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“Ruminate – to think deeply about something” (Oxford Dictionary)
Hi, I’m Rob Greaves and I’m a Feature Writer, Administrator and ‘Editor-in Training’ at the Toorak Times, sometimes I publish under Rob and sometimes under ras-x.
This is the fourth posting in an on-going, if not somewhat ad-hoc column called “Ruminations From My Veranda”.
The daytime temperatures are definitely much lower than just a couple of weeks ago, and so as much as I was enjoying the crisp cold white wines, I think I’m back to the full bodied reds – and in a big way. So I opened a bottle of Capel Vale ‘Debut” 2009 Cabernet Merlot.
I can’t always find this splendid wine (that my neighbour Glyn put me onto), and so when I do I usually purchase several bottles. The problem is, I then drink them!
A fruity wine that is easy to drink now, and if I could stop drinking it, it would probably cellar well. Anyway as a pleasant warm glow started to flow through me I was at odds with myself as to whether to further explore my thoughts on what the Labor Government and the Coalition proposing about our Superannuation, or to push it into the deeper recesses of my mind and simply enjoy the red.
But I’m pretty angry . . . No! I’m really pissed off at what is being proposed! Now I have got to admit, that while I think Superannuation should be sacrosanct what Labor is proposing is more palatable than the coalition proposal.
Now purely coincidence, this whole issue has been picked up the mainstream press the very morning I decided to publish my thoughts, its suddenly become 'news'!
The discussion actually commenced after Trade Minister Craig Emerson called for a discussion on lifting taxes on the superannuation accounts of the "fabulously wealthy". I haven’t been able to find out what level of income makes one ‘fabulously wealthy’, but I damned certain it’s not me, nor my partner or anyone I know personally. So my objection over the Labor proposal is in fact more of a principal concern.
I couldn’t recall when compulsory Super became law, so I opened up 'Mad Mac' (my Macbook Pro) and I looked it up, and it was in 1992, when the Keating Labor government introduced a compulsory "Superannuation Guarantee" system as part of a major reform package addressing Australia's retirement income policies.
Super is one of those things that you give little or no thought to when you are young, become more aware of when you are in your 40’s, and become obsessed with when you are close to retirement age.
As someone who is still working, but has also passed the age of 65 years of age – I know that if it were not for the 'Economic Downturn' of the past few years, my Super would probably have been enough with a pension, to retire this year. Now I won’t start on retirement and what that means to me – well, maybe in a future ‘Rumination’, but I simply can’t afford it, very much like thousands of older workers.
The situation must be diabolical for those who have retired as they have watched their Super shrink like a watching a manic ‘Jenny Craig’ devotee.
However what scares the bejeebers out of me is the Coalition proposal. Again I knew what they were proposing in principal, but I wanted to make sure my concerns were founded, so once again I consulted 'Mad Mac' and here is what I found.
On February 5th this year, the Federal opposition confirmed, “it would add 15 per cent to the tax on superannuation paid 3.6 million low wage earners if it wins government, but hinted at a replacement scheme for battlers.”
Here we go again. They are not even in Government and they are after the ‘battlers’’. I can’t find out what this ‘replacement scheme’ is, and the worded "hinted" is always a worry as it seems to me to be code for,
'hey suckers, you really think we WILL do something, think again'. But one thing is an absolute certainty – I sure as hell object violently to 15% of my super being taken a Government. It is always the ordinary ‘Joe’, the workingman and woman that suffer at the hands of conservative Australian Governments. Yer, I know they are not in government – YET!
It’s really hard to see them not forming government, and maybe that’s why they are flagging this now, so they can say when they do form Government, “Hey, we told you a long time ago”!
For god’s sake – most of us work damned hard, and what Super we have has been subjected to significant losses due mainly to greed, corruption and mismanagement of money powerful people. I want someone to show me one ‘working class’ or ‘middle class’ person who had a hand in the Global Economic Downturn!
So, who benefits from all this, well the CEO's and heads of global conglomerates and the bank,s who are paid massive bonuses, whilst the people they are supposed to be representing suffer the consequences.
Then as if we aren’t already struggling to keep our collective heads above water, the Coalition want to take 15% of OUR money in a grab for cash!
I don’t care about some undefined replacement scheme – because as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, it will not compensate us for that 15% grab!
The bloody rich get richer, and the poor subsidise them!
It would be easy to espouse these thoughts to be labelled a left wing commie sympathiser like people were in the 1950's and 1960's. I can assure you any leanings I may have had in that direction in those days, has well and truly been diluted time. It has that effect.
It really is just a matter of every time I begin to think that maybe, just maybe we are beginning to have equality in our society, some harebrained idiot scheme is proposed someone who has never known financial worry over how they are going to pay their next electricity bill, or find the money so their kids can go on a school excursion, or worse, find enough money to actually eat next week, like a lot of retirees.
This Capel Vale red is indeed a nice drop, and I’m pleased that it is under $20 a bottle, because I can justify buying and enjoying it on my veranda. Once the Coalition get into power, and when they implement this “Sheriff of Nottingham” scheme to again tax the lower income earners – I may have to keep working despite the physical and mental pain, despite the desire to actually spend my latter years enjoying life, and, I’ll probably just look at those bottles of Capel Vale on the shelf, remembering when I could afford them!