Timing is everything when it comes to Gillard's promised company tax cuts

The Prime Minister was confused but Alan Jones was there to help refresh her memory

Alan Jones and Julia Gillard on 2GB yesterday:

JONES: Tell my listeners when the company tax rate will go, for business, to 28c in the dollar?

Gillard: Alan, just one second, I'm describing it to you --

Jones: No, I don't need a description. I just want to know when it will go to 28c in the dollar?

Gillard: It will go to 29c in the dollar in 2012 and then what we've said --

Jones: No it won't. I'll answer the question for you so that we can get on to something else. Your budget papers say, quote, "taxing mining super profits fairly through the resource super profits tax means we can afford to cut the company tax rate in two stages to 29 per cent in 2013-14 and 28 per cent in 2014-15." That's what it says.

Bob Ellis reveals a dastardly conspiracy on ABC online's The Drum Unleashed yesterday:

FOUR hundred thousand people, apparently, changed in the last week from Gillard to Abbott. Can you name one of them? Are you one of them? Speak up. It never happened, of course. Newspoll found 52 per cent for Gillard a week ago, most likely, and, exercising its inalienable right to statistically err by 3 per cent, printed the result as 55 per cent. Then it found this week Labor still on 52 and announced a shock tightening, thus providing the campaign with what the newspapers most need, a narrative: of Abbott, outside-chance Abbott, catching up.

The Government Gazette? Phillip Coorey in The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday:

THE Herald obtained economic modelling by KPMG Econtech which shows a 2 per cent company tax rise would increase inflation by 0.5 per cent and boost prices by between 0.2 per cent and 0.9 per cent. The modelling [was] commissioned by the government.

Sinclair Davidson on the blog Catallaxy Files yesterday:

SO the ALP are leaking , taxpayer financed research to newspapers for political purposes? It doesn't worry me that the government commissioned research into the Abbott proposal, but it does worry me that the ALP are using government property as their own.

Parliament deadlocked. Julia Gillard in the TV debate on Sunday:

THE Parliament of Nauru is deadlocked and, obviously, there isn't a functioning government as we would understand that concept.

Parliament deadlocked. Penny Wong on ABC1's Q&A on Monday: PARLIAMENT has not, regrettably, parliament has not been up to the task on this. I think the lesson of last year is we need more than the political consensus within the parliament, some people in the parliament. We need a deeper consensus in our community.

Britain's The Daily Telegraph on July 5:

NETANYAHU will come under fierce pressure from Obama to extend a 10-month freeze on Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Spot the difference. The Age reprints the story on July 7 with two extra adjectives:

NETANYAHU, , was last night expected to come under pressure from Obama to extend a 10-month freeze on the building of illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Bloomberg reports:

NETANYAHU, whose Likud party supports Jewish settlement in the West Bank . . .

The Age version on July 10:

MR Netanyahu, whose Likud party supports illegal Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank . . .

Jamie Hyams in The Australia/Israel Review:

EVEN the headlines are slanted. A July 20 article about Tony Abbott's pro-Israel speech was headlined "Loyal to Israel despite killings", presumably because Abbott said the government had over-reacted to the flotilla incident. By contrast, the Australian was the far more objective "Coalition staunch on Israel support".