. Apparently Q&A is ready when the Prime Minister is.
When inviting participants to debate it’s considered reasonable to invite both parties at the same time. To do otherwise invites claims of bias. For this reason, the Prime Minister will likely decline Q&A’s invitation.
I would suggest that the national broadcaster should be more concerned than most about potential perceptions of bias. It frustrates me that taxpayer dollars which could be spent on additional health services or bolstering education are used to fund an organisation which seems at times committed to engaging in questionable behaviour.
Why would the national broadcaster not simply challenge both leaders to an open air debate at the same time? Why would the national broadcaster engage in behaviour which almost guarantees they will be criticised? Why has the organisation not learnt from past mistakes?
I have written before about the ABC (1). It’s seems that both the Q&A program and the ABC organisation has learnt little from the Zaky Mullah incident. In addition to this latest piece of silliness Q&A continues to seed the audience with people such as the unfortunate Duncan Storrar who ask questions designed to provide a ‘gotcha’ moment.
Mt Storrar rose to national prominence for a question he asked of Assistant Treasurer Kelly O’Dwyor. Mr Storrar asked why the government was lifting the tax free threshold for “rich people” (2).
It appears that Mr Storrar is not content with the government reforms to the superannuation system which will cost “rich people” a great deal more than the rise in the upper middle tax bracket will give back to them. It appears Mr Storrar is not content with the considerable financial assistance he already receives. The assistance which outweighs the amount that he pays in taxation.
Mr Storrar has his supporters. ABC Producer Amanda Collinge exclaimed that he is a National Hero on twitter. It’s difficult to precisely define the characteristics of a National Hero. The consensus indicates that national Hero’s make significant contributions to the development of their nation or perhaps to global society. Their characteristics can include strong commitment to a just cause and evidence of self-sacrifice.
Mr Storrar does not display these characteristics. Mr Storrar has a lengthy criminal history and a substantial record of drug abuse. That is in part why Ms Collinge deleted the tweet shortly after she posted it. I’d suspect that allegations of the ABC providing Mr Storrar with special treatment are another.
Whilst Storrar is no National Hero the debate around his question merits exploration. I found an article authored by Jenny Noyes to be particularly interesting (3). She opines "Ah, the irony," we are supposed to think. "Imagine asking the government for a tax cut when you don't even pay tax... and rely on government benefits! This kind of reasoning may appear to make sense (apart from being completely devoid of compassion), but in reality it fundamentally misrepresents the purpose of the taxation system in a social democracy.”
I’m not sure how Ms Noyes qualifies her views regarding the purpose of the taxation system. Income redistribution is achieved primarily through the welfare system. Welfare is roughly a third of the Federal budget. One third of the budget is not the entire taxation system. It is merely one element of it. The taxation system does not exist just to redistribute income. Ms Noyes is the one doing the misrepresenting.
Later on in her article Ms Noyes went on to say “How much of a 'tax cut' a low paid worker like Duncan could receive is therefore an irrelevant question. He may pay some tax or none, but either way, the government is offering him and others in a similar position zero relief in this budget while people earning more than $80,000 get to take home extra pocket money.”
Ms Noyes is clearly misrepresenting the facts when she implies that the wealthy get some extra pocket money out of this budget. They quite clearly, demonstrably do not. When the budget is considered holistically and in context, as opposed to cherry picking elements of it, the wealthy are the big losers of Morrison’s first budget. This is why the Liberal Party is dealing with a ‘revolt’ amongst their voter base (4).
Further to Ms Noyes article many other commentators have sympathised with Mr Storrar. Many other commentators seem to believe that simply taxing the wealthy more will fix society’s ills. It’s a view which is deeply flawed.
Consider what happens when fewer people may more taxation than the majority. It’s widely accepted that the beneficiaries of government efforts to redistribute wealth become accustomed to receiving it. There are reduced incentives for the recipients to improve their situation without government help. This is not the prime flaw of the tax and redistribute approach.
Further to this slowly, over time, those fewer people who are burdened with more taxation become fewer still. This is because short sighted commentators expect more and more assistance to go to those least fortunate. There are more less fortunate less wealthy people than fortunate wealthy ones. Eventually fewer and fewer wealthy people wind up supporting more and more less wealthy ones.
This gives those wealthy individuals, the ones who are paying a lot of tax, a great deal of power. Consider what happens to the countries overall amount of taxation if the highest one hundred of those individuals simply leave for another country. Monaco for example. They can afford that, they are wealthy. Can the nation afford it if they leave? What would happen to the services like hospitals and schools that will now have reduced funding? What will replace that lost taxation income?
What if those wealthy individuals approached government? What if they asked for certain policy changes? What if they threatened to simply leave if government didn’t do as they requested? How would government deal with that? We all know the answer to those questions.
Governments using tax to redress financial inequity has arisen in part as a result of increasing financial inequity across society. It’s arisen because it’s seen as an easier answer to the complex problems that beset our existing financial system. It does not fix the actual cause of the problem which is the financial system itself. This simple fact is most important.
I’m already on the record criticising the way our financial system works (5). To surmise I think our current system acts as an inequity conduit transferring wealth from those who have less relative wealth to those who have more. The longer this persists, the greater the chances of social upheaval.
If we as a society really want to help Mr Storrar and those in similar circumstances wealth redistribution isn’t the answer. The answer is to fix the financial system. We should not be dithering about tinkering with how best to redistribute wealth. We should be working to ensure it is not accumulated so inequitably and without effort from the recipients of wealth.
(1) http://www.nyddesigns.com/blog/2015/7/1/its-our-abc
(5) http://www.nyddesigns.com/blog/2015/2/1/the-inequity-conduit