Of all the weasel words used by politicians to conceal what they are really up to, ‘reform’ must be the most deceptive. Not only does it not have the meaning the political class give it, but that meaning is the exact opposite to its real and accurate meaning, giving the politicians unlimited scope to mislead the public, which of course they do with relish.

The word ‘reform’, as all the dictionaries tell us, means that a proposed change will improve things, confer a benefit, abolish an injustice, remedy a wrong, and make things better than they are.

Used in its true sense, it is a power for good. That is why the great change to the electoral laws that occurred in England in 1832 had the title the Reform Bill. It was a reform because it abolished electorates which had no voters but appointed two unelected MPs; it gave the vote for the first time to people in the big industrial cities; and it negated the power of the landed gentry to appoint MPs rather than requiring them to be elected; it was a reform and was properly so called. It ended the most blatant gerrymandering, gave the public real power for the first time, righted the most grievous wrongs and set up a modern, elected democracy that was copied around the world. Now that was a real reform, because it changed things for the better.

But what a contrast there is between such a real reform and what passes for reform today, where politicians work their machinations under the guise of so-called reforms which do nothing but expand the state’s control over the public, cancel freedoms, tax the productive members of society and perpetuate injustice. The politicians’ reforms consistently make things worse.

Just look at the most popular use of the word being made today, so-called ‘tax reform’. After years of waste and over-spending, the federal government has now got itself into the perilous position where its budget is out of control, giving us an unproductive and stagnant economy and one that can only guarantee ever-increasing inflation, higher interest rates and a lower standard of living.

Faced with the obvious need to spend less, which is easy enough to do if your heart is in it, it has then turned its face away from the obvious and is about to resort to the trusted approach of all bad governments faced with economic quandaries of their own making: raise more taxes. And to give it an air of legitimacy, it dresses up this lunacy as tax reform. In other words, the official rubric is to keep spending, but tax more.

How can this possibly be called tax reform? It will  improve nothing and will only make things worse. But, despite that, tax reform is being given another outing as the great comforter and the solution to all our problems.

The present proposals, if you can make sense of the kites being flown by the Treasurer on what might or might not be included in the budget, are apparently based on the notion that extra punishments should be piled onto investors, the productive members of society. If you really want to put more life into the economy, investors should be rewarded and not punished, because only with investment will productivity improve.

In particular, the capital gains discount on the sale of property,  should not be abolished or reduced from 50 per cent to 30 per cent, as the progressive left are advocating, but increased to 100 per cent, so that there will be more incentive to invest and build. This is the only way that investors will risk their capital for new housing or any other investment. In any event, if there were a case for allowing the 50-per-cent discount, which there was, the same logic must surely justify a 100-per-cent discount. It would also provide an incentive for new investment, and the whole community will benefit from the economic activity generated.

It is the same with negative gearing: the cost of borrowing money to invest should be tax deductible, as it is a real cost burden and a severe disincentive on investing. And the weak Clayton’s ‘reform’ of limiting negative gearing to one or two properties, as proposed under the false flag of tax reform, will deter investors from putting money into housing. Imposing a new tax of up to 25 per cent on superannuation, already implemented, can only have the same effect by making investment less attractive.

And if there is anything worse than the course the government is apparently committed to, it is the other disincentive of making these new tax burdens retrospective. Indeed, if there were one reform that would unlock new investment, it would be a national declaration, guaranteed by all parties, that no additions to the tax burden will ever operate retrospectively.

There is no doubt that the kites being flown by the Treasurer and his acolytes will delude the public into thinking they are reforms. They will have a short-term popularity which will evaporate in weeks if not days; but if something is not done to stimulate long-term investment and stop punishing current and potential investors, we will be committing ourselves to long-term stagnation. Already, investors are dumping their properties, fearing that the investment axe is about to fall.

Real tax reform calls for lateral thinking and the best lateral thinking is to free investors from the shackles that are presently stopping them from investing.

I know that if the opposition take up these suggestions, it will be attacked. But perhaps it needs to be attacked, so the point can be made that it will stand and fight for something that is undoubtedly good for the country. After all, the rise and rise of One Nation has come about precisely from being attacked and then taking a stand on matters of principle. It is about time the opposition did the same and, if it does, it will be rewarded.