Labor’s tax-and-spend agenda will not help the budget

Taxpayers will rearrange their affairs to avoid ALP’s extra tax.

Chris Bowen’s response to the attacks by Josh Frydenberg on Labor's tax-raising policies — from limiting negative gearing to halving capital gains tax discounts to ending cash refunds on excess franking credits to raising the top marginal tax rate with a 2 per cent budget repair levy — is all a bit precious. It was Labor's massive unfunded spending spree while in office, and mandated spending thereafter whose reduction Bill Shorten refused to support when Tony Abbott was in government, that contributed to the growing deficits.

While Labor's plan is just another tax and spend solution reminiscent of Wayne Swan's numerous budget surplus mirages, its projected revenue raising will be just as ephemeral as the former mining tax. None of the above revenue-raising policies will achieve their intended result as taxpayers modify their behaviour.

As to the turmoil in Liberal ranks to which Bowen refers, neither he nor Shorten has as yet explained their part in the knifing and removal of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, while Scott Morrison assumed the mantle of leadership only after the Liberal party room lost confidence in the leadership of Malcolm Turnbull, after Turnbull himself called a spill. While Morrison has nothing to explain, Shorten does.

Mort Schwartzbord, Caulfield, Vic

Male teachers

The alarming decline in male teacher numbers is mainly due to the way men are treated in the educational industry today, not because it is perceived as a low-status profession, although the perception is the reality in Australia.

I spent 40 years in secondary education in both the private and public sectors, 26 as a subject head, and I would not encourage any young man to go into teaching now. The low pay and low status did not deter good male teachers in the past because teaching was a vocation, that's how I viewed it.

But the situation has changed. The methods of teaching and learning today favour girls. This and the nanny state have removed a lot of the rigour in education that appealed to boys. The slightest complaint against a male teacher leads to him being immediately treated as a pariah, not innocent until proven guilty; there is no back up from the administration — the student and parent are always right. The strength of the feminist movement in this country ensures women in teaching are not treated in the same way.

Derek Bound, Monto, Qld

State of chaos

Exactly what Palestinian state would a Labor government recognise (“Palestine policy is a real killer”, 8/1)? The extreme Islamist terrorist government of Hamas that has ruled Gaza for almost 12 years and that vows to destroy Israel? Or the Fatah-run Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, which is widely acknowledged as a kleptocracy where judicial, legislative and executive power resides in Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who is now in the 14th year of his original four-year term? And which Danny Eisen and Sheryl Saperia in their article pointed out incites and rewards terrorism against Israelis.

And to think Labor prides itself on being a progressive party.

George Greenberg, Malvern, Vic

Saudi violence

I write regarding Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun, the Saudi/Kuwaiti teenager in Thailand who is seeking asylum in Australia on the grounds that if she is sent back home her family will kill her. I find this bemusing. If Australia accepts her then Australia should equally accept or invite every woman in the Middle East to reside here. What is happening to al-Qunun is common. “Honour violence” is accepted practice in the Middle East. This problem needs a solution.

Mokhles Sidden, Sth Strathfield, NSW