From Phil Coorey at the AFR:
The Abbott government is considering scrapping plans to cut a welfare payment to children of war veterans in order to secure the support of Clive Palmer to repeal the mining tax.
Senior sources told The Australian Financial Review that the government was “happy to negotiate” with Mr Palmer over plans to axe the annual payment of $211 to about 1240 children.
The development came as the mining billionaire threatened to go on the rampage in the Senate after July 1, by blocking the repeal of the mining and carbon taxes and forcing the government to call a double dissolution election – all because the government will circumvent his plans to block the establishment of its direct action climate change policy.
The welfare payment, which costs the budget only about $1 million over four years, is part of $16 billion in spending measures the government has earmarked for abolition along with the mining tax.
The measures were slated by Labor to be paid for by the mining tax, which has failed to make anything like the revenue first predicted. However, Mr Palmer has said previously he will not permit the repeal of the mining tax if the payments were cut.
So, is this some game between actual allies then? Or not, from Rob Burgess at Business Spectator:
What merry hell the Palmer United Party is causing the Abbott government in the senate, and still two months from the new PUP senators actually taking their upper-house seats.
After telling the government last week it would not pass its paid parental leave scheme “at the current rate”, PUP has followed up this week saying it will block both the carbon tax and mining tax repeals if the government tries to sneak its Direct Action plans through the senate with the budget bills.
Palmer has said he will not allow the Direct Action plan to pass, so by tying it to supply bills, the government thinks Palmer will blink at the last minute rather than create a constitutional crisis. Good luck with that one.
Of the three stalled policies, the one most likely to pass is the $5.5 billion paid-parental leave scheme.
That’s because the Greens know a thoroughly socialist policy when they see one, and as long as Abbott agrees to drop the maximum income covered by the scheme to $100,000 (currently it’s $150,000), they look likely to help it through the senate.
That would be a pity. The PPL scheme is almost universally condemned by economists and business leaders as too expensive, and it really won’t do as much for the economy as Mr Abbott likes to argue.
The legislature of a banana republic is corrupted by the money of self-interested parties making policy, closet allies and pretend foes doing a populist dance, single interest parties trading horses, and a the national interest left far, far to the rear.
