On 01/12/14 12:54, Stephen Loosley wrote: > Sure, it's difficult balancing budgets when your main customer stops buying, > but we should certainly come up with a much better plan. We didn't, and hence > one suspects the recent Vic election results will also be seen nationally. >
Allocating billions of dollars on roads should not get through any senate!!! > > "Comment: Why Joe Hockey's budget flopped so badly" > > Sydney Morning Herald, By Ross Gittins, 4 hrs ago > http://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/comment-why-joe-hockeys-budget-flopped-so-badly/ > > > Who could have predicted what a hash a Coalition government would make of its > first budget? > > If Joe Hockey wants to lift his game in 2015, as we must hope he will, there > are lessons the government - and its bureaucratic advisers - need to learn. > > The first, and biggest, reason the government is having to modify or abandon > so many of its measures is the budget's blatant unfairness. > > In 40 years of budget-watching I've seen plenty of unfair budgets, but never > one as bad as this. > > > Frankly, you need a mighty lot of unfairness before most people notice. But > this one had it all. Make young people wait six months for the dole? Sure. > Cut the indexation of the age pension? Sure. Charge people $7 to visit the > doctor, and more if they get tests, regardless of how poor they are? Sure. > > Charge people up to $42.70 per prescription? Sure. Lumber uni students with > hugely increased HECS debts that grow in real terms even when they're > earning less than $50,000 a year? Sure. > > What distinguished this budget was that even people who weren't greatly > affected by its imposts could see how unfair it was to others. > > Unfairly sacked Treasury secretary Dr Martin Parkinson is right to remind us > we have to accept some hit to our pocket if the government's budget is to get > out of structural deficit. But any politician or econocrat who expects to get > such public acquiescence to tough measures that aren't seen to be reasonably > fair needs to repeat Politics 101. > > This is particularly so when a government lacks the numbers in the Senate - > as is almost always the case. Without a reasonable degree of support from the > electorate, your chances are slim. Especially when you subjected your > political opponents to unreasoning opposition when they were in office. > > A related lesson is that successful efforts to restore budgets to surplus > invariably rely on a combination of spending cuts and tax increases. To cut > spending programs while ignoring the "tax expenditures" enjoyed by business > and high income-earners, as this government decided to do, is to guarantee > your efforts will be blatantly unfair and recognised as such. > > Move in on "unsustainable" spending on age pensions while ignoring all the > genuinely unsustainable tax breaks on superannuation? Sure. Our promise to > the banks not to touch super trumps our promise to voters not to touch the > pension. This makes sense? > > But a politically stupid degree of unfairness isn't the only reason this > budget was such a poor one. Its other big failing was the poor quality of its > measures. It sought to improve the budget position not by raising the > efficiency and effectiveness of government spending, but simply by > cost-shifting: to the sick, the unemployed, to the aged, to university > students and, particularly, to the states. > > This takes brains? > > There are various ways to improve the cost-effectiveness of the > pharmaceutical benefits scheme - though this would involve standing up to the > foreign drug companies and to chemists - but why not just whack up the > already high co-payment? > > There are ways to reform the medical benefits scheme - by standing up to > specialists - but why not just introduce a new GP co-payment, even though we > already have a much higher degree of out-of-pocket payments than most > countries? > > The claim that introducing a GP co-payment constitutes micro-economic reform > because it gets a "price signal" into Medicare lacks credibility. For a > start, I don't believe that's the real motive. Who doubts that, once a > co-payment is introduced, it won't be regularly increased whenever > governments see the need for further cost-shifting? > > For another thing, the notion that introducing a price signal would deter > wasteful use without any adverse "unintended consequences" is fundamentalist > dogma, not modern health economics. > > Similarly, the notion that deregulating tuition fees would turn universities > into an efficient, price-competitive market with no adverse consequences to > speak of is first-years' oversimplification, not evidence-based economics > worthy of PhD-qualified econocrats. > > I'm not convinced the range of savings options Treasury and Finance offered > the government was of much higher quality than the options it picked. This > budget was so bad because so little effort was put into making it any better. > > I'm starting to fear our governments and their econocrats have got themselves > into a vicious circle: because the econocrats can't come up with anything > better, they fall back on yet another round of that great Orwellian false > economy, the "efficiency dividend". > > But the never-ending extraction of what have become inefficiency dividends is > robbing the public service of the expertise it needs to come up with budget > measures that would actually improve the public sector's efficiency. > > -- > > Cheers, > Stephen > > > _______________________________________________ > Link mailing list > [email protected] > http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link > -- Marghanita da Cruz Telephone: 0414-869202 Ramin Communications Pty Ltd http://www.ramin.com.au _______________________________________________ Link mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
