Thursday, January 29, 2026

Labor must use its mandate to reform our unfair tax system

Alexander Hamilton warned that when a government betrays its people, the right of self-defense remains.

“If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is no resource left but the original right of self-defense.”(Federalist Papers, No. 28)

 


Culture is like a forest. The seeds are your core values. Once they take root as behaviours, they can grow into trees, populating your cultural forest. Bad seeds produce unhealthy forests, infertile, and plagued by infestations. Good seeds produce a healthy forest and ecosystems that support life. One is sustainable, the other is simply not.
Diane Kalen-Sukra, Save Your City: How Toxic Culture Kills Community & What to Do About It

As we’ve seen – especially over the past decade or so – population growth isn’t inevitable.
While the global population has grown every year for the past seven decades, some countries have seen their numbers shrink. And increasingly, those with falling birth rates (including Australia) have relied on immigration to keep their populations growing.


Hirschhorn warns ATO staff that they, not AI, are on the hook for decisions

When the all-staff email goes beyond housekeeping, it delivers a pointed lesson on AI, judgment, and trust.

Labor must use its mandate to reform our unfair tax system
Millie Muroi’s suggestion that we should move away from taxing workers and move to a land tax is a good one that was proposed in Ken Henry’s taxation review of 2010 (“Immigration’s a fix, not a panacea”, January 28). After Tony Abbott’s successful campaign to remove the carbon tax, federal governments of both persuasions have not been brave enough to make any major changes to our tax system. The tragedy is that if the carbon tax had not been abolished, we would be raising an additional $70 billion a year. Similarly, the federal government was pressured by mining companies to dilute the effect of the resources rent tax (PRRT) to the extent that it now receives more revenue from HECS fees than the PRRT. With the opposition in chaos and Labor being expected to win at least the next election, surely it is time that our government started implementing some of the serious changes that our system of taxation desperately needs. Peter Nash, Fairlight

Gordon de Brouwer leaves a disappointing legacy

OPINION | Gordon de Brouwer exits the APS having strengthened processes, but substantial reform is still waiting in the wings.


Two huge ships are floating off the coast of Sydney. This is what they’re doing

Slovak Fico on Amerikan President::
“Robert Fico, one of the few EU leaders to frequently support Trump’s stance on Europe’s weaknesses, was concerned about the U.S. president’s “psychological state,” two of the diplomats said.”
European leader spoke of shock at Trump’s state of mind after Mar-a-Lago meeting

8 Years ago Slovak PM Robert Fico resigns

Owl: ‘Poetry is my true métier’ — Blake Morrison on Afterburn

In a dip on the A12, late at night,
no warning, the kids asleep in the back,
an owl flew into the windscreen.
I’d hit flying creatures before,
soft-winged insects mashed to splut
that furred up the headlights like kettle scale.
This was a downy white pillow flap
yet hard enough to score the glass
with a crack running side to side.
I slowed, pulled up. The owl was surely dead
but its body wasn’t lying in the grass
nor ahead on the beam-lit tarmac.
I searched for an age while the kids slept,
longing for a bright accusing eye
and a pulse in a cloud of feathers.
Wherever it lay, I couldn’t atone:
driving home I felt the future grow dark
as the crack widened and I fell inside.
From ‘Afterburn’, published by Chatto & Windus
‘Afterburn’ by Blake Morrison is published by Chatto & Windus, £12.99

