I have written many book reviews before, but this is the first time I have ever reviewed a memoir, Rowan Cahill’s Cold War Kid: Resisting the Vietnam War. There is an added layer of responsibility that comes with the job – it is one thing to attack an academic text for theoretical or empirical shortcomings, but quite another to pass judgment on a person’s account of their own life. This is doubly so when that person is a friend and mentor. In the spirit of the radical history Rowan calls for in the book, this review makes no pretences about cold, dispassionate objectivity. There will no doubt be reviews aplenty in that vein down the road. No, I have approached the text as the colourful story of a devoted activist, a text which, in detailing the possibilities, limitations and costs of radical politics in the 1960s and 1970s, speaks powerfully to the contemporary scene.

We know we live in serious times because the Declaration of Independence itself is controversial. Its meaning is contested or repudiated, and its authors are condemned. This very meeting is criticized as an attempt to turn America into a Christian nation. The Declaration says that under the laws of nature and nature’s God, no human being may rule another without his consent. In this respect, it is just like the New Testament, which makes each of us responsible for his own salvation.

Most people long for our divisions to be healed. How can that happen? The answer is found in the unsurpassed Second Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln. You should go tonight if you can, at night when it’s quiet, to the Lincoln Memorial. Stand facing Lincoln. Very beautiful. Look to your left: the Gettysburg Address, the full text. Look to your right: this Second Inaugural about which I’m speaking. It is a poem and a prayer. It says that the story of America is unique and beautiful. The beauty is offset by tragedy, and we see the beauty next to the tragedy—and see that the beauty is higher.

Writing in 1833, Justice Joseph Story, one of the greatest jurists of the early republic, warned against a dangerously exaggerated conception of the freedom of the press. “There is,” Story observed in his Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, “a good deal of loose reasoning on the subject of the liberty of the press, as if its inviolability were constitutionally such, that, like the king of England, it could do no wrong, and was free from every inquiry, and afforded a sanctuary for every abuse; that, in short, it implied a despotic sovereignty to do every sort of wrong, without the slightest accountability to private or public justice.” This idea, Story held, “is too extravagant to be held by any sound constitutional lawyer.”

The Wrap with Matt Grudnoff

What we know at The Australia Institute is that change is difficult and hard fought. We have made real progress with Labor supporting these reforms to capital gains tax, negative gearing, and trusts.

But the change hasn’t passed the parliament yet, and vested interests are going to continue to push the Labor Government to water down or scrap these important reforms.

I have covered over a dozen Federal Budgets, and this is the first time I have felt optimistic that housing affordability will get better not worse. Young people deserve to be able to buy a home of their own and have the security that comes with that.

Let’s not let them down.

Photo: AAP Image/Jason O’Brien

By Lucas Lewit-Mendes and Dr Wesa Chau

What’s next after the budget

This month’s federal budget included three major tax changes – cutting back tax concessions for negative gearing, capital gains tax, and trust distributions. Some of this revenue will be returned with a $250 tax offset for working Australians, providing a much-needed boost to households on lower incomes. Disappointingly, however, income support payments such as JobSeeker and Commonwealth Rent Assistance were left untouched despite them being outpaced by inflation.

This insight piece focuses on whether the remainder of Labor’s term in government is the right time for even more ambitious tax reform.

How substantial were the budget changes?

The capital gains tax (CGT), negative gearing, and trust distribution tax changes are significant reforms.

Everybody’s Home has urged politicians and the public to see through the property lobby’s spin on investor tax breaks, accusing the sector of running a scare campaign that hands landlords an excuse to hike rents.

Media reports today feature property industry groups claiming that negative gearing and capital gains tax changes will increase rents by hundreds of dollars a year and result in thousands fewer new homes being built. 

Everybody’s Home spokesperson Maiy Azize said their claims don’t stack up.

“The property lobby is showing that it can’t be trusted. They will use any opportunity to scuttle reform and look for reasons to justify higher rents,” Ms Azize said

“Claims that the changes will dampen new supply are designed to mislead the public. The changes are designed to encourage investors to buy new builds. 

“The property lobby is using these changes as cover for opportunistic profiteering. By crying wolf, this sector is handing existing landlords – who actually get to keep their tax perks – an excuse to hike rents. These changes protect existing investors so these reforms shouldn’t be used as an excuse. 

The report, published by The Australia Institute today, shows that mining companies use a quarter of the diesel in Australia, enough to fill every big ute in Australia 30 times, 3.4 times more than all agriculture, farming and forestry.

Key points:

• Diesel use in mining has tripled in the last 20 years and is expected to increase into the future.
• Recent reports on BHP shelving plans to electrify its Pilbara mining fleet highlight how slow the mining industry has been to reduce its diesel use.
• Mining companies have little incentive to electrify because their diesel use is subsidised by the Fuel Tax Credits Scheme and they can use unlimited carbon offsets to comply with environmental requirements.
• The Fuel Tax Credits Scheme costs taxpayers over $10 billion per year.

“Australians are being told to catch the bus in the name of fuel security, while the mining industry uses ever more diesel,” said Rod Campbell, Research Director at The Australia Institute.

“Leaked documents from BHP show that the company is in no hurry to switch to electric equipment.

“Miners like BHP are happy to keep using subsidised diesel while the rest of Australia goes through a fuel security crisis.

“The Albanese Government is making this worse, not better.

“The government failed to reduce mining diesel subsidies in the budget, despite being urged to do so by the ACTU, social service agencies and even by a mining company, Fortescue.