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Taxing the poor, for years

The media’s full of the Howard government’s magic $3.7 billion “extra surplus” today. It’s hard to know how to start making sense of it all. But here’s one thought which struck me: the tax-free threshold for personal income tax.

Democrat Senator Andrew Murray says in Crikey today that the amount you can earn before being taxed has stayed at the same figure of $6000 since the year 2000.

If it had been indexed since 2000, it would now be well over $7000. Had the 1980 personal threshold of $4,041 kept pace with earnings, the tax-free threshold would now be well over $15,000.

Senator Murray also points out that the minimum income required for basic subsistence is around $13,000. That is, if you earn less than that, you simply don’t have enough money to cover the basic living expenses of accommodation, food, clothing, education, medical care, transport and so on. Sure, you might be able to fake it for a while, but eventually something will give.

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“Fully arsed!”

I told a friend today that it was common for clients to provide a half-arsed proposal. “Oh, no,” he said. “Last time they gave us a fully-arsed proposal!” Nice use of language! But is “fully arsed” a good thing, or not?

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Choosing to support slavery

Newspaper quote:

This quote from Saturday’s Daily Telegraph (not online) really hit me:

They [toys being sold at Christmas in a superstore] are probably made under awful conditions, but what do you do? Accept it… or leave the kids with nothing?

Huh? Read the full article and think again, people. Is giving cheap trinkets to your children so important that you’ll choose to treat other human beings so appallingly?

I can forgive someone for doing this out of ignorance — after all, ignorance can be cured with knowledge. But to know that this is happening and still choose the trinkets! That’s disgusting. I think I’d prefer to walk away from your Omelas.

On the other hand, the very next day it was raining and I bought a $3.50 Chinese umbrella to stay dry. Am I any better?

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Club Escape’s “Perfect List” 1991

Triple J Club Escape Perfect List 1991: click for a close-up

OK, I lied. I have managed to find a hard copy of the Club Escape Perfect List from 1991.

As before, this is a list of the “best” dance tracks released in 1991, as chosen by the crew at Club Escape, the Adelaide-based dance music program on Triple J.

I wasn’t involved in Club Escape that year. I’d already gone on to The Core magazine — and indeed this list is taken from The Core issue 12, from 15 January 1992. So the people to blame for this list are producer John Thompson-Mills (“JB”) and presenter Paul Kitching.

[Update 6 September 2007: I’ve linked to as many of these songs as I can find on YouTube. Some of them may not be the exact mix played on air, but you get that. Enjoy. And if you find any others, please let me know.]

[Update 27 January 2011: I’ve just updated all the links back to the songs on YouTube. So many had suffered linkrot over the last few years. Not all of the links will be to the same mixes that were originally played on the radio.]

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Club Escape’s “Perfect List” 1990

Triple J Club Escape Perfect List 1990: click for a close-up

Before The Core magazine, there was Club Escape, a dance music radio program on Triple J which went to air on Saturday nights in Adelaide during 1990 and 1991.

I had the very great pleasure of presenting this program during its first year, along with promoter Scott Thompson — who also ran the coolest nightclub in the history of the universe, Metro on Rundle Street.

Club Escape was created by John Thompson-Mills (“JB”) who, through anally-retentive production, made Scott and me sound like stars.

I know I only wrote about The Core the other day. But on Facebook today someone’s brother saw that I was a “friend” and asked him to ask me if I had the Perfect List from 1991.

I don’t.

Well, I might have the audio somewhere, but not the list of tunes. Actually, I do have it, see this post.

However I do have the Perfect List from 1990 — our choice for the best 50 best dance music tracks released that year. And here it is.

How many of these tracks do you remember? And which ones would you prefer to forget?

Continue reading “Club Escape’s “Perfect List” 1990″