Yesterday Tony Abbott declared the Coalition would expand the existing Education Tax Rebate to include school fees for all eligible students.

According to the Liberal Party’s press release:

“For primary students, this would mean a rebate to up to $500 per year per child in primary school. Eligible families will be able to claim a 50 per cent rebate for up to $1,000 of eligible education-related expenses for each child in primary school.

“For secondary school students, we will increase the rebate to up to $1,000 per year per child. Eligible families will be able to claim a 50 per cent rebate for up to $2,000 of education-related expenses for each child in secondary school.”

The payment is available for students at state, independent and private schools. But the government school element of this seems to have been lost on the Fairfax press, which ran with this intro: Read more »

Sunday Telegraph:

COLES is importing cigarettes from Germany and selling them at discount prices to lure low-income smokers into its supermarkets.

The grocery giant has priced the ``home-brand-style'' packs of 25 cigarettes at around $11 almost $4 a pack less than Australian-made Winfield and other leading brands.

They are believed to be the cheapest on the market since the federal Government raised cigarette taxes by 25 per cent in April... Read more »

That's Wednesday.

Henry today:

"I am able to say to the committee that it is my understanding that the Treasurer will shortly be putting more information into the public domain," he said.

Senator Cormann asked why if the Treasurer was going to release the information, couldn't Dr Henry provide it to the committee, to which Dr Henry replied:

"Well of course I'm very happy to ask the Treasurer whether he would be comfortable with me publishing the information today in this committee or whether he would prefer himself to publish the information," he said.

The inquiry took a five minute break for Dr Henry to seek instructions.

"I haven't spoken directly to the Treasurer myself but I have spoken with his staff and I can report that it is the Treasurer's intention to publish the information imminently" Read more »

From Phil Coorey, Tuesday July 6:

Belinda Robinson, the chief executive of the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association, said small and mid-size operators were angry at having the exploration rebate traded away by the big miners while still being saddled with a new tax.

‘‘There’s a real groundswell of discontent out there,’’ she said.

‘‘We made it very clear that we did not want to scrap it top pay for the concerns for the large miners.’’

Phil Coorey, Tuesday, 1 June:

A MINING industry group on which the federal government had been banking to support its proposed resources super profits tax went on the offensive yesterday with a series of advertisements attacking the tax. Read more »

Just for a moment in his three-hour grilling before a Senate committee Monday Ken Henry gave the game away.

Asked what had gone wrong with the Resource Super Profits Tax he helped design, he said in his view "nothing has gone wrong with the integrity of that particular recommendation".

It merely lacked sufficient acceptability "at this time".

Asked whether he expected that to change he said he didn't know.

And in saying so put sovereign risk back on the table, where it has almost always been. Read more »