Tag Archive for 'unemployed'

How might the Senate tinker with the stimulus package?

Published
by
Mark
1 year, 1 month ago
in Politics
. 37 Comments

Simon Jackman has the good oil on what Bob Brown and Steve Fielding are putting on the table as Senate deliberations on Kevin Rudd’s fiscal stimulus continue. Both are emphasising the unemployed and job creation (with Brown arguing for green measures as well). I suspect that this manoeuvring might factor more into what comes out of the Budget sausage machine. The government has clearly been shifting its rhetoric on the unemployed, and I would expect the minors to be told that people on benefits will benefit as a result of the Henry Review. So it may be that some commitments might be made for future measures in exchange for current support. That would still, however, give the minor party Senators a real chance to shape the response to the economic downturn.

The stimulus package and fairness

Published
by
Mark
1 year, 5 months ago
in Economics, Howardia, Markets and Poverty
. 61 Comments

Just before last year’s federal election, I read Neal Blewett’s Cabinet Diaries. The book is a good read, but I was also interested in reminding myself – in the dying days of the Howard Era – what a Labor government felt like. One of the things that really jumped out at me was regular discussions around the Cabinet table about assistance for the unemployed, and several of Keating’s measures to stimulate the economy were targeted to people on the dole, among others. Those with longer memories might recall Labor’s opposition to Malcolm Fraser’s “fight inflation first” austerity regime in the late 70s. Mike Steketee has a very good column today which shows just how much things have changed in the era of the deserving poor (and not so poor) and the undeserving poor. He rightly points out that some of the pensioners receiving payments will have substantial assets and incomes of up to $66000, and self-funded retirees with incomes up to $50000 for singles and $80000 for couples will also receive the one off payments. It would be very hard to argue that they are the folks in the community doing it toughest, and as Steketee suggests, there’s no guarantee the money will be spent rather than saved.

What we’re seeing here, I think, is a combination of Kevin Rudd’s very conservative personal values and political calculation.

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