A new financial year allows us all to reset our financial clock. While the Feds have done some good work, one State government has done exactly the wrong thing
The new financial year brings a clean slate on which to make an impression over the next twelve months.
Like diets always beginning on Mondays, 1 July is an opportunity to reset, refocus and avoid the mistakes of yesterday. Yes I know we can do that every single day but it does help to have a definitive line in the sand to help motivate change.
Our State and Federal governments have certainly used the date to make some good (and some really dumb changes) changes.
Let’s start with a bouquet.
Tax rates for small business owners have been cut to a reasonable 26 percent. Next year they’ll be one per cent less which is a great outcome for the engine room of our economy.
Successful small business is vital to our economic recovery and the government needs to do everything possible to encourage the risk taking and spirit of entrepreneurship that it can. Tax is one part of that process but the removal of red green and black tape, dismantling complex IR requirements and compliance are even more important.
Now the brickbat.
What on earth is going on in New South Wales?
The State government has just delivered a reform that only entrenches discrimination into our legal system. Of course it’s been done in the name of compassion but it is just more socialism.
Today, the have slashed fines for those in receipt of welfare payments. That’s right, if you are a receipt of any welfare payment, your speeding, traffic or parking fines will be half of those who actually have a job.
That’s not a particularly good way to encourage positive behaviour and is just one step removed from the Finish model of traffic fines.
In Finland, speeding fines are actually linked to salary and drivers receive a 'day fine' (usually half their daily wage). How many 'day fines' one incurs depends on the gravity of the offence.
A couple of years ago, one chap was fined around $150,000 for doing 75 km/h in a fifty zone on his motorbike. He could probably afford it but that misses the point.
While the concept may appeal to many, when our non criminal law enforcement system start targeting people based on their wealth or income we open up Pandora’s Box.
It’s just another form of the creeping socialism done under the guise of Covid-19 ( yes that really was the justification by the NSW government).
Now I realise that governments taking less money is a good thing, but that should apply across the board and not just one specific section of our community. It truly is a matter of principle.
When this entire Corona nightmare began, I warned that it would be used by governments of all political stripes to make unhealthy changes.
This latest decision by the NSW government is just another one of them.
Cory Bernardi is the author of seven books and has been a member of the Australian rowing team, a publican, an investment portfolio manager and spent nearly 14 years as an Australian Senator.
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