IN my opinion piece published on 28 December titled Taxing Thoughts, I offered some basic thoughts about our taxation system.

I asked the question: Is there a better and fairer way of raising revenue for the purpose of running and developing our nation?

On the last day of January this year I watched two prominent citizens offer their opinions on taxation to the National Press Club.

Whilst the two presenters offered slightly different directions, both were determined to reduce income tax for those presently working and shift the load onto retirees.

Both speakers claimed retirees were somehow treated disproportionally and more favourably when compared to working Australians.

They pointed out that older people already owned their homes and that it was the younger generation who needed assistance in order to move into home ownership.

Whilst this might be true, I can’t see this reasoning being widely accepted in retirement communities or in rural and regional locations where average incomes are lower.

The usual areas of concern mentioned were capital gains tax, negative gearing of real estate, resource rental tax, GST and superannuation concessions.

The point that both speakers agreed upon was that politicians should not readily make promises, because changing economic conditions require them to correct inequality issues when they see the need.

Potentially the worst promise came from the Governor of the Reserve Bank some time ago, who said interest rates were unlikely to change before 2024, which resulted in many people setting their economic goals to suit that expectation.

This seems to be a key cause of many of the personal economic issues facing the population.

It is my guess that we all will see and hear a lot of political point scoring on the merits of economic changes between now and the next election.

Verdicts will be delivered in such a way that they will become non-core promises rather than potential certainty.

Major changes are not politically achievable when a five percent change in public opinion leads to a change in government.

The issue with tax is that everyone else, rather than me, needs to pay more.

Our political leaders fail to understand that their role is to better manage the nation’s finances to live within our means.

Another attack on the incomes and assets of the nation’s retirees will see another change of government and even more political instability for our country.

By John BLACKBOURN