Election Madness

As the September 7th Federal election announcement hit the news media last Saturday, before the actual announcement, I realised the radiowaves, ABC TV and newspapers would be almost unwatchable/unreadable for 5 long, cold, windy weeks.

So inspite of a number of interesting articles in the Saturday Age newspaper (business section) 3rd August 2013, we will get slogans (Stop the Boats, Axe the Carbon Tax) and spin from all the major parties.
1. Michael West "Demand for power down, demand for profits up" Pg 9 talked about the reality of falling power demand and the "fact that company budgets and profits are stuck on network spending".

2. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard wrote on Pg 12 "Peak oil : its still a harsh reality" that "the output of the five big oil majors- Exon, BP, Total, Cheron and Shell - has fallen by 26 per cent despite a relentless hunt for new fields" and I might also say the development of shale oil fields in USA and Canada.

3. Peter Hannam's article "Consumers switch on to solar power" shows that despite the falling Australian dollar and in spite of subsidies removal, householders are still installing lots of solar. Talks about large scale Solar Farms still abound though Spain seems to be changing their tariffs sufficiently to bankrupt the Solar Thermal Installations us greenies like to trumpet. See the blackly entertaining "Spain levies consumption tax on sunshine"

In the current election both parties are worried about the cost of living for 'working families'. So here goes with my responsibility list.

• Electricity regulation falls largely into the State responsibilities, as we have seen with the reduction of the Victorian Feed in Tariff to 8c.
• Petrol pricing is influenced by world pricing (with taxation by the Federal Governments.)
• The cost of housing and rent, a major expenditure by said 'working families' is determined by the marketplace - demand for housing, thus price, is increasing with increasing population. I haven't seen any form of Government influence this except to increase the costs with large handouts to first home buyers.
• The cost of water, in Victoria, is also a State Responsibility. We have seen a major increase in costs due to the ill-fated desalination plant built by the previous Labor State Government.

So how can the current Federal parties manage to help out on this stuff?

Wages for the 'working families' depends on your industry, but the only ones having large increases in earning power over the last decade have been CEO's of large companies, who are asking for tax cuts, no or low levels of paid-parental leave and benefits such as Fringe Benefits taxes.

Public employees are facing major job cuts as the economy tanks. So there will be major cuts to services in spite of promises by Labor and Liberal. With corresponding increases in unemployment and New Start and other Centrelink allowances.

Face it, for the majority of Australians, harder times, higher costs in basic needs and a structurally changing economy will provide considerable stresses. Will this be the "Recession we have to have?" no matter who wins on 7th September?