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  1. Albanese has been asked about this previously, because giving away 56% of the gas for free is clearly not in the national interests (especially when that industry provides so few jobs and creates so much environmental harm). He trotted out lines from the playbook of parasitic multinational mining lobby: “sovereign risk!”.

  2. Foreign companies will have to pay a bit more for our natural resources, and all Australians will benefit. This is totally unacceptable, sorry.

  3. Interesting_Iron on

    free childcare and free university would lower their respective quality, yeah?

  4. Here in Argentina we have a US backed right wing government trying to PRIVATIZE Healthcare and College Education, sigh…

  5. Enough-Carpet on

    Mums don’t have kids to ship them off to daycare. Paid childcare assistance is helpful but the far more pro family policy is to help out parents who want to raise their kids themselves. The way tax is structure funnels both parents into work. 

  6. theHoundLivessss on

    That we let Gina buy another yacht while poor kids struggle to access education is a national shame. Germany and many other nations have proven that free tertiary education is a net boon to society. We could easily copy their model.

  7. I heard on ABC radio some host mentioned we are the 3rd largest exporter of fuel (gas or coal, not sure). When prices went up, the middle east countries rejoiced, but Aus struggled when we should benefit also.

    So we also subsidised the industry which is equivalent to giving 50% of the energy for free. Example they used – Norway used that money for provide free university for everyone but Aus have to pay. The Aus gov is screwing us over big times.

  8. BreachBearAl on

    Yeah, real nice and all, but we all know for a fact if Labor tried to do it, they’d get annihilated by the media and we’d end up with another decade of coalition leadership (or someone else, since at this point the libs are effectively dead and the nationals are pretty much nothing without something to leech off of.)

  9. AssaultLemming_ on

    Imagine what a massive difference it would make to our country if this was a thing. Free childcare frees everyone up to go into the workforce. Free University sets us up for the future.

  10. SpontaneousStranger on

    Coulda woulda shoulda, coulda woulda shoulda, but you did not. Never gonna happen get this clickbait journalism outta here.

  11. So how does free childcare work in a for profit model with varying levels of costs?

  12. I get so sick of this “just tax them” argument.

    WE TRIED, not just Labor, even the Liberals had a crack under Gorton in the 70s. Its not just pro mining politicians blocking progress, the bigger problem is the pro mining voter. Every time a Labor government has tried securing some of our resource wealth, the mining lobbies make massive amounts propaganda and they either get voted out, or get spooked by the polls and change direction.

    The big business and mining lobbies don’t even have to directly attack policy to prevent it, they discredit governments through multi pronged media campaigns such as the QLD crime wave (which magically went away after the election). Right now its happening with the rumoured CGT reform, the media know how hard it is to justify the CGT discount to the downtrodden, so theyre painting labor as being out of control spenders trying to grab more money from hardworking Australians to sway public opinion against the reform. Even more cynically, people are pushing the idea that removing CGT discount now is Labor just pulling up the ladder, look in any Reddit comment section on the topic and you will see people who arent even home owners saying they one day want to benefit from the system like their parents got to.

    The ONLY way to secure our resources is for the average Australian to become more resistant to propaganda, which is a massive challenge. The only reason the pro mining politicians are there is because we keep voting them in time and time again.

  13. This needs to happen. I’m Glad to see Pocock supporting it. We need more MPs & Senators doing the same.

  14. This has been my biggest issue for like half a decade and im willing to vote for any political party who will tax gas and minerals properly over any other factor.

  15. Aromatic_Count_2576 on

    The job market is absolutely cooked for the past three years due to reckless government spending and there are still loonies who want it increase further for some ideologically driven care-economy utopian dream. Absolutely nuts.