Margo Kingston

Margo Kingston

Co-publisher and editor-in-chief at No Fibs
Margo Kingston is a retired Australian journalist and climate change activist. She is best known for her stint as Phillip Adams’ ‘Canberra Babylon’ contributor and her work at The Sydney Morning Herald and #Webdiary. Since 2012, Kingston has been a citizen journalist, reporting and commenting on Australian politics via Twitter and No Fibs.
Margo Kingston

 

I write this as a progressive who, like so  many other Australians, fought hard on social media to rid us of of a man who, we believed, did not represent Australian values.

I write this as someone who, like many others, toasted the elevation of Malcolm Turnbull with profound relief, both for our country and because I could now live my life without having to be immersed in politics.

So I write this as someone who now follows politics casually, largely though TV news. I’ve seen Turnbull open the tax conversation, and I’ve seen Bill Shorten draw his line in the sand to oppose changes to the GST, just as Km Beazley opposed the tax before the 1998 election before caving in in 2001.

And I saw Turnbull promise that he would not go to an election until it was due late next year.

And I wondered how that could be possible, given that next May would be, if he was truthful, an election budget.

Hmmm.

How about this? Scott Morrison announces a GST policy which compensates the poor and which he proposes would be delivered if the Liberals won the election. He factors that policy into the forward estimates. He also announces a long overdue crackdown on rorts the wealthy use to minimise tax – capital gains tax, negative gearing and superannuation, to be applied from the date of the budget should the Liberals win government and again factored in to the forward estimates. The measures fix the deficit.

We’re talking paradigm change here, an attempt to reverse the post-1998 conventional wisdom of the big two promising no change then delivering it big time.

In my opinion, voters have long been ready for genuine, fair, disclosed reform. Turnbull has the clout and credibility to do the job.

Wealthy vested interests would be forced to submit, for the ALP would be forced to go to an election promising even tougher action given their opposition to GST reform.

I believe this play would work, and that Labor would be forced to reform, at last.

What do you think?