Australia $ Value, Economic Direction?

[MicCanberra]

[quote name='MicCanberra']BTW, the AUD is now at $0.902. Bounced back up from below the 90 mark, for how long is anyones guess.:D[/quote]
$0.9101 currently.:D

[jennyau]

[quote name='MicCanberra']$0.9101 currently.:D[/QUOTE]

That's half a cent better than this morning! :thumbup:

Sent from my GT-I9100T using Forums mobile app

[NSWP]

When Tony gets in we might go back up to parity? I wish, parity I mean.

[MicCanberra]

[quote name='jennyau']That's half a cent better than this morning! :thumbup:

Sent from my GT-I9100T using Forums mobile app[/quote]
Yep, let us hope it hovers here or rises.:D

[Australian family]

[quote name='benjoon']I work in the mining industry. I'm at the start of the business where projects begin. It's been the toughest year to date. Since the mining tax was introduced new projects are few and far between. I am now been put on one day a week until things pickup. There are senior engineers and managers only working a couple days a week as well. I'm lucky that we can afford me working less but there are loads of people struggling.

Roll on Saturday[/QUOTE]

Yes it is horrible, what is happening and how people are losing their jobs. The mining tax has done a lot of harm to the mining industry. I don't think people realise the flow on affect this has with the economy, their is a huge amount of businesses involved in mining industry.

Yes I agree roll on Saturday!

[Jacs]

[quote name='Australian family']The whole pension is cut if somebody goes out of the country for more than 6 weeks.

Yes it is true that the refugees get more than pensioners. The refugees get so much financial help from the govt, and then from do gooder organisations. Some of these refugees come into the country with gold chains around children's waists and then are running business's back in their native country. I think it is time that people woke upto to what is going on with the boat people. Our country can not continue to support all these people, and the problem too is that they go and breed like flies and then get more from the welfare system.

I really believe this country is in for very hard times, the mining boom has burst and lots of people are losing their jobs. This is having a huge affect in North Queensland. Gillard in her wisdom brought in the mining and carbon tax, which has backfired on the ALP as lots of people have lost their jobs because of this. Now we also have Ford closing in Victoria and Holden is not far behind in closing in Adelaide. Australia does not have a very large manufacturing industry anymore.[/QUOTE]

I would love to know where you got this info from regarding refugee payments, it is so wrong!

Asylum seekers who first arrive in Australia get no benefits whatsoever. In some cases, while their claim is being processed and they have been approved to live in society, they recieve a payment of approx $400 a fortnight, less than both newstart AND the pension. To qualify for this they can not be in detention and had to have applied for a visa a least 6 months previously. This generally means they have been in detention format least 6 months.

If they are deemed to be a true refugee, they are given permanent residency and allowed to recieve the same benefits as any other permanent resident of Australia. If they are not they are sent back home.

It's comments like yours that just perpetuate the negative feeling towards refugees by scaremongering and spreading falsehoods.

[The_Big_M]

[quote name='Australian family']Yes it is horrible, what is happening and how people are losing their jobs. The mining tax has done a lot of harm to the mining industry. I don't think people realise the flow on affect this has with the economy, their is a huge amount of businesses involved in mining industry.

Yes I agree roll on Saturday![/quote]

The mining tax is just a convenient scapegoat for people looking for excuses.

Given how few companies actually pay it, and the highly profitable state of those that do e.g. BHP who have had massive profits, it's just a scare campaign to say that it has done a lot of harm.

Guess it's just like Whyalla was supposed to have been wiped out by the carbon tax. :rolleyes:

If the majority of polls are right, it's more likely that's going to happen in 4 days.

[Oz_Steve]

[quote name='Australian family']Yes it is horrible, what is happening and how people are losing their jobs. The mining tax has done a lot of harm to the mining industry. I don't think people realise the flow on affect this has with the economy, their is a huge amount of businesses involved in mining industry.

Yes I agree roll on Saturday![/QUOTE]

What a load of tosh. The mining tax has nothing to do with reduced investment in new projects.

[Oz_Steve]

[quote name='Jacs']I would love to know where you got this info from regarding refugee payments, it is so wrong!

Asylum seekers who first arrive in Australia get no benefits whatsoever. In some cases, while their claim is being processed and they have been approved to live in society, they recieve a payment of approx $400 a fortnight, less than both newstart AND the pension. To qualify for this they can not be in detention and had to have applied for a visa a least 6 months previously. This generally means they have been in detention format least 6 months.

If they are deemed to be a true refugee, they are given permanent residency and allowed to recieve the same benefits as any other permanent resident of Australia. If they are not they are sent back home.

