Is Australia’s egalitarian society slipping away?

An egalitarian society can be defined as one which looks after its poor and treats them with dignity, actively discourages all forms of discrimination, widely shares the benefits of rising national productivity, allows its workers an adequate say in the workplace on matters affecting their wellbeing, and strives hard to achieve 'equality of starting opportunity' (i.e. where income and quality of life differentials in the market place are due overwhelmingly to differences in personal capacities, … more

Pharmacies and Competition

The recent Productivity Commission final report on the review of national competition policy reforms (Feb 2005), pages 261-265, link www.pc.gov.au , draws attention to the numerous licensing, ownership, location and advertising restrictions which severely limit competition in the