CBP Murdered Alex Jeffrey Pretti in Minneapolis MN on January 24, 2026

[Trigger Warning] There have been dozens of social media posts and articles written in the past two days about the brutal murder of 37 year of American Citizen Alex Pretti, an RN who worked at the VA in Minneapolis. This court filing, dated January 24, 2026, USDC, District of Minnesota, includes a redacted declaration of a licensed physician [he fears for his safety and remains anonymous in the filing] who witnessed the murder, and attempted to provide medical assistance to Mr. Pretti after he was beaten, whipped with a pepper sprayer cannister, and shot ten times in five seconds, at point black range, in the back and chest, by possibly four unidentified ‘agents.’ The doctor describes the scene, the actions of the agents, the lack of medical care provided to the victim, and his horror and distress during and subsequent to the murder. Please read this sworn first person testimony. Facts matter. Immediately after the murders of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti, government spokesmen stated, falsely, that the two individuals were “domestic terrorists.” DHS has covered up and refused access to state and local investigation teams to forensic evidence connected to these murders, as well as to the identity of the murderers of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti. The family does not have possession of their son’s body for burial. Mr. Pretti was licensed to carry the gun he had with him, and did not at any time make an effort to use it, threaten or brandish the gun. He was using his cell phone to take video of agent brutality, and protecting two women, when he was seized, pepper sprayed in the face, thrown to the ground and beaten by up to 6 unidentified men. One or more of these men then murdered Pretti, execution style, having dragged his body into a semi upright position, whereupon they placed and discharged their weapons into his neck and chest, brutally and illegally killing him.

On the left is the text of an Affidavit by a witness to the shooting who also recorded the events from a distance or no more than five feet from the shooting. The are many postings of audio and video on social media on social accounts. Caveat – All the claims to date made by DHS and Trump Administration about the shooting are false. [Trigger Warning] Selected videos and information on the event are as follows…this is a developing story:

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Wednesday, January 28, 2026

Censoring writers has always been dangerous territory - David Williamson

 Days after the US took over majority ownership of TikTok, the word ‘Epstein’ has been censored


David Williamson reveals his own Writers’ Week ‘cancellation’ moment

In 1985, the playwright narrowly avoided cancellation of one of his plays, after government threats to pull funding. Censoring writers is “always dangerous territory”, he says.


27 Jan 2026

David Williamson once almost had a play cancelled because the government subsidising it didn’t like its content, and the renowned dramatist says the implosion of Adelaide Festival’s board is a reminder for arts directors to stand firm against attempted censorship.
Despite the crises engulfing boards from Creative Australia to Melbourne Symphony Orchestra since 2023, as their programming or performers were seen to take a side in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, an arts directorship is still the ultimate signifier of status for the characters in Williamson’s new play, The Social Ladder.
David Williamson: “I’m still fascinated by the social dance we have to do through life, balancing our self-interest with our social standing.”  Louie Douvis
They remain so in real life despite those recent “bumps”, said the chronicler of suburban life who made his name with 1971 classics The Removalists and Don’s Party,
In The Social Ladder, Williamson’s “50-somethingth” staged work, Katie is a Sydneysider from a working-class family but she’s on the make.
“She feels she has talents that deserve to be noticed and she decides those talents are going to be noticed by the Mallorys, who sit unchallenged on the highest rung of the city’s social ladder,” Williamson told The Australian Financial Review.
The Melbourne playwright fled Sydney after 17 years living there, in 1996 – he first satirised its status obsession in 1987’s Emerald City, also giving it its nickname – but is back from Noosa to tweak his new play during previews ahead of Wednesday’s opening night.
It’s no coincidence that in The Social Ladder, the power of Catherine and Charles Mallory is encoded by their sway over a (fictional) board of the Art Gallery of NSW. Katie covets a seat so much she invites the couple to dinner and hires an expensively trendy contemporary painting for her wall as part of an increasingly desperate bid to impress.
“There’s been a few bumps lately, but people with money will still want to do a few things to consolidate their social standing,” says Williamson, who began writing the play 18 months ago.
“One is to amass an art collection, another is to get yourself on the board of a prestigious arts company, to show you’re not just a money-maker but a cultured human being.”
Williamson laments that many arts boards are now “stacked with billionaires” more than artists. The absence of artists arguably contributed to the Adelaide Festival board’s fateful decision to take the hint from their major funder – South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas – that anti-Zionist academic Randa Abdel-Fattah should be uninvited from its Writers’ Week, triggering an author boycott that sank the event.
“I’ve met [Abdel-Fattah] a couple of times, and found her very personable, with strong views that she is entitled to have,” the 83-year-old said.
“Censoring writers has always been dangerous territory.”
Williamson experienced the problem directly in 1985, when he was a director of Sydney Theatre Company which was about to produce his play Sons of Cain. The script skewered the behaviour of then-sitting NSW Labor MP Rex Jackson over bribes he’d allegedly taken to release prisoners early while corrective services minister.
“I was threatened with libel, and there were hints we’d lose our state government funding if the board didn’t pull my play,” he recalled.
A majority vote to do so was denied by one director, lawyer Tony Scott.
“I remember he told the meeting that if we cave in to threats to our funding, we’re no better than those ministries of culture behind the Iron Curtain, where politicians dictate the program. So we held firm, it turned out to be true and [Jackson] went to jail.”
Despite its high drama, the collapse of Adelaide Writers’ Week won’t form the template for a future Williamson play.
“I’m getting too old for that sort of thing. Social psychology has been an interest of mine since I studied it at Melbourne Uni, and that’s my focus now,” said Williamson, who announced retirements in 2005 and 2019 amid heart rhythm problems but says medical advances since have “re-energised” him.
“I’m still fascinated by the social dance we have to do through life, balancing our self-interest with our social standing – because nobody wants to be labelled a social climber – and our tendency not to want to hurt other people.
“It’s a juggle of great complexity, and I’ll keep writing about it until they stop coming.”
The best of travel, fashion, cars and more, straight to your inbox. Sign up to our weekly newsletter.
 writes on arts and culture, and edits Weekend Fin. He is a former editor of the Financial Review Rich List. He is based in Sydney. Connect with Michael on Twitter.Email Michael at m.bailey@nine.com.au


