Greg Lindsay of the Centre for Independent Studies kicks off a new project.
Alan Jones was impressed, with a strong message on the radio this morning to get on board with the recommendations.
TARGET30 research will focus on realistic plans and practical policy suggestions for reducing the size of government in key areas including welfare, education and healthcare.
Someone needs to do an Alan Caruba on Australian govt waste.
grumpy
7 Mar 13 at 7:14 pm
The “link” button didn’t add the link,l so here it is in longhand
http://www.theospark.net/2013/03/obscene-government-waste.html
grumpy
7 Mar 13 at 7:15 pm
Once we have a snappy sounding project name, we can’t go wrong.
Tel
7 Mar 13 at 7:19 pm
We need to set up a consultative committee first.
Gab
7 Mar 13 at 7:27 pm
You’re not serious about cutting the size of government if you don’t START with health, education and welfare. It’s that simple.
James
7 Mar 13 at 7:37 pm
@Poor Old Rafe
it is bullshit
for GOD’S sake….
is there no-one that can sell the message….
there is only 1 person that I would buy on that whole clip…
NoFixedAddress
7 Mar 13 at 7:47 pm
kindly ditch it and start again
NoFixedAddress
7 Mar 13 at 7:48 pm
Are you flipping out, No Fixed?
Jc
7 Mar 13 at 7:49 pm
Start with all duplicated departments. Dept of Ed can retain a small core to oversee the universities which is their only “separate” task.
Then anything with “Environment” in their title.
Then anything with “Diversity” as their Raison d’être.
Then list everything left over and start with departmental functions that just add red tape.
Billy the Kidder
7 Mar 13 at 8:10 pm
Then carbon, sustainability, and rights.
jupes
7 Mar 13 at 8:19 pm
Get rid of anything to do with “social” and wymmins”.
Gab
7 Mar 13 at 8:20 pm
yes Jc.
I am not knocking what they are saying… at all…..
I am merely looking at it from the point of view of someone that needs to be convinced!
Tell me which is your best comment on that tape.
hahhaahahahaha
and I will show you mine…….
NoFixedAddress
7 Mar 13 at 8:25 pm
and I cannot wait for you….
the best pitch and message is from Stephen Kirchner….
“because it empowers people and makes politicians less important”
argue against that and I will lead a proper revolution against the scum who think they control me….
NoFixedAddress
7 Mar 13 at 8:32 pm
and never forget what the people will do Jc!
NoFixedAddress
7 Mar 13 at 8:34 pm
Is there a source showing the growth in spending by each state and Federal sparately? Is it at the ABS? Or do I need to go to each state’s treasury and get the details?
Yes I’m lazy.
dismissive
7 Mar 13 at 8:43 pm
@dismissive
while you are checking could you see how often the state government arseholes jacked up the electricity price and particularly included environment in their reason for jacking it up.
NoFixedAddress
7 Mar 13 at 9:08 pm
Anecdotes about waste are great but where do they lead?
Leigh Lowe
7 Mar 13 at 9:22 pm
good idea to cut welfare for those who dont need it – start with upper class welfare , proceed to corporate welfare and end with howards massive middle class welfare .
as far as privatising health goes look to usa to see how that ends up .
no govt education would end in civil unrest on a massive scale .
conservative govt s the world over have a very poor record as far as making govt smaller goes . their love of things millitary, surveylance , and, the punitave side of law enforcement dont help .
our current govts overall tax rate is lower than howards .
sunshine
7 Mar 13 at 9:23 pm
Sinc, could we set up a wiki to do our own “Incoming Government Brief?”
Econocrat
7 Mar 13 at 9:28 pm
How about this?
Unions are so fond of ratios (despite most of them being innumerate).
Teacher-student ratios, nurse-patient ratios and so on.
How about the ratios be measured another way?
That is the number of operative staff (eg qualified teachers, doctors, nurses actually working in contact with “clients”) as a ratio of the number of “support” staff. Oh …. and qualified contact staff who migrate to admin or policy or go off on stress leave count as “support” staff.
How about a ratio of ten contact operative staff to each support staff position?
And Federal Health and Education employees (none of which teach or treat) count in the national target ratios.
Leigh Lowe
7 Mar 13 at 9:30 pm
Only if you are silly enough to divide by GDP, and only if you don’t count debt as taxation.
Driftforge
7 Mar 13 at 9:38 pm
How about stopping grandstanding with Foreign Aid which has gone up 30% this year and using the money to cut debt?
Old woman of the north
7 Mar 13 at 10:14 pm
I think we have to start with the question of whether we want proper federalism or not. If we do, then realistically we need to look at the massive amount of overlap between the Commonwealth and States in many areas, education, infrastructure and health care in particular. A large portion of those areas could be managed through funding out of Treasury and shut down sizeable chunks of federal departments.
If we are to have proper federalism, then we should have states competing with each other and that means no national strategies or such like. Hand over the GST money to the states and let them get on with running their own affairs for the most part. Under this model we realistically should be able to reduce the size of the federal leviathan and that would be a good thing.
tbh
7 Mar 13 at 10:15 pm
Alan Jones’ support for Greg Lindsay’s latest initiative will do about as much good as Pauline Hanson’s support for Julia Gillard’s. All that is needed to cement the TARGET 30 campaign as a complete dud idea of the luny right is for Andrew Bolt to add his impromata.
William Bragg
7 Mar 13 at 10:15 pm
Why does the Fed gov’t need a health department of 6000 staff and not one doctor or nurse or hospital? Some savings there
Old woman of the north
7 Mar 13 at 10:16 pm
Like there was before the year 1900 and never after.
Perhaps it would lead to an increase in the knowledge of history?
twostix
7 Mar 13 at 10:22 pm
Exactly.
tbh
7 Mar 13 at 10:22 pm
Stronger means testing of welfare and subsidisation would certainly help make this target. Why should a family on $100,000 need any extra government help? Significantly cut the maximum thresholds (say to median household income) for FTA/FTB, baby bonus, government funded maternity leave, health fund rebate, superannuation discounts etc. There’s billions each year right there in savings.
Chris
7 Mar 13 at 10:26 pm
Smaller government really scares doesn’t it Braggs, you big pansy.
Jc
7 Mar 13 at 10:33 pm
Just give them back the ability to tax income like they did until John Curtin’s communist coup in 1942.
twostix
7 Mar 13 at 10:34 pm
Chris, I’d be fine with that if income taxes were also cut.
tbh
7 Mar 13 at 10:34 pm
What about childcare subsidy are you cutting that too? Let’s see how committed you are to this.
twostix
7 Mar 13 at 10:37 pm
So JC, you think that government accounting for some 30 percent of GDP would constitute “small government” – LOL.
Lindsay’s limp-wristed target shows just how far from actuality the stuff of Libertarians’ wet dreams is.
William Bragg
7 Mar 13 at 10:40 pm
Get back to basics.
Gab
7 Mar 13 at 10:40 pm
Yep, it should be more heavily means tested. Next?
Chris
7 Mar 13 at 11:01 pm
tbh – income tax cuts may well be justified (my view is that at the very least the thresholds should be linked to inflation). But I don’t see why spending cuts and income tax cuts need to be linked. You can do the former without doing the latter especially if you’re try to run a surplus or reduce the deficit.
Chris
7 Mar 13 at 11:05 pm
Nope Braggs. At this stage I’m only concerned with direction as anything over 5 to 10% is basically stealing.
You pussy.
Jc
7 Mar 13 at 11:06 pm
Take away the means for any government to tax us and then you have a true democracy!
NoFixedAddress
7 Mar 13 at 11:12 pm
Any taxation is stealing. It can’t be justified at all.
