Senator Barnaby Joyce Claims

On 6th AUgust, 2010, Senator Barnaby Joyce released this press release in which he claims that "...the Greens believe in a top tax rate of 50 cents in the dollar and death duties. Under a Greens-Labor government they will take half of your pay while you are working and the rest after you die."

So I responded to both Senator Joyce himself and also Larissa Waters, Qld Senate Candidate for the Greens.  This is what I sent on 7th August, 2010...

I didn't realise that the Greens Policy was to tax all income at 50% and then to take the remaining 50% as Death Tax. Or are you grandstanding here and simply making up things? It sure reads that way.


I'm still not sure who to vote for and both yourself and Larissa on last Monday's Q and A impressed me, whereas Craig Emerson only did his party harm. Now, with this extremely tenuous link to reality that you've released, well, I'm starting to wonder if you're losing touch with reality like a famous former National Party leader once did. Is this representative of the LNP as a whole?

Now, I'm yet to receive a reply from Senator Joyce, yet Larissa Waters replied on 9th August, 2010 with:

Dear Hilton, thanks for having the good sense to check on the accuracy of Barnaby's claims. We do not want a death tax of 50%, not for all income tax to be at 50%. Our actual policy - which in on our website for the public to see - is for an income tax ON PEOPLE WHO EARN OVER 1 MILLION DOLLARS to pay 50% income tax, and for a death tax ON ASSETS ABOVE 5 MILLION not including the value of the family farm, family home and small business.


These policies would affect only the extremely wealthy, who we think should pay their fair share of tax.

I hope the Greens have your support on polling day, especially in the Senate where we have an excellent chance of electing our first Greens Senator for Queensland. As you saw from Q&A, we want to get good outcomes for the community and talk about policy, rather than just carping at each other like the major parties do (all while being paid from the public purse!).

I'm concerned that political leaders can go around spouting patent untruths such as Senator Joyce did here and then fail to reply to a legitimate email asking for clarification (or implying a request for a retraction of the false claims).  As I said, I'm yet to receive any response from Senator Joyce and would expect any response I receive to be a carefully thought out one, clearly backing up his claim with evidence or admitting that the claim was baseless and linking to a retraction of this claim.
 
I promise to post a follow-up in here once I receive any further correspondence on this topic from any political parties.
 

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie