Will the government’s tax cuts backfire?

Crikey readers had a crack at divining the thinking behind the government’s contentious tax cuts for high income earners. Bernard Keane writes that, based on a Grattan Institute report, it’s an unfunded mess that will need to see massive spending cuts elsewhere to survive. Meanwhile, readers discussed Kerry O’Brien’s searing speech at the Logies, and the sudden popularity of the Coalition’s “mandate” rhetoric.

On the government’s unfunded tax plan

Lee Miller writes: Seems obvious that the plan is to induce mass poverty. For what purpose I wonder. Are we expecting another world war when men joined up to just get a pay packet? Or do all the landed gentry need downstairs staff? I’m sick of all this BS about the wealthy and the great trickle down nonsense. If that worked we’d be seeing the benefits long before now.

On Kerry O’Brien’s call to arms

Denise Marcos writes: Kerry O’Brien’s speech was uplifting and cautionary. I pined for the era when 7.30 was a “report”, not merely a time of the evening for perfunctory coverage of politics and overly polite engagement with a prime minister. It was refreshing to once again hear balanced and fearless commentary from O’Brien. Tom Gleeson continued in that vein making the Logies relevant after decades of fluff and commercial bias. Gleeson did not ruin the Logies as some media lightweights allege, he afforded them a new credibility. TV Week — and the industry — should be grateful.

On the Coalition’s ‘mandate’

Peter Schulz writes: The whole point of parliamentary democracy is to curtail the absolute power of executive government so that it cannot make laws unilaterally but needs to convince a majority of representatives in the democratically elected parliament that the legislation is a good idea. The advantage for the party that forms “government” is that it has greater (although not absolute) control of which bills are presented to the parliament for consideration — not that it dictates how the parliament votes.

Noel Turnbull writes: The fussing about mandates actually started with Quintin Hogg (Baron Hailsham) who claimed that a recently elected UK Labour government had no mandate for various policies. It was actually code for claiming the government was illegitimate. Significantly he never used the word when Tory governments introduced policies they had not campaigned on.