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Ryan Bridge: Beware the insatiable beast that is the State · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Beware the insatiable beast that is the state. The government
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: is like a hungry child screaming for more food, even
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: though you've just fed them dinner in pudding. Let's go
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: across the Tasman where the Treasurer Charmers Jim Charmers, facing
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: high debt and deficit. They've managed to achieve the highest
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: level of spending to GDP of any government in forty
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: years outside of the pandemic there, does that sound familiar
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: to you? To deal with this? The IMF has just
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: come out and told them they should cut their cloth.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: They should cut spending. They've also suggested, and this gets interesting,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: that the federal government may need to bail out some
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: states who are also weighed down by your double ds
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: of post COVID governance, debt and deficit. Let's not forget
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: this is the lucky country, the one that's been firing
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: on all the cylinders that we apparently don't have. The
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: flying Aussie ruse, it turns out, haven't quite been putting
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: away for a rainy day, despite making hay while the
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: sun shines. So what do they do well? There's a
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: report out from the Australian this morning. Are considering taxing more. Remember,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: they already have a capital gains tax, the thing that
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: we don't have, but Labour's promising to introduce here. But
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: they have a discount on it for assets that are
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: held for at least a year. So hold it for
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  Speaker 1: more than a year, you get a discount. Once you
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: flick it off, you get half off your tax. Now,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: the Treasurer apparently has been keen on getting rid of
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: this discount and is not ruling out doing so again.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: That would bring the Crown an extra ten billion dollars
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: in revenue a year. You can see why that might
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: be useful to them. So when parties here say they'll
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: solve our problems with new taxes, is that the end
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: of the story, or does the insatiable beast come back
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: for more. This is the problem that is unique to government.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: In private business, as you well know, you only put
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: prices up so high in order to cover your costs.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: People have choice about what they buy, and they might
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: put you out of business if you don't adapt, So
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: you cut your costs, you innovate your change to remain competitive.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Governments don't have to be competitive. They can raise taxes
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: pretty much indefinitely, and the problem with some of them,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: is that given the chance, they bloody well Wood, wouldn't they.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live
• 2:14
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• 2:17
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