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David Williamson On Censorship / Thiel on trends

 

David Williamson reveals his own Writers’ Week ‘cancellation’ moment

In 1985, the playwright narrowly avoided cancellation of one of his plays, after government threats to pull funding. Censoring writers is “always dangerous territory”, he says.


Thiel on trends


Greenland fact of the day: “Nuuk, Greenland (pop. 19.6k) has 16 buses in its transit system and has higher ridership than Wichita, Kansas’s bus system (pop. 472k).”


On the manosphere.



The New York Times Editorial Board (Gift Article): The Trump Administration Is Lying to Our Faces. Congress Must Act. “The administration is urging Americans to reject the evidence of their eyes and ears. Ms. Noem and Mr. Bovino are lying in defiance of obvious truths. They are lying in the manner of authoritarian regimes that require people to accept lies as a demonstration of power.” But in today’s media landscape, it doesn’t cut it to eventually get to the truth after giving credulous consideration (and headline space) to the lies. When people lie every time, like every single time, maybe it doesn’t make sense to give them the benefit of the doubt in the first rough draft of history. At this point, it’s not enough to call out the lies we can plainly see with our own eyes. We have to assume the lie as a starting point. As Vinson Cunningham asks in The New Yorker: “Their untroubled and automatic dishonesty, amid so much shared evidence, gives rise to a horrible question: If this is what they do when we can see, what’s going on in the places—planes and cars, detention centers—where we can’t?” We need to find out. We owe it to Alex Pretti’s parents, and we owe it to America…”

  • The New York Times Magazine Gift Article – Watching America Unravel in Minneapolis: “Donald Trump’s most profound break with American democracy, evident in his words and actions alike, is his view that the state’s relationship with its citizens is defined not by ideals or rules but rather by expressions of power, at the personal direction of the president. That has been clear enough for years, but I had not truly seen what it looked like in person until I arrived in Minneapolis, my hometown, to witness what Trump’s Department of Homeland Security called Operation Metro Surge…”
  • TIME: In Wake of Alex Pretti Shooting, Trump Is Betraying His Base on Gun Rights. They’re Not Happy. [Stephen Miller called Pretti “an assassin [who] tried to murder federal agents”]
  • The Atlantic Gift Article – Believe Your Eyes. “People are risking their lives to document agents in Minneapolis…But Pretti’s last seconds were captured from multiple angles, in sickening footage widely distributed on social media and by news organizations. It is able to be seen and dissected online precisely because of the observers who were there to document it, who watched as federal agents piled atop Pretti and who did not drop their phones when the gunshots rang out…”
  • The New Yorker – The Battle for Minneapolis [no paywall] “As Donald Trump brings his retribution to a liberal city, citizens, protesters, and civic leaders try to protect one another.”
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Government agency deliberately broke law / The Trump Administration Is Publishing a Stream of Nazi Propaganda

Services Australia has known it was not fully complying with child support laws for six years, according to a scathing report released by the Commonwealth Ombudsman. 

