Post by Banjo on Feb 3, 2011 11:25:20 GMT 7
Banker just sent me this, I won't print it all, just a few of the "highlights".
www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/ambitious-economic-goals-demand-political-courage/story-e6frg71x-1225999007232
Ambitious economic goals demand political courage
Julia Gillard's ambitious goals to reverse under-employment and impose a price on carbon are very commendable. They will not be easy to deliver, especially the challenge of extricating a significant proportion of Australia's 757,000 disability support pensioners from welfare. Worthwhile as her proposals are, however, the Prime Minister will need to cast the reform net much wider to embrace federal-state relations, immigration growth, trade and labour market reform if her "vision for Australia" to cement the national wealth from the mining boom is to be realised.
Politically, the acid test of Ms Gillard's goal to increase workforce participation will be her performance in enacting tax, welfare and other measures that would upset Labor's core constituents by propelling many of those living on welfare into jobs, encouraging part-time workers to increase their hours and creating incentives for older workers to retire later. Reversing a culture in which hundreds of thousands of working-age Australians have no reason or incentive to work will not be easy. Centrelink largesse provides a single mother of two children on the Disability Support Pension with rent assistance and family benefits of about $33,000 a year tax-free. Curbing John Howard's family payments of several hundred dollars a week to low- and middle-income wage earners would also be difficult politically. Despite Labor's sound arguments against middle-class welfare in opposition, since its election it has geared its policies on family handouts, as well as industry protection and industrial relations, to shoring up its support among a shrinking pool of just under a million highly unionised manufacturing workers and their families. The tax summit offers a vital opportunity for a circuit breaker.
www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/ambitious-economic-goals-demand-political-courage/story-e6frg71x-1225999007232
Ambitious economic goals demand political courage
Julia Gillard's ambitious goals to reverse under-employment and impose a price on carbon are very commendable. They will not be easy to deliver, especially the challenge of extricating a significant proportion of Australia's 757,000 disability support pensioners from welfare. Worthwhile as her proposals are, however, the Prime Minister will need to cast the reform net much wider to embrace federal-state relations, immigration growth, trade and labour market reform if her "vision for Australia" to cement the national wealth from the mining boom is to be realised.
Politically, the acid test of Ms Gillard's goal to increase workforce participation will be her performance in enacting tax, welfare and other measures that would upset Labor's core constituents by propelling many of those living on welfare into jobs, encouraging part-time workers to increase their hours and creating incentives for older workers to retire later. Reversing a culture in which hundreds of thousands of working-age Australians have no reason or incentive to work will not be easy. Centrelink largesse provides a single mother of two children on the Disability Support Pension with rent assistance and family benefits of about $33,000 a year tax-free. Curbing John Howard's family payments of several hundred dollars a week to low- and middle-income wage earners would also be difficult politically. Despite Labor's sound arguments against middle-class welfare in opposition, since its election it has geared its policies on family handouts, as well as industry protection and industrial relations, to shoring up its support among a shrinking pool of just under a million highly unionised manufacturing workers and their families. The tax summit offers a vital opportunity for a circuit breaker.
