Abbott has been deposed.

Will there be a difference?

In a move that came far too late, the Liberal party has ousted their leader Tony Abbot, with Malcolm Turnbull becoming Australia new Prime Minister.

 In my opinion Mr Turnbul needs to do four things to prove to the australian people that the rot began and ended with Abbott, and isnt spread throught the Liberal party like skidmarks on speedos.

1. Immediately support marriage equality. The law should just be changed back, as Howard's changes were unconstitutional. If that cant be done then a free vote needs to happen, now.

2. Immediately cease offshore detention of refugees, close those refuge prison camps and hold a royal commission into the atrocities that the policy and the officials in charge oversaw.

3. Make good on the election promises that Mr Abbott broke; changes to the ABC, SBS, Pensions, The NBN, Gonski, GST etc. This not only disgraced the Liberal party but undermined our system of democracy. We cant have our political parties saying anything to get voted in, with no intention of keeping to what was said. 

4. Proper funding to indigenous community, cease plans to close them.

Obviously there are other things that need to be done before taking the Liberals to an election, such as getting real counselors back into schools, stop the attacks on the poor and sick, real action on climate change, having a minister for women who is actually a woman, having a minister for science, a minister for equality?

The ministers responsible for bad Liberal policy need to go, and some should just never be given portfolios; Morrison, Hunt, Joyce, Pyne, Hockey, Abetz, Andrews, Bernardi, Fierravanti-Wells, Dutton and Truss, are ministers i think he would avoid for various reasons.

It remains to be seen if we just witnessed a bucket swap.

Another broken promise

More changes to the GST

Abbot government breaks another election promise by applying more changes to the GST.
The GST was originally introduced in my understanding, as a replacement for all other taxes, while some taxes were abolished a lot still remained.  

Before the election Tony Abbot promised;

 "No cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS,”

 If my memory is correct every one of those promises has now been broken.

Tony Abbot also said in relation to the GST;

"Let me be as categoric as I can. The GST won't change, full stop, end of story."

Recently the Abbot government announced it would remove the $1000 threshold for international GST charges and would like all purchases to include the GST. Though technically, only businesses with a $75,000 Australian turnover would need to comply.

This seems like another unfair attack on the poor, and I can only see this stifling Australia’s economy because it’s not just that we need to shop around in order to get the best price, but for us it is a matter of getting the item we need cheaply or simply not being able to afford it and having to go without.  Again the government’s policies show an uneven bias in favor of the rich. 

It also appears to be yet another backwards step, we had the delusion of the national broadband network, the mandatory retention of Meta data, the charging of GST on electronic purchases. It seems to show a government that is out of touch with current Australia’s needs and out of sync with the modern world.

And all those lies and broken promises, we seriously need a truth in election advertising law. I believe this behavior undermines the foundation of our democracy; we need to be able to trust our politicians won’t just say anything to get elected; they have to be legally held accountable to some extent.