It's comments like yours that just perpetuate the negative feeling towards refugees by scaremongering and spreading falsehoods.[/QUOTE]

At least they still have the libs to vote for now that One Nation is kaput.

[The_Big_M]

As a follow on, there have definitely been issues with mining businesses themselves. But that's nothing to do with the mining tax! It's to do with the actual cost of their product going DOWN. Commodity prices went down over the course of this year - and no, that had nothing to do with the tax. They went up excessively a few years back and like all things, they've gone down.

It's just like the AUD went up, then went down, or oil prices went up then back down. If you have that to sell when it's up you get more, and when it's down you don't.

I guess you can ask the exLiberal government about their poor knowledge of prices though... given Costello managed to sell most of Australia's gold at near lows, around $306/oz. And then it reached $1800/oz.

And, no, the changes in that price had nothing to do with a mining tax either. But big gold miners were virtually non-existent when prices were $300/oz. Over $1000/oz they all ramped up again. And then when prices came down, and they'd been building businesses based on $1500/oz, their business dried up because of their poor business assumptions.

And if you think the Libs will help with poor business decisions like that, or somehow miraculously keep commodity prices going ever higher, that's just unreal.

[Oz_Steve]

To go one step further the two worst policies of either major party are both owned by the libs. Their NBN proposal and the paid parental leave schemes are both absolute disgraces.

[The_Big_M]

[quote name='NSWP']When Tony gets in we might go back up to parity? I wish, parity I mean.[/quote]

The currency isn't influenced by the party in power. It's influenced by the Reserve bank (who apparently already has that Liberal Corbett in anyway :rolleyes:. After hearing him opine, it's evident he has no professionalism.), plus global conditions over where interest rates are better and trade flows.

When commodity prices were higher, it caused the dollar to go up to pay for all the purchases. If you believe that will happen again - which basically nobody does - then it may rise again. Alternatively interest rate differentials are the other main influence.

Again, the US is in an uptrend with statistics (e.g. home purchases, employment) all making the economy look positive. Hence the expectation is tapering will be reduced, US money supply will therefore fall, and long term interest rates there will rise. This causes an inflow of US currency and so increases its value. Again, if you believe this will change, then you have a chance of being right.

As you can see, Tony, and Rudd for that matter, have no real bearing on those factors.

[The_Big_M]

[quote name='Oz_Steve']To go one step further the two worst policies of either major party are both owned by the libs. Their NBN proposal and the paid parental leave schemes are both absolute disgraces.[/quote]

Absolutely. They manage to spend 2/3 of the money with the first one, for less than a quarter of the result. Talk about waste! It's what happens when they try to face save with something that people want, yet not admit the original proposal was best

And then with the second they complain about a "toxic tax" for something that is only charged to 200 polluters, has already worked, and which benefits everybody. Yet then introduce something that is charged to 3200 companies - 16 times as many!, and is only to benefit a smaller section of society. Nothing wrong with parental leave per se, but the absolute cost of it, as well as the hypocrisy against its relative benefits of the carbon tax are terrible.

[Pushka]

Not sure about that nbn. We don't even have a date. That's after 2018. More than five years away.

About the paid parenting leave. Just how many women, of child bearing age, actually earn anything close to $150k? The overwhelming majority would earn, let's say up to $80k at best. So the argument against it is rather overcooked methinks.

Neither side has any control about the Aussie dollar. It can only drift downwards. Edited September 4, 2013 by Pushka

[Oz_Steve]

[quote name='Pushka']Not sure about that nbn. We don't even have a date. That's after 2018. More than five years away.

About the paid parenting leave. Just how many women, of child bearing age, actually earn anything close to $150k? The overwhelming majority would earn, let's say up to $80k at best. So the argument against it is rather overcooked methinks.

Neither side has any control about the Aussie dollar. It can only drift downwards.[/QUOTE]

More middle class welfare for the self interested, it is the regressive nature that makes it unfair. We had someone whining about refugee payments before but silent on this.
The NBN, I guess you weren't to sure about this internet thingy either, or colour tv or the telephone.

[icat2000]

I can't see the point investing billions in NBN when wireless technology is the way of the future. Seems like they will spend all this money and it be out of date when it comes online.

I don't get all the hostile reaction to the PPL. Like poster above said, majority of the women would earn less than 60K. Too much focus on probably the top end, who do pay a lot of tax anyway.

Also women in general who take time away from the workforce lose a lot in their super funds. This can be a huge problem when it comes to retirement. Edited September 4, 2013 by icat2000

[Pushka]

[quote name='Oz_Steve']
The NBN, I guess you weren't to sure about this internet thingy either, or colour tv or the telephone.[/QUOTE]

That's simply a rude comment. And quite illogical from the information I posted about my access to NBN.

