Tag Archive for 'superannuation'

The Henry Review

Published
by
Mark
1 month, 3 weeks ago
in Government, Policy and Politics
. 36 Comments

A summary of Ken Henry’s tax review can be read at Peter Martin’s blog.

The report’s emphasis changed a fair deal along the way, a topic treated of by Martin in another post.

If you’ve been wondering why Kevin Rudd’s focus has recently been on the country a few decades hence, Henry provides the answers. The report frames its recommendations around the theme of an ageing and growing population. When the government responds, we’re likely to see further development of a point of contrast they want to hammer home in an election year; the claim that Rudd Labor has long term plans for Australia’s future while the Opposition plays base politics around the headline of the day. Much will also be made of proposals to raise more revenue from resources, something a nationalist and populist Coalition will have trouble countering, if they’re inclined to do so.

Make of that what you will.

Fiscal stimulus: Eight economists and a few politicians

Published
by
Mark
1 year, 3 months ago
in Climate change, Economics, Environment, Industrial Relations, Markets, Middle East, Policy and Sociology
. 11 Comments

Picking up on Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens’ remarks about “borrowing to invest” and not being afraid of a deficit if there are good policy outcomes to be had, eight prominent economists (including a couple of blogging ones) have written an open letter to Kevin Rudd making suggestions for a further fiscal stimulus under three headings of policy – Superannuation flexibility, Building the nation and Preparing for climate change. The text is here at Troppo (one of the authors is Nicholas Gruen).

There’s been a bit of press coverage this morning, and no doubt it’s a worthy thing to stimulate debate by proposing substantive policy measures rather than just advancing critique. It may be an even worthier thing to shift the terms of the debate, regardless of the merits of the proposed policy directions. We don’t see enough of this sort of initiative.

But I do wonder if the economists stop and think about the political feasibibility of their proposals.

Continue reading ‘Fiscal stimulus: Eight economists and a few politicians’

Paul Keating and Kevin Rudd

Published
by
Mark
1 year, 7 months ago
in Politics
. 38 Comments

Crikey editorialised about Paul Keating yesterday:

He’s the Bert Newton of Australian politics: the polished performer whose gift for spontaneous, stiffly splenetic wit was honed in tougher vaudevillian times, times when having a personality meant more than booking an in-store appearance from Sophie Monk. “He” is of course Paul Keating, a man who knows how to milk a moment in the public gaze, a man who also knows how to fill that moment with something pointedly amusing and worth the repeating.

Two brackets of achingly sharp political standup from Keating yesterday have hogged the airwaves and set a handful of agendas in the 24 hours since. That Keating need only floss his teeth in public to turn the news cycle on its ear says a lot for the standard of over-massaged, verbally neutered performance we have come to expect from the modern political operator.

Continue reading ‘Paul Keating and Kevin Rudd’