Mr Hockey has also suggested the proposed increase in fuel excise will not affect the less well off as much as high and middle income earners because the poorest people either dont have cars or actually dont drive very far in many cases”. Yeah maybe those living practically in the gutter dont have a car but most lower income people have cars and theyre more likely to be less fuel efficient, and many low income working people have to drive huge distances to get to their shitty jobs... so i suggest hes talking out of his arse and hasnt actually looked at the data. he also does not consider that even if low income people are spending less on petrol its a higher proportion of their overall expenditure so the increase is relatively higher. (Same as for electricity use: poor people in general spend around 20% less than average but as a proportion of their total disposable income its two or three times higher (6% rather than 2%). And despite criticism over the government’s proposed changes over the pension, the Treasurer has also suggested in net terms out of the budget, it is strongly arguable that pensioners are going to be better off because the inflation rate is higher than average male weekly earnings at present. then if this really is a money-saving measure whey arent they keeping it pegged to AMWE growth? Because *usually* AMWE growth is higher than CPI (inflation rate, though technically theyre not quite the same thing). thats the reason that despite being set at the exact same amount in the late 80s, pensions (indexed to AMWE) are now around $150 per week more than allowances such as Newstart (indexed to CPI)
Posted on: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 05:37:46 +0000
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