James
7 Mar 13 at 11:12 pm
Go James
NoFixedAddress
7 Mar 13 at 11:14 pm
Heavily means testing the CCR on family household on $100,000 a year where then man earns 60k a year and the woman 40k would means it wouldn’t be worth the woman going to work any more as it’d be about half her wage for one child to go to daycare.
So that 100k household becomes a 60k household.
Just so you know.
And you’d have one hell of a fight against the feminist left to means test it as it means more women at home with the kids which means “going back” to the evil 1950s.
I’m all for it btw but you’re a bit of a lefty and I don’t know if you’ve thought it through.
twostix
7 Mar 13 at 11:21 pm
It really is arse about. Dot’s always pushing for 10% flat rate and get rid of GST; good start and that’s all the money the federal government gets, that’s their budget. That’s what they have to work with. QED. We are their masters, they exist because of us.
Currently it’s the other way round, the top-down approach, if you will: people work to provide for an ever increasing government/APS.
Gab
7 Mar 13 at 11:23 pm
What we give them isn’t enough anymore.
Now they’re taking out loans in our children and their childrens names as well.
twostix
7 Mar 13 at 11:38 pm
Oh absolutely you can target a surplus by means testing the hell out of things and not cutting taxes, but then you run into the wrath of the voters, plus a large number of middle income earners quite rightly saying “I pay all this tax and get zero back”.
I think as a minimum two things should be enacted in the tax code:
1, Married filing jointly like the US. Households should be able to average their taxes when there are two incomes.
2, Tax thresholds indexed to the CPI (I agree with you here). Bracket creep is the silent evil that stings people when they least expect it.
Furthermore I would make the top marginal rate the same as the corporate rate, as I’ve never understood why they would be different.
Now a lot of this would reduce revenue, so there would be serious cuts in expenditure. We’ve covered those up thread though.
tbh
7 Mar 13 at 11:51 pm
let them tax us whatever they decide….
they obviously know far more than we do…..
I believe in taxing idiots 100%.
I expect many of the so called Catallaxy mob will be signing up to my proposal.
I have this bridge for sale… cheap… it looks like a coat hanger in the dark but really…. when you buy it is so much better.
NoFixedAddress
8 Mar 13 at 12:07 am
And if you complain or suggest it should be otherwise, you’re a job-hating extremist family wrecking nutcase who wants to do untold economic damage.
brc
8 Mar 13 at 12:11 am
It is a gross wrong that a family that earns a combined $90,000 where the wife earns 40k and the husband 50k is wealthier than a household where just the husband works and earns $100,000.
That situation is only made possible because the single income family (among others) are made to subsidise the lower income family via the Child Care Rebate.
The australian government literally punishes familes where the mother stays at home. This is a policy that was pursued by the nutty Anne Summers feminist left (but of course).
Incidentally I heard of a rort where businesses are “employing” the stay at home wife of the employee and coincidentally paying the wife just enough to bring the husband down a tax bracket after reducing his pay.
twostix
8 Mar 13 at 12:23 am
Preach it Brother Stix. I live it every day and it sucks.
tbh
8 Mar 13 at 12:27 am
It is protection money, plain and simple.
The justification is that if you had the ability to prevent them taking it, then you wouldn’t need to pay. If you don’t have that ability, then you obviously require the service being offered.
Tel
8 Mar 13 at 7:19 am
A key area of monetary waste in public administration – ongoing, unnoticed and unregulated – is in the ‘corporate’ areas of Government departments and agencies. Big ticket unnecessary and wasteful government programmes at least tend to come under some sort of independent or public scrutiny, even if it is patchy and intermitent, but even with key functions like payroll now outsourced, ‘corporate’ just keeps growing and growing and no one notices. Key contemporary areas of wasteful growth include: ‘human resource development’ – run by wankers and never evaluated, ‘over-promoted trainer’, or ‘OPT’ is a current term of abuse among line managers: ‘diversity’ – a sheltred workshop for the grievance-oriented: and whole structures – PR, function organisers, graphic designers – dedicated simply to making the agency look good.
Des Deskperson
8 Mar 13 at 10:10 am