Introducing: The Great Australians
A new political party with TAX FACTS FOR AVERAGE AUSTRALIANS

A rerun of the first part of the package with PART 2 Below

KensComment: Introducing John Phillip Rivett - endorsed Senate candidate for the Great Australians, a Registered Political Party.

Mr Rivett offers the restructuring of the taxation system. Something I am sure all Australians would welcome

I have divided the media into two sections, the first one below with Mister Rivett resume and the birth of the party derived from a history we all cherish and relate is told in "The Diggers Legacy"

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
John Rivett
jriv...@greataustralians.org
--====----====----====----==

September 7, 2004

John Philip Rivett

Aged 53, Mr Rivett has degrees from the University of Queensland in Commerce and Law. He practised as a lawyer in Townsville and Brisbane for eleven years up until 1988.

He opened his first business when aged only 15. Whilst a University student, and later as a lawyer in Townsville between 1975 and 1985 he was involved as a principal and consultant in many new business start ups.

On the Sunshine Coast from 1988 to 2000 he was a professional company director and principal in many new businesses in the tourism and property industries. He was a Director of and Corporate Legal Counsel for Forrester Parker Group (now FKP Properties), CEO of its subsidiary, Sunshine Lifestyle Resorts and CEO of the listed property and resort company Westmark Corporation. He started Holiday Mooloolaba, Strata Care, Remax Realty and Pacific Horizons Resort.

As a principal, he has started over 20 different businesses. Whilst most were successful, he has experienced and learnt from the hard lessons of failed enterprise.

- From 2000 he has been fully occupied in the Venture Capital Industry. He is the founding CEO of AusFirst Capital Limited - a registered Pooled Development Fund. He sits on the Boards of five of Ausfirst's seven investee companies - Harcourt Engine, Australian Chemical Enterprises, Liquilan Australia, Cease-Fire Technologies and Baby Bliss International..
Visit http://www.ausfirst.com

He is a Director of and Corporate Legal Counsel for Biocane Limited - trying to develope a sugar cane animal feed plant at Nambour. Visit http://www.cowcandy.com

He is the CEO of Foltainer International, trying to develop a folding transport container and a consultant to Auskept Foods - trying to develop a new food preserving technology.

He is the retained Corporate Lawyer for Vision Venture Capital and is a Director of Alternative Lending Australia Ltd and Kings Agricultural Ltd. He is a Director of Vision Start Ups Pty Ltd - establishing a new venture capital fund raising program for seed capital in Australia.

He is a founding Director of SME Securities a venture capital mentor and investor with four investee projects including Aquasafe, Baby Bliss and Watertight Tiling Solutions, the first two of which he is a Director.
Visit http://www.smesecurities.com.au

He is married with 3 children and 2 step children. He has been a leader in community affairs serving as the President of Townsville Rugby Union, Mooloolaba Chamber of Commerce, Matthew Flinders Anglican College P & C (Buderim), Central Coast Blue Light Youth Club (Maroochydore) and Sunshine Coast Junior Rugby Union.

He has a passion to reform the Taxation System in Australia. He is currently the President of the federally registered political party - Great Australians- with an aggressive platform of true electoral representation, tax reform and support for Australian business.
Visit http://www.thegreataustralians.com.au

The Diggers Legacy

A tribute to John Cumming - the author of "Lucky be Damned", publisher of Oz News, founder and patron for life of the Great Australians - a Federally Registered Political Party

by John Rivett - Federal President - Great Australians
Sydney Forum - 28 August 2004

Both of my grandfathers were diggers in the First World War. I inherited photos of them in their uniforms taken as they boarded their ships bound for France. Many times I have stared into their faces. The looks of excitement and pride just seem to mask the apprehension and fear in their eyes.

In the second war, my grandmother's young brother Hamilton was a navigator. His plane dropped a fatal bomb on a U Boat in the English Channel just as the last gunner left in the conning tower shot off a round of machine gun bullets into the plane's fuel tanks. In military terms, it was a dead heat. They never found his body. When I was a boy visiting my Grandmother, Uncle Hamilton proudly and handsomely stared at me from his mantelpiece. Now his spirit makes and ebbs from France to England with the Channel tides.

My father was a digger. He was a lieutenant in the engineers and spent his 19th birthday under canvas on Cape York awaiting mobilisation to Bougainville. One of his men had received a letter from his wife admitting to an affair with a neighbour and asked dad for advice. My father, who had not yet kissed a girl and was brought up by his three maiden aunts, tried his hardest, but his advice was totally theoretical.

