The cost of living is crushing many of us. Rents, interest rates, groceries, doctors’ bills, water, electricity and gas all up, without mercy. It feels as if the whole system has been rigged to bleed ordinary people dry while a privileged few feasts.
Look at the banks – their profits are obscenely high. They pay retirees a pittance on their hard-earned savings, gouge homebuyers with high interest rates, and then skim a fee every single time you buy anything, even a coffee. Once, a banknote could circulate for years without enriching them. Now every electronic click lines their pockets. You also guarantee their debts, yet get nothing in return, not a cent. Meanwhile their senior executives award themselves multi-million-dollar salaries and even fatter bonuses while the people who keep the banks and country running cannot afford a home and struggle just to pay the rent. The answer seems obvious: nationalise the banks and pay every employee the same. No more fat cats exploiting others.
The supermarket giants do the same. They underpay farmers, hold back payment for months, then charge us sky-high prices. Their executives collect fortunes for the privilege of exploiting both the people who grow our food and the people who buy it. Again, the solution looks simple: nationalise them and equalise the pay.
These same corporations cheer for mass immigration. Why? Because more people mean more customers pouring through the same doors, more profits, and bigger bonuses. They don’t care about you. They care only about extracting every last dollar from your wallet.
Multinational giants rake in enormous revenue from Australian customers yet arrange their affairs, so they pay almost nothing in tax. That must end. Tax their Australian income, not the profits they can magic away with clever accounting.
Ultra-wealthy individuals who live like kings while borrowing against their empires instead of taking a taxable wage must face annual capital-gains tax. Force them to sell some shares if necessary. This will give ordinary people a chance to own a piece of the pie. A win-win.
Company tax rates must rise to match the top personal rate. Why should a giant corporation pay only 30 percent while hard-working individuals face nearly 50 percent? And the army of lawyers and accountants who help the rich dodge their fair share? Confiscate their property and confiscate the property of the executives who hire them. They work against the rest of us and should face the consequences.
Lawyers charge ten times what teachers and nurses earn, pricing justice out of reach for most families. No one should be denied fairness because they are not rich. Cap legal fees at the level of a teacher’s or nurse’s pay. Do the same to politicians and senior bureaucrats who award themselves hundreds of thousands in pay while teachers, nurses and police struggle to put enough food on the table – cap their pay. Let them live like the people they claim to serve.
Our minerals and gas are sold too cheaply. Japan buys our gas and sells it to its own citizens for less than we pay. That is an outrage. Demand a proper return for the resources that belong to every Australian.
People barely scraping by should not be taxed on the little they earn. Raise the tax-free threshold dramatically. Those who cannot work or cannot find decent work through no fault of their own deserve a living wage — a universal basic income that lets them live with dignity, not shame.
The wealthy who lecture the rest of us about climate change while living in energy-hungry mansions, driving gas-guzzling SUVs and flying overseas several times a year must face the same limits as everyone else. Equal fuel and energy allocations for all. One overseas flight every two years. If we are serious about the planet, everyone must share the burden.
Government should protect people from their own recklessness – by forcing superannuation funds to hold at least a third in government bonds so ordinary people’s life savings are not wiped out by the next market crash. These bonds are risk-free because governments can create the money to honour those bonds. This also enables government to meet its annual expenses – so it’s another win-win.
Imagine a country where medical care is free, education is free, and every citizen has enough to live with dignity whether they can work or not. A country where we look after one another instead of letting capitalist parasites bleed us dry. That’s all possible.
And wouldn’t it be wonderful to feel safe again and know that our children and grandchildren are safe? Safe from violent criminals, paedophiles, rapists, habitual offenders and those who simply refuse to live by civilised rules. That’s also possible. Government can build vast prisons deep in the scorching outback and lock the miscreants away until society can be sure they will never again threaten us or our property. That’s easily done.
All of this sounds just. It sounds fair. It sounds like the caring society we deserve.
But is it?
History screams a different truth. Every time these “solutions” have been tried on a large scale, they have produced economic collapse, abject poverty, the deaths of millions, and the imprisonment or silencing of anyone who dared to question those in power.
The system that has lifted more people out of poverty and raised living standards further than any other is the one that protects free markets, individual liberty, personal property and national security. Nations that lean toward these principles enjoy the highest living standards on earth. These are the principles championed by Classic Liberals Australia.
This is your future and the future of your children. Think hard. Then fight for the party whose policies are in your and your family’s best interest.