[The_Big_M]

Nobody can see the future, but copper has managed to serve a long time, and I fully expect optical to be the next step ahead. It's always much better to have a fixed facility, it's just wireless gives you flexibility, but at lots of trade-offs. It's just not possible to have the same capacity and bandwidth over the air - and as you do the 'air' network becomes more and more congested.

As said earlier, I don't have an issue with parental leave, per se, and Labor have been for it for some time. But the issue is one of scale. And also balance - given all the hysteria over the carbon tax, that it's a "toxic tax" and will result in the wipeout of Whyalla - their version of the parental leave tax is that squared.

On top of that, Hockey's and Tony's accusations of a "budget crisis" and all the rest of the hyperbole - yet somehow this can be pulled out of the air. It just proves it's all a lie from them.

[The_Big_M]

[quote name='Pushka']That's simply a rude comment. And quite illogical from the information I posted about my access to NBN.[/quote]

Agreed. Clearly people have different views, but comments like that don't show the merits of an argument.

[Jacs]

Less than 1.5% of the female population earn $150k or over. Not sure if I that is out of everyone or just child baring age though. I personally don't have an issue with it, I don't earn anywhere near that amount so it doesn't effect me, but I think it's good that all women can take paid leave, as it doesn't really matter what you earn, losing half the family income hurts. Also a woman earning $150k a year is probably more likely to be the main bread winner, so losing that income would be huge.

I see the PPL scheme as a spend money to make money policy, it stimulates the economy by giving money to spend, while allowing women time to bond with children and encouraging them to return to the workforce so they can keep paying those big tax dollars :)

I doubt it will actually get through though, it will most likely be revised before getting approved.

[Pushka]

I'm not a fan of the PPL either and hope it gets modified significantly also. But apparently schemes like this exist across modern economies.

[The_Big_M]

It's not a large proportion of the population - I don't have an issue with the numbers, but it's again evidence of disbalance. They cut the low income earners superannuation contribution entirely, yet will give rebates to high income earners for health insurance benefits, and also pay very high earner's benefits for parental leave.

You don't need $75000 to survive for 6 months. The government should be giving money to help people, not just extravagantly waste cash on handouts.

Essentially, when you have a budget to balance, and try to have small government, I don't believe taxes should be spent as income supplements who don't need them. It just doesn't add up - and means everyone's taxes need to be higher.

[Oz_Steve]

[quote name='Pushka']That's simply a rude comment. And quite illogical from the information I posted about my access to NBN.[/QUOTE]

[COLOR="Cyan"]Not sure about that nbn. We don't even have a date. That's after 2018. More than five years away. [/COLOR]

Not sure what you were on about here, only that you aren't sure about the NBN. At least you didn't say that wireless was the way of the future.

[Oz_Steve]

[quote name='icat2000']I can't see the point investing billions in NBN when wireless technology is the way of the future. Seems like they will spend all this money and it be out of date when it comes online.

I don't get all the hostile reaction to the PPL. Like poster above said, majority of the women would earn less than 60K. Too much focus on probably the top end, who do pay a lot of tax anyway.

Also women in general who take time away from the workforce lose a lot in their super funds. This can be a huge problem when it comes to retirement.[/QUOTE]

I thought access to welfare was based on need rather than how much tax you pay. Then cap the entitlement at 60k per annum and include the compulsory contribution to their super fund. At some point people actually need to take responsibility for their own choices.

Wireless is the way of the future? :rolleyes:

[Jacs]

[quote name='The_Big_M']It's not a large proportion of the population - I don't have an issue with the numbers, but it's again evidence of disbalance. They cut the low income earners superannuation contribution entirely, yet will give rebates to high income earners for health insurance benefits, and also pay very high earner's benefits for parental leave.

You don't need $75000 to survive for 6 months. The government should be giving money to help people, not just extravagantly waste cash on handouts.

Essentially, when you have a budget to balance, and try to have small government, I don't believe taxes should be spent as income supplements who don't need them. It just doesn't add up - and means everyone's taxes need to be higher.[/QUOTE]

I guess it depends on if you look at the scheme as welfare or a workplace entitlement. I see it as the latter so have no issue with it being based on current earning. Ideally it should be funded by workplaces just like sick leave and holiday pay, but then you're opening up to major discrimination against hiring women of child baring age as a company won't want to have to pay extra. This way it ensures the entitlement is there but businesses don't have to fork out for it themselves.