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Time to go Stephen Robertson

Posted by: Michael Smith | 5 March, 2010 - 2:23 PM

The Financial Review newspaper has a great editorial today.

It says Anna Bligh is doing her best to damage the Labor Party’s brand in Queensland. To show that under Anna Bligh, Labor cannot be trusted.

The Fin Review is talking about the land tax amendment that the Bligh Government is using to overturn a High Court ruling on land tax.

The Land Tax act has stayed the same since 1944.

Land Tax and rates are based on the simple value of the land without buildings or anything else. Just the land.

The Beattie/Bligh Government slugged the owners of Pacific Fair shopping centre with tax based on a $200 million valuation of the land. The owners went to court and said the government’s valuation was dodgy, the real value was closer to $40 million. The government had taken into account things that the law didn’t allow them to consider. They’d tried it on.

The High Court said the Bligh Government was breaking the law. As the Fin Review says, rather than repenting their crime, rather than showing remorse, state treasurer Andrew Fraser and the natural resources minister Stephen Robertson have reached for a legislative baseball bat to bludgeon the court and property owners into submission.

Retrospective laws, in this case reaching back 8 years, are a direct attack on the rule of law. Liberal democracies rely on the rule of law. It’s like saying the speeding fine you received in 2002 was insufficient, the government needs more money, the fine’s been doubled.

The Bligh Government’s rubbish new law doesn’t even make sense in English. It tries to put into law the fiction that the “unimproved” value of the land includes the value of leases, goodwill and profits.

It’s an abuse of state power. As the Fin says, the minister’s defence – “we need the money” – is a variant of excuses heard in criminal please in courts every day of the week.

The government claims that $1 billion is at stake but as you’ve heard on my program, the real number is a fraction of that. The Fin Review says the lameness of the defence is compounded by the fact that they’ve managed their economy about as badly as any state government and are the authors of their own fiscal predicament.

It’s immoral and unprincipled. The Queensland Government would do well to recall the debacle of the NSW property vendor’s tax and think about the damage their ill-conceived measure could to revenues in the medium term.

The Fin Review says “there could be few better illustrations of the bungling maladministration of state taxes…. than the Bligh Government’s Valuation of Land and Other Legislation Amendment Bill. The Bligh Government should press delete and start again.”

And the Minister of the Crown responsible for this debacle is the same hapless individual who brought you Queensland Health’s culture change. It’s time to go, Stephen Robertson.

Blog comments

With the breeding ground for lefty voters beginning in primary school, then graduating through high school then getting into top gear at Uni, as well as their cheer squad in the ABC, the SMH, and the Age, the Public Service and Unions, is it likely we will never see the a** end of these morons.

Mal. Wednesday 10 March, 2010 - 8:47 AM
Wobbly,

The only way you'd know where i've been online is to endlessly troll certain bloggs or frequent my own blogg or alternatively spend a lot of time at the website of a certain ideologically immature political party whose name isn't worth mentioning.

Again, why should i be cower from providing a different point of view?

I make no attempts to hide what i believe in and if you can neither understand what ideology you think you believe in or what i believe then perhaps you should stick to the debate topic at hand.

In this instance that is, the direct attack on the rule of law by a political party in order to extort money from tax-payers so it can finance its ideologically and ruinous spending.

We in Australia certainly need a constitution that is not only rigid but certainly in-line with the citizen empowering model set out in the republican model chosen by the US of A.

Regards,

Crimson

Crimson Tuesday 9 March, 2010 - 8:55 PM
Michael Smith is correct the rule of law is seriously under attack and government needs to be reminded, it is not above the law and is in fact required to respect the rule of law.

Last week Tony Fitzgerald QC launched another scathing attack on the Bligh Labor government at a book launch on former Liberal MP, Terry White, as reported in The Australian news article Both sides of Queensland politics corrupt, Fitzgerald declares http://bit.ly/aZWQxI

I would very much have liked to watch his speech on youtube, ABC or at least be able to read a transcript. But given the lack of press freedom that probably wasnt possible.

Things are VERY bad indeed, and Mr Fitzgerald confirmed something many of us have believed for a long time now. There is in effect no opposition, just like there is no Upper House, where we could complain about systemic parliamentary failures, including the fact our elected leaders are denying us electoral representation and ignoring our democratic wishes on fundamental issues of democracy and human rights.

Former Attorney General Max Bingham QC and Professor Jeff Malpas say we need an ethics commission because - Australia has a very poor record of upholding ethical standards in public life - whether in government or in parliament more broadly - ...from Kevin Rudd eyes MP ethics watchdog http://bit.ly/aHMvR2 and A watchdog for every house http://bit.ly/bbDjZU

The Wall Street Journal Online published my article Breakdown of the rule of law http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/03/425273.html without being asked because they believed my article had merit. The Australian Financial Review sadly always declined to publish our true story. What does that tell us about our lightweight democracy, free speech and press freedom?

Jennifer Nash Tuesday 9 March, 2010 - 12:52 PM
Hey red.... Nothing humble about that suggestion mate.
That's a classic shitstirring statement of an insurgent.
Just wish I had more time here. I can see you're all over the place like a big red blanket.
Ah well... I'll try tomorrow. I know you won't go away.
Wobblyone

Wobblyone Monday 8 March, 2010 - 10:47 PM
Darryl,

I was attempting to make a similar point in a less than direct way.

Bligh and Rudd should be seen as the beginning of the end of ideological derived politics and government in this country.

There is no doubt in my mind we as a nation need to move toward a more republican model of government like that of the US of A.

The sooner the better in my humble opinion

Crimson Monday 8 March, 2010 - 5:46 PM
Crimson, The only thing that people should be looking back on the Bliar days with is sheer amazement at how stupid some people were for voting for this clown in the first place. Also the only road we are going down is the Bankruptsy road.

Darryl Monday 8 March, 2010 - 4:28 PM