Legislative amendments introduced in 2008 and 2018 created "unintended consequences" in which some parents with less than 35 per cent care of a child were technically eligible for child support, despite a longstanding government policy that this is not the case. 

What's next?

A government spokesperson said legislation to rectify the "technical legal anomaly" would be introduced when parliament next sits in February. 

Government agency deliberately broke law for years, federal watchdog finds


Administration of the Age Pension


$5b in incorrect age pension payments revealed as seniors left waiting


All the public servants who played top roles over summer


A liberal in illiberal times Reflections on a decade that was less traumatic than it promised to be



The Trump Administration Is Publishing a Stream of Nazi Propaganda

Government social-media managers have transformed official feeds


 How “Bitcoin Jesus” Avoided Prison, Thanks to One of the “Friends of Trump” ProPublica




ICE War on Rights and Safety Continues With Policy of Illegal, Fourth Amendment-Violating Home Break-Ins, Detainee Homicide, and Detention and Transport of Children

ICE lawlessness is only getting worse.


What midterm projections tell us about Trump’s central struggle Ipsos


Trump threatens 100 percent tariff on Canada over China deal Al Jazeera


Europe Rides the Tiger: Jeffrey Sachs on NATO, Trump, and the Collapse of the “Rules‑Based Order ScheerPost


New York convict at large after slipping his ankle monitor onto a dog


As the world finally punches back, was this the week Donald Trump went too far? The Guardian


Brockman Civil Case with Civil Fraud Penalties Settled 

I have written before on the Brockman multi-year tax evasion scheme. See here. Brockman was indicted but, before he could be tried, he died, thereby resolving the criminal case without a verdict of guilty or not guilty.

The civil case was settled with entry of the Tax Court decision in Brockman Estate v. Commissioner(T.C. Case No. 764-22 Dkt. # 33 Order Dtd. 12/23/25), here. The decision document addresses the deficiencies and civil fraud penalties under § 6663. As is the nature of decision documents, the decision document does not address the interest on the tax and the penalties. The principal amounts of deficiencies and penalty are major, aggregating $750 MM; the interest which I roughly calculate to 12/24/25 at $782MM brings the total due to over $1.5 billion. I prepared a spreadsheet which I offer for review and download here. (Note that the interest calculations are rough and ready but should be in the ballpark.)

One small error in the Tax Court decision document is that the 2006 civil fraud penalty (§ 6663) is stated as $35,00,000.00 which I infer to be $35,000,000.00.



Bluesky Brain, X Brain: Two Viral Stories From Minnesota Racket News

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Dangerous love affair with personal income tax will leave us poorer

 ‘Side by Side’ Global Tax Deal Tests Pillar Two’s Staying Power


Dangerous love affair with personal income tax will leave us poorer

Revenue from individuals forms our biggest tax base, but there are risks if we overload it. It’s time for a national conversation about comprehensive tax reform.

Melissa Bray Economist

Jan 27, 2026 

Personal income tax is the single largest revenue source for the Australian government, and since the 1970s, it’s been responsible for about half the government’s tax revenue. In its medium-term budget outlook released last year, the independent Parliamentary Budget Office said it expects this proportion to increase from 48 per cent of total revenue this financial year to 53 per cent in 2035-36.
Australia is more reliant on personal income tax than other OECD countries. In fact, the OECD’s 2025 revenue statistics show us occupying second position for the proportion of revenue we receive from personal income tax, behind Denmark.
When people’s income increases through wage inflation, they can be pushed onto higher tax rates, resulting in bracket-creep. 
Is this becoming a problem? Yes, it is. Inflation is pushing individuals into higher tax brackets. And complexities in the system mean people’s decisions are being distorted. It would be terrible to get into a situation as we have with tobacco excise, where applying tax at a higher rate to a smaller group of taxpayers has led to a significant increase in illegal behaviour as well as a significant reduction in the revenue being collected.
In theory, taxes aim to raise revenue in the most efficient, equitable and simplest way possible. Economists favour taxes that apply to a broad base because you can raise the same revenue with a less distortionary effect. Narrow bases with high rates are more complex, and they provide opportunities for tax planning and income shifting.
While Australia’s personal income tax does have a broad base for labour income, it provides concessional treatment for most forms of savings (including superannuation) and business income (including CGT concessions for small business). These differences can operate to provide incentives for people to structure their affairs to minimise tax.

