"Cynical dole-bludgers making us sick"
- Headline in several of today's Murdoch papers
Now I could respond by talking about the impact of mental health on unemployment, or the impact of long term unemployment on mental health.
Or I could talk about the irony of a string of News Corp journalists who, every time a Coalition government gets in, line up for taxpayer funded positions on committees where their only contribution is political bias.
Or I could just question how a media organisation - owned by a man who tossed his Australian citizenship for the $US, built an empire on bribes, bullying and blackmail, and subverted the democratic process whenever possible - is qualified to judge the mental health of people on welfare.
But instead I'd like to talk about bludging. Not the nepotistic, corporate-backscratching, expense account rorting varieties of bludging we've seen flourish under the Turnbull (née Abbott) government, but truly professional bludging. The sort of bludging that takes the audacity of Keith Rupert Murdoch.
In 1989 News Corp Australia executives exchanged cheques and share transfers between local and overseas subsidiaries that moved through several currencies and international tax havens. They were paper transactions only, no actual funds changed hands, but it ended up as an on paper loan from one Murdoch subsidiary in the Caymen Islands to another in Australia.
In 2000 and 2001 the loans were unwound. With the high value of the Australian dollar at the time, Murdoch's Australian subsidiaries recorded a $2 billion loss, while his subsidiaries in tax havens recorded a $2 billion gain. News Corp then claimed a $2 billion tax deduction from the ATO.
The ATO argued that a loss couldn't be claimed for a transaction that hadn't physically happened, or cost a cent. New Corp took it to the Federal Court of Appeal and won. This left the ATO 28 days to appeal. 28 days during an election campaign. 28 days of ferocious attacks on the government by News Corp. 28 days of Tony Abbott seeking a legal challenge to the ATO appealing the case during a campaign.
The ATO did not appeal and Joe Hockey's first act as Treasurer was to arrange a $923 million cash payment from the ATO for Murdoch's "tax losses" (plus interest). This payment became the single largest expenditure item of the 2014 federal budget.
The payment was made to News Corp’s parent company 21st Century Fox, who pays 1% tax in Australia. Today News Corp is the only company in the ATO's highest risk category for tax avoidance.
So if cynical dole-bludgers make you sick, think how much better you'd feel with $923 million back in the health system.