Payment Summary
The Queensland floods are a big disaster, and paying to put things right is going to cost a bundle, and it's going to cost each of us individually, most likely. So when Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey says he objects to a special levy, I wonder: would he still object if the state was held by a Liberal government? Anna Bligh, Labor Premier of Queensland, is enjoying increased popularity and approval as a result of how she's handled the situation. The Liberals aren't likely to see themselves in government there any time soon, not like in New South Wales, where a decade or more of near-as corruption and outright ineptitude have Labor on the nose quite distinctly, imperilling their prospects to the point that no one expects them back at the next election (coming soon to a polling place near you).

Although Hockey's alternative proposal, cutting spending, has the support of financial analysts, his motivation I think stinks. This is about killing the National Broadband Network program at the behest of Tony Abbott and trying to smear Labor as fiscally irresponsible.

The problem is that the NBN is good for Australia. In the short term there are jobs and in the long term there's modern high-speed internet, now an essential element of doing business, and something that the old copper wires just don't handle particularly well, especially in more remote communities where such infrastructure can be light. And for Queensland, the reconstruction effort provides a golden opportunity to start laying in the fibre optics. We need to fix those lines anyway, let's use the good stuff.

Spending cuts can be made elsewhere. There is sure to be some fat in Defense, for example. Some delays on the JSF program, a dog to begin with, wouldn't hurt.

And if I pay another .5 percent for this year, I don't mind. Just be careful with the bookkeeping, please.