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| Carr loses control! | |
John (Rich Bastard) Singleton - fallen Libertarian, and well
known advertising baron has crossed swords with New South Wales' rather taxing
premier Bob Carr. Carr, ever eager to get his snout into the tax trough to fund his pork barreling agenda,
and knowing that sin taxes are generally a good target had his heart set on a
new Pokies Tax, which would enable him to quietly lift over a billion dollars
from New South Welshmen who like to dabble in a spot of gambling. That is, until John (Singo) Singleton phoned him and promised
to spend 5 million dollars on an advertising campaign even more vitriolic than
the one which made John (remember me?) Hewson lose the unlosable election over
the GST in 1993. The normally controlled Carr, threw a tantrum and started to use words like
'blackmail' and 'intimidation' to describe Singleton's threat. Apparently
citizens in the happy Carr-led gulag don't have the right to run advertising
campaigns criticizing government policy. Your ABC reports that Carr
claimed:
"It was a direct threat that I would be hurt in this if I didn't accede to their demands,"
Yes Bob - it's called politics, and when you dip
your hand in five million people's pockets you have to expect criticism. You
can stop it whenever you like. And he went on:
"Now a Government cannot change its taxation policy and recast a budget in the
face of such self-interested threat and I won't."
Apparently citizens wishing to keep their own money is called 'self-interest',
but a greedy government wanting to take it off them isn't. Scratch the surface,
put him under a little stress, and Carr's socialist mindset comes
bubbling to the surface almost immediately. Clearly Carr thinks taxes are too low - if citizens were taxed highly enough,
none of them would have the money to fund these kinds of
anti-government campaigns. Only the government would have the funds to run
campaigns, and these would be unlikely to be anti-tax. Few Australians associate Singo' with personal freedom - he is a shark who
will sell himself to the highest bidder, (like the right wing faction of the
ALP) However many of his views are quite Libertarian, and his book Rip Van
Australia (1977) offers a powerful and provocative insight into libertarian
issues, even though it's a little dated. After much huffing and puffing, both sides eased up on the rhetoric, and it
looks like some kind of compromise was reached behind the scenes. Singleton
would be a pretty tough nut to crack, and Carr would be in for a bumpy ride if he
tried to roll over him. A short drive to Canberra may be Carr's best option.
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