Tax Cuts?
October 25, 2007
Tax payers enjoy getting a break from time-to-time but could it be at the cost of the environment and equality? Yes, very much so… When these cuts are most saturated at the top-end of the scale, as Rudd recently put it, “where it’s not needed”, it really does have an affect on those at the lower-end. Read the following quote from Quarterly Essay by Lowe et al. (2007).
“Fifty years ago, Australia was one of the most equal societies in the World. Today, we are one of the most unequal of all the industrialised nations. Again, the mineral export industries are influential. The industry is capital-intensive and commodity prices have been driven up by demand in China, so mining companies can afford to pay very high wages compared with manufacturing or services. In cities like Perth, the high incomes of mining workers on fly-in fly-out contracts are driving house prices to levels that put the Australian dream beyond the reach of more and more young families. While the good times of the mining boom roll on, we should be using the revenue to invest in a cohesive social future, rather than allowing the windfall gains to widen inequality”.
My closing points on the environment at the moment: rather than just living we should live just. And, rather than finding better ways to produce more energy we should find better ways to use less energy…