In addition, interactions between the personal income tax and means-tested transfer payments like JobKeeper and Austudy can lead to extra money that is earned being lost due to both higher taxes and reduced government benefits. The result of these interactions is known as high effective marginal tax rates (EMTRs), and they provide a disincentive to work, particularly for lower-income earners.
Offsets, including the low-income tax offset (or LITO) and levies like the Medicare levy, also work to obscure the true tax rates faced by individuals and add to the complexity of the tax system. LITO effectively increases the tax-free threshold and EMTRs; and the Medicare levy generally adds 2 percentage points to individuals’ marginal income tax rates.
“Historically, governments have provided tax cuts to return a proportion of this bracket creep. While this is generally popular with the electorate, this is not real tax reform.”
A concern voiced by some individuals is that broad-based low-rate taxes are regressive. However, we achieve progressivity not just through the tax system but also through the transfer system.
On the tax side, personal income tax is applied on a progressive rate scale, so the more you earn, the higher the rate of tax you pay.
The tax-free threshold is currently set at $18,200, below which no tax is payable. Above the threshold, 16¢ in tax applies for each $1, and then there are increasing tax rates at subsequent thresholds until at $190,000, 45¢ is payable for each dollar earned over that. On July 1 this year, that 16¢ rate will drop to 15¢ and then to 14¢ from July 1, 2027.
The dollar thresholds are not indexed though, so when people’s income increases through wage-inflation, they can be pushed onto higher tax rates, resulting in bracket-creep. This has the effect of reducing the progressivity of the tax over time, as well as discouraging participation and encouraging planning to minimise tax.
Historically, governments have provided tax cuts to return a proportion of this bracket creep. While this is generally popular with the electorate, this is not real tax reform.
The Parliamentary Budget Office has flagged continued reliance on personal income tax as a structural risk to the budget. Despite the tax cuts that were announced in last year’s budget, it says, “there is a continued risk of increased dependence on personal income tax driving the intergenerational challenge as well as raising issues around equity and efficiency of the tax-base more broadly”.
The OECD’s economic survey of Australia, released on Thursday, recommended indexing the thresholds.
In his book on the mixed fortunes of tax reform in Australia, Paul Tilley has highlighted another issue. The demographic pressures of our ageing population and the tax concessions associated with retirement incomes mean that, in future, personal income tax will apply to a shrinking proportion of the working-age population.
It’s now been 16 years since Australia’s last comprehensive tax review was released. The Henry review suggested that to ensure sustainability, personal income tax needs to be perceived by the community to be fair. Its recommendations included: a higher tax-free threshold; a constant marginal rate for most people; exempting income support and supplementary payments; largely incorporating (i.e. scrapping) the Medicare levy and structural offsets, including LITO; and providing a standard deduction for work-related expenses.
Deloitte Access Economics has recently modelled its proposal to index thresholds at 2.5 per cent per year, increase the tax-free threshold to $33,000 and then have a single marginal tax rate of 33 per cent applying to income between $33,000 and $330,000 and a rate of 45 per cent above that. They flag how this would significantly simplify the system, but come at a cost to the budget of $54 billion per year after 10 years.
The Parliamentary Budget Office has developed a Build Your Own Budget tool that lets anyone test a range of economic scenarios and policy changes (it’s a great tool for tax, policy and budget nerds). It shows the cost of just indexing the thresholds at CPI coming in at about $29 billion over the forward estimates period.
The Parliamentary Budget Office has also released a paper on Australia’s tax mix that considers scenarios that would raise the same amount of revenue. One of them involves shifting the tax mix from income tax to consumption tax. They highlight how decreasing personal income tax and increasing the GST – which is a more efficient and less distortionary tax – would increase economic efficiency, decrease average complexity in the tax system and make it more responsive to economic shocks.
Personal income tax is our biggest tax base, but there are risks if we overload it. It’s time we had a national conversation about comprehensive tax reform, including how it interacts with the transfer system.
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