My father's only brother - Peter - was a Spitfire pilot over the Suez Canal until he had his tail cut off and crashed in flames. He lies buried in the sand somewhere near nowhere and his spirit drifts on the desert winds.

When I was a boy I missed having no cousins on Dad's side. When I was a man I realised the enormity of the ultimate sacrifice my Uncle Peter made and the effect it had on our family tree.

I always thought my father was determined to live two lives the way he attacked the world from VP day until his death in 2001.

John Cumming was a digger too and he was a lucky Australian who grew up in "The Lucky Country.

In his own words -

"I consider myself one of the luckiest men in the world. I was born into comfortable surroundings in a marvellous country, received an education at one of the best schools in Australia, survived the Second World War as a soldier, entered the fledgling Australian advertising industry at precisely the right moment and managed to make a go of it. Frankly, I was lucky. My only abiding regret is that, in my lifetime, I have seen the rise and fall of Australia."

He slept on most of the beaches on the coastline from Perth to Darwin in the early parts of the war on coastal patrol. He then saw active service in the Indonesian islands as the mop up moved north.

He grafted a distinguished career in the competitive world of advertising and was responsible for some of Australia's icon campaigns - "Good things come in glass", "your friendly Electrolux man" and "wipe it with a Wettex".

He underwrote Johnny Farnham's first single "Sadie the Cleaning Lady". He helped form the Australian Democrats.

He was a brave ocean sailor and is an accomplished artist.

He angrily resisted the complete routing of the Australian advertising industry by foreign conglomerates and the sell out by his own industry body. He went on a search for truth and found his industry wasn't the only one to be sold out.

In his retirement on his covered deck at Sunshine Beach near Noosa, John Cumming slouches on his straight backed pew placed at a tangent to his round "table of knowledge" and bellows as loud as his 83 year old smoke damaged lungs will allow - "the bastards have sold us out again!" - "Lucky be Damned!"

He established Austand and published "Oz News" for many years - free of ads and full of little known truths and serious complaints at the sell out of our nation. He sat down and wrote one of Australia's watershed books "Lucky be Damned!" It is good yarn of his life, but a very serious commentary on the post war sell out of our country and a warning that his children and grandchildren will not be so lucky. Jack lived his life hard, but he deserved to - he'd fought for it and won the right to live it.

My forebears heads are nodding. It's not the channel tides or the desert winds causing their heads to nod, but their total agreement at John Cumming's frustration. They are whispering in my ears - ""Lucky be Damned". You, my boy, inherited the right to live in this country and you have allowed it to be sold out."

They're right you know.

Australia is banging the cymbals in the world string orchestra -when we should be playing first or second violin.

We're carrying the drinks - when we should be strutting out to bat at number 3 or 4.

We're warming the benches - when we should be proudly running on at full forward, five-eight, flyhalf, striker or goal attack.

We've become the delivery boys and the floor sweepers in what used to be our own businesses - when we should be proud owners reaping the rewards of our forebears' enterprise.

Worse, we're dusting the boots of Uncle Sam - when we should be his free world partner, bravely counselling him on his many excesses.

My father' spirit - ever the practical engineer - says - "John - what are you going to do about it'"

Jack Cumming growls in frustration. "Lucky be Damned".

Thankfully, the old digger has left us a legacy, a torch to carry, a mission to accomplish.

It's a growing comprehension of the sell out of our national identity and with that - our sovereignty.

It's a realisation that our land of the "long weekends" will turn into seven day nightmares if we don't act now.

It's a horror at the sprawling suburbs of slab on ground, tile roofed, 3 bedroom, double lock up garage brick houses where 30% of our fast food fattened kids are unemployed.

It's a fright at the fact that we're importing plastic tasting tinned food, GE modified crops and risky bananas when we could easily be the organic salad bowl of the South Pacific.

It's a shock at the fact that 90% of our industries are now foreign owned and the foreigners pay one eightieth of the income tax that their workers pay -government guaranteed by the Double Tax Conventions supported by the Unions, Liberals and Country Parties alike.

It's a revulsion at the shallowness and deceit of the two and a half party Marxist inspired political debate between the forces of capital and labour.

It's a stirring in the minds and hearts of thinking Australians that we've sold out enough.

It's a dismay that there will be nothing left for our children - the grandchildren of the diggers.

It's a disgust at us being reduced to polishing off the dust.

The growls of the old digger who refused to just retire to Sunshine Beach are being heard.

CONTINUE ON

While Johnny Howard has been enjoying his "comfortable years", JC has been stirring.

While John Anderson let Ansett fall out of the skies to be replaced by a precocious pommy balloonist obsessed with those who are yet to enjoy ultimate sexual union, Jack has fought back.

While the unions have been busy refashioning, reprogramming, "re suiting" and slimming down their new leader, "Lucky be Damned" is being read and is jolting Great Australians into action.

The Great Australians in this fight are not sporting heroes like Steve Waugh, George Gregan or Ian Thorpe. They are not business tycoons like Kerry Packer or Dick Pratt. They are not rich and powerful people.

They are just the ordinary people who have heard the old digger and are devoted to doing something about it. We're not great because we have done something great - we simply want Australia to be great -like it should be.

There is little time for reflection on the past, but our true values need to be saved, nurtured and planted as the root stock on which to graft the trees of the future.

Jack is impatient. He is running out of years and he wants to fix it now, but I know our fight will take time and I have learnt "Plan, Agenda and Timetable" and to be patient.

We - the baby boomers - the sons and daughters of the diggers - have the time -thanks to the easy life they gave us and the wonders of traditional and modern medicine.

The question is - do we have the resolve or will we be happy to say to our foreign masters - "grant us a bit more take home pay, another long weekend and a few gold medals at the games and she'll be right mate"

I'm for action. There are five key actions needed.

1 Truly reconcile our people

2 Reform the tax system

3 Abolish the double tax conventions

4 Develop a new spirit of business

5 Unite or suffer more of the same

1 Truly reconcile our people

To survive in the global economy, Australians must unite.

Sadly, our nation remains divided by the uncaring and sometimes violent injustices of the forceful British settlement and the post war multicultural migration. I'll leave multiculturalism for another day.

As to the British, man's cruelty to his fellow humans is not a mistake, it is the nature of our species. It is driven by survival and fear. Cruelty surfaces when the need to survive or the fear of not surviving becomes paramount. It takes over when existing rights are put in danger or taken away, or when one group perceives inequality of rights.

The converse is true. Ensure the establishment of equal rights and opportunities for all citizens, and people from different tribes can live in harmony.

Popular debate would have us believe that there is one simple step to reconciliation - a representative of the descendants of the new comers has to simply say "Sorry" and all will be cured. Rubbish.

That is focussing on the process. We need to focus on the outcome of equal rights and opportunity for all without fear or favour.

In my view there are seven steps to achieve the outcome of equal rights and opportunities.

Firstly, the newcomers need to accept that proven native title land rights do not lead to any more or less inequality of opportunity than ownership of other land. Our society can ensure that equal opportunity is given to children regardless of the land their parents own. Equal opportunity can be gifted to a child born to parents owning a mansion at Point Piper, those owning Uluru and those owing no land at all.

Secondly, the abolition of ATSIC, which was as passionately despised by the newcomers as it was revered by Aboriginals. The Government realised this and became intolerant of its administrative short comings and rorts and has rightly abolished it. It could never achieve equal rights and opportunities because it was racially based. This is not to say we should stop the genuine programs needed to assist Aboriginals, but stop the waste and hand outs and cohesively deliver the programs needed to all Australians.

Thirdly, we have to nurture the realisation and spirit of the one thing we all have in common. We all came here from somewhere else.

I listened to a song on National Indigenous Radio the other day which claimed the Aboriginals all lived here in peace for 50,000 years until the white man came. This is almost certainly as big a lie as terra nullius and likely to be just as much a stumbling bock to reconciliation. In their understandable hurt and dismay, many Aboriginal people have adopted the false high moral ground of claiming to be the traditional spiritual protectors of the land and in the process have conveniently ignored the clear historical fact that this land was uninhabited by humans for eons and there were many who came here before the current mob.

This is not to deny their prior land rights and culture, but to honestly and accurately acknowledge how these were acquired in the first place.

The preamble to the Great Australians Constitution reads -

"We all migrated to this great southern land. The first of us paddled from the north, then some of us sailed from the west with guns in our hands or in our backs." JC inspired this.

Aboriginals need to accept the fact that they are unlikely to actually be the direct descendants of those who paddled the first canoe across the ditch. A burial site found at Lake Mungo in western NSW has revealed human remains maybe 40,000 years old, but that human was from quite a different tribe than the Aboriginals Governor Philip found on the shores of Sydney Cove.

It is almost certain that the direct ancestors of the 1788 Aboriginals took the land from the other tribes who came earlier or from others of their own tribe. Aboriginals rightly claim an organised system of land rights, and have been able to prove it in the Courts, but history proves you can't have an organised system of land rights without wars to secure them in the first place and keep them, in the face of new aggressors.

