From Fake Premier Bligh:
Australian Bankers’ Association chief executive Anna Bligh says today’s Treasury meeting on the big banks tax “raises more questions than answers”.
She says the $6.2 billion tax is “fraught with even more uncertainty” and Treasury officials “were unable to answer key questions at a briefing with banks in Sydney”.
She says the unanswered questions included:
• The basis on which Treasury calculated the $6.2bn estimate.
• How the new tax would affect transactions between the five banks and the Reserve Bank, and how that might impact the broader economy.
• Which of the banks’ commercial activities will be captured by the tax.“Not only has the government kept the banks and the public in the dark on this new tax, it is now clear that they have kept Treasury in the dark too,” Ms Bligh said.
“It is even more clear that this is policy on the run, playing fast and loose with the most critical sector of the Australian economy.
“Alarmingly Treasury officials also confirmed the Government was abandoning normal processes in preparing the legislation.”
Well…yeh. The process is whacky. But the outcome is still good. And the process ain’t one quarter as mendacious as Fake Premier Bligh running her fake little government, with its fake public servants, running fake inquiries, distributed through fake media.
My advice to the banks is sack Fake Premier Bligh given she may well have just cost them $6bn. Try some genuine public engagement instead.
