Budget does the time warp

Tonight's budget is shaping up as a scene from the Rocky Horror Show. You know, the one where the cast does the time warp. For most of his prime ministership, Malcolm Turnbull has been trying to appease his party’s hard right by embracing their policy positions – on climate change, same-sex marriage, English-language proficiency for citizenship and denial that the budget has a revenue problem only a spending problem. Having taken a step to the right since he won his party’s audition for the top job, Turnbull is now signalling the budget will involve a jump to the left – more spending, more taxes, no more debt and deficit disaster, just good and bad debt.

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Scott Morrison is trying to have and eat the housing affordability cake

A door visits a psychiatrist, lies on the couch. The psychiatrist gives the door the good news: "You're not crazy, you're just unhinged." Doctors of economics watching the Coalition party-room brawl over the use of superannuation savings for home loans are concluding the door is unhinged and those inside are crazy. Yet rational responses to the housing affordability crisis are available to the hinged.

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Better roads to growth than tax cuts

'Show us the modelling' has become the catchcry whenever a new policy proposal is floated in Australia. Economic modelling has a no stauncher ally than the Coalition government. In defending its company tax rate cut for all corporations, the government produced modelling and demanded the Opposition do the same for any alternative jobs-and-growth strategy it might like to unveil.

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No 'gotcha' changes to the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax

As with every other policy debate, public discussion on the adequacy of the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT) has become polarised. Critics argue it’s hopeless at gaining a fair share of the revenue from gas extraction for the community, while industry warns that any change whatsoever would frighten off future exploration and development. As usual, the truth lies somewhere between the extremes. The policy challenge is to find a middle path. More than three decades after the Hawke government’s introduction of the PRRT, some modifications to the tax are worthy of consideration.

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Malcolm Turnbull must resist a tilt to the right

Okay, who was the Labor joker who left the internal destabilisation manual in the bottom drawer of Tony Abbott’s desk? Abbott is well past the early chapter titled ‘Pledge loyalty to the leader’ and has just finished ‘Release alternative manifesto while pollsters are in the field’. Get ready for the next chapter: ‘Campaign for a supporter in a marginal seat’ with sub-heading: ‘Alert all five television stations’. The Coalition seems so intrigued by Labor’s turmoil when last in government that it is determined to emulate it. The nation is the loser.

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We needn't wait for the US on trade

A new test of the commitment of the major political parties to globalisation will be applied in the early weeks of the new parliamentary year: whether or not they will ratify the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that President Trump will block from entering into force. This is gesture politics at its worst. Prioritising parliamentary debate about a trade deal that the United States refuses to ratify can create the unwanted impression that the Turnbull government has nothing better to do. Yet the US Administration's abandonment of the TPP raises a genuine policy issue for the Australian parliament – where to next for trade liberalisation?

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Appeasing the right is pointless

Over the holiday period, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will be reflecting upon how to revive his standing with the Australian people and, with it, the electoral fortunes of his government. He will have no shortage of advice urging him to shift further to the right to appease his internal detractors and conservative media critics. The hard right is demanding he use the remnants of his popularity to implement their unpopular policies.

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MYEFO reveals Turnbull government's surplus by assumption

Monday's fiscal update confirms the Federal Parliament is not serious about retaining Australia's coveted AAA credit rating. Blaming Labor is no more a credible government plan to return the budget to surplus than is Labor's criticism of the prospective loss of our credit rating while refusing to countenance further spending reductions to retain it. While the three ratings agencies have confirmed their AAA rating for Australia, not much needs to go wrong before it is again at risk.

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Getting the National Reform Summit band back together

Growth is feeble, wages are flat, investment has fallen off a cliff, the budget is a mess and the car industry is shutting down, but apart from that the economy is doing just fine. Australia has always had a two-speed economy, with some parts hurtling ahead while others struggle in the slow lane. But now the two Australias comprise the fast-growing big cities of Sydney, Melbourne and to a lesser extent Brisbane, and the lagging regions. And regional Australians are disillusioned and angry about it – fertile ground for One Nation's nationalistic, protectionist policy prescriptions. It's time to get the band back together. Yes, it's time for a reconvened National Reform Summit.

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Coalition should try talking to Labor

Last week’s debacle over guns for votes demonstrates the folly of the Coalition trying to govern with the support of nine out of 11 Senate crossbenchers. At a time when the Turnbull government should have been concentrating on a strategy for budget repair it was developing a political strategy that succeeded only in portraying it as a truckload of shotgun-toting yahoos hunting for feral pigs. 

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Learning the lessons of Australia’s manufacturing history

As the blame game over the closure of Australia’s automobile assembly industry shifts into overdrive, we must learn the lessons of the history of the Australian manufacturing sector lest it be repeated. At one time or another, Australia has had at least 11 international auto assembly companies producing vehicles here. Not one has survived despite receiving billions of dollars of taxpayer-funded subsidies and tariff protection.

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We are not yet there on budget repair

Amid more dark warnings from former central bankers and treasury secretaries about the need to rein in the budget deficit, Canberra’s spring session enjoyed a little ray of sunshine when parliament passed an omnibus savings bill on September 16. As suggested in these pages (“Budget bilateralism is the only way”, August 1), the Coalition and Labor got together and negotiated a set of measures to achieve savings of more than $6 billion over the four-year budget period. It’s an encouraging start but in the context of projected accumulated deficits of $84 billion, much more needs to be done. Whether the government likes it or not, further progress will require a combination of savings and revenue measures. 

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