Over 40 or 60,000 years, land wars would have inevitably been fought and the possessed were violently dispossessed.

I am not saying this to be divisive, but to be inclusive. If we can all accept that we are all descended from newcomers to this land - then I believe we can take a giant step towards reconciliation because we all have this in common.

Fourthly, we have to personally become involved in the process. Governments can tax its citizens, but they can't reconcile them.

We all individually need to make the friendships, seek to understand the cultural differences, join in business partnerships, play sport together, seek to learn and understand and be tolerant. We are obsessed with sport, so let sport take a leading role. If you look at how cricket and Aussie Rules have united Aboriginal and European communities it is fair to say sport is taking a leading role in reconciliation.

I was educated in the Queensland State Primary School system in the fifties and sixties. We were taught the land was inhabited by roaming nulla nulla carrying savages with no culture. On my personal voyage of discovery, I have found this to be a complete lie. How many of my school mates have never bothered to find out' Governments can help by requiring schools to run courses in properly researched accurate indigenous studies and languages which can lead to a greater understanding.

We have so much to learn from indigenous Australians on how to live in and conserve this land. They certainly had a better system of helping boys reach manhood than sending them to the Gold Coast on a week long drinking binge called "Schoolies Week".

Fifthly, we all have to be prepared to collectively acknowledge the horror that the Aboriginals have suffered. An acknowledgement is far more significant now than a belated statement of sorrow. True sorrow has to be spontaneous and it really has to be expressed by the person who caused the wrong. Current Australians did not cause the wrongs and the debate has been going too long for spontaneity.

But it doesn't hurt to say "Sorry" if we mean it. Sorry for what' Simply, "Sorry for the violent and uncaring actions of some of our forebears."

The Great Australians have said this in paragraph 1.01 of the fundamentals in our Constitution. Not all members agreed but the majority did and we are a democratic party.

Sixthly, rather than making a belated apology or an acknowledgement of past suffering, why not make a positive statement of unity. To do this, we could celebrate Australia day on a day other than the 26th January. Our indigenous Australians and hundreds of thousands of our other citizens quite rightly consider the 26th January is "Invasion Day". I am deeply embarrassed by that and I haven't enjoyed an Australia Day for decades. I want to celebrate our national day on another day out of respect for the views of Indigenous Australians and the hurt they must feel. I want it to be day for the future not the past.

In the absence of a day with particular significance, let's randomly choose a neutral day - say - the first Monday in November when we all need a long weekend and make it a statement of reconciliation - call it "Australians Day".

Seventhly, we need to embrace one another with the mantra -"There is only one race - the human race. We just have different tribes."

BUT there is only one set of rights - human rights and they must be equal.

2 Reform the tax system

Income tax was a simple idea based on donations to pay for the First World War, but now it is only working effectively to tax the soft underbelly of the wage and salary earners.

Small and big Business, foreigners and the one million Australians currently working offshore largely avoid it. The legislators have promulgated the 10,000 th page of the Income Tax Act in an attempt to define the indefinable and collect the uncollectible. The drafters have given up in many cases and granted the Commissioner the discretion to take whatever he wants - a bit like the Sheriff of Nottingham holding a knife to your throat and emptying your coin pouch until he feels he has enough.

The Tax Act is incomprehensible even to the collectors and Accountants and Lawyers who try to defend us. The result is that individuals pay about 40% of the income tax collected by the Federal Government, businesses pay about 15% and yes you guessed it, foreigners pay one half of one percent. Take a look at the table I have handed out to you. This is on our web site - http://www.greataustralians.org

Individuals pay eighty times as much as the foreigners who own 90% of our industry.

Why aren't the people rioting' It's the long weekends, the footy games, the enjoyment of a day at the club playing the pokies and "just give us a bit more net pay and we'll cop it sweet." Some would say it is the fluoride in the water, the good beers and wines or the fact that nearly half the population under 30 have smoked dope.

There are some tragic consequences of our tax system.

We have 760,000 taxpayers claiming property investment losses against other income - negative gearing. Not 760,000 properties - 760,000 taxpayers. Some of them might own 100 properties. In 2001 they claimed $3.8 billion in rental losses. This issue will not be addressed by the mainstream parties. Mr Latham tried for about half a day before his minders gagged him.

The impossibly high capital gains tax provides a disincentive to ever sell residential investment property.

The consequence is that a major portion of the post war wealth of our country is now tied up in over inflated negatively geared investment properties NOT manufacturing and the employment of our youth.

The percentage of our economy devoted to manufacturing is about 13%. The OECD average is 25%.

By a combination of the generous negative gearing laws and the Capital Gains Tax, our Government has created an artificial lack of supply of owner/occupier houses and units for sale with the consequence that house/unit prices have skyrocketed.

The average age of first home ownership is now 33 and good luck if you don't have parents to help with your deposit.

The Goods and Services Tax attempts to tax a concept of the "Value Added" to production which is arbitrary. It is an enormous burden on business. A recent survey of NSW small business found an average of 25% of the principals' time was spent in tax compliance issues. The GST has raped our savings and particularly hurt the elderly. It has doubled the cash economy to an estimated 15%.

Our wage levels have priced Australian labour out of the global market. The majority of Australians have worked this out, but they haven't worked out that the cause is the Australian Governments addiction to a diet of high income tax on wages. No way will workers accept lower wages, so we need to lower the cost of labour without reducing the take home pay of wage earners.

Income tax as a concept cannot survive the computer age as tens of thousands of Australians sign up for lap top operated foreign bank accounts owned by their blind companies and trusts in the world's burgeoning array of tax havens.

There is a better system. This is the 2% Expenditure Tax devised by "Tax Reform" and set out in their submission to the Senate Economic References Committee dated 11 April 2003 and in John McRobert's book "Your Future is in Your Hands". We call it "ausEtax" - E for Expenditure.

Beware!! This is not a bank debit tax. A bank debit tax cannot work. If you ever hear anyone pushing a bank debit tax, please refer to them to me so I can explain why it can't work.

The Expenditure tax is so simple and yet so beneficial. It has been thoroughly researched and modelled. Treat it very seriously.

It reduces the cost of labour to employers without reducing employees take home pay.

The price of anything you buy includes the tax paid by the employers on wages. Reduce the tax on wages and you can reduce the cost of goods, and employers can afford to employ more workers. The Government will then need less money to provide its current services because it does not have to pay the high tax on wages for its own employees.

Expenditure Tax is so simple -

The tax is an expenditure tax, so wage and salary earners do not pay this tax at all at the point of being paid. The employers pay it because they are spending money on wages and salaries.

By negotiation and the rulings of the Tribunals setting awards, take home pay will remain the same - tax free. However, the cost of wages to the employers is reduced to "take home pay plus 2%". Employers will remit the 2% tax. Employees do not have to do anything. They are not taxed on their wages.

Expenditure on all goods, services and property will attract a 2% tax, but for reasons of cost saving and convenience, it will be collected by the seller and remitted on a "BAS like" form. Ironically, the introduction of the GST has perfectly laid the foundation for the administrative collection of this tax. All that needs to happen is to change the BAS forms to a declaration of gross sales and a remittance of 2% of them.

Woolworths need only add up their gross sales and remit 2%. Doctors just add up their gross income and pay 2%. Sell your investment house or boat and remit 2%.

The revolution is -

The cost of labour will be dramatically reduced

There will be strong jobs growth - not as many people will need Government assistance

Goods and services will become cheaper

Exports will become more competitive

Governments do not need nearly as much money to provide the same services

The brains of our Accountants, Lawyers and tax collectors can be put to use developing businesses

We can throw away the Income Tax Act and 7 other tax acts and save the trees.

The modelling shows that 2% should collect enough to continue current Government programs and provide a surplus to reduce debt.

The Federal Government currently collects tax of about 25% of GDP. This is far too high for us to sustain our lifestyles in the face of the new economic aggression from China and India. We have no capital left to reinvest or invest in new business. I know. I work in the Venture Capital Industry. It is almost impossible to raise seed capital in Australia and I will give you the figures in a minute. We as a nation have to reduce the percentage of GDP our Government grabs or we face economic doom.

Our policy is to monitor the 2% rate to ensure that the Government does not collect more than 20% of the GDP as it will be calculated under the new regime. The financial modelling undertaken showed 17% was the likely outcome, but really we should be aiming at 14% in the medium term.

The 20% maximum will be more than enough to provide current services to those who need them, but the fact is not as many people will need them.

I urge you to read the summary I am handing out. Read the Tax Reform Submission and John McRobert's book and join in our campaign to introduce "ausEtax" - the Australian Expenditure Tax.

Jack Cumming jumped onto this idea years ago. John McRobert was an associate of my father and gave him a copy of his book which my father gave to me saying "read this and tell me why we can't have it."

The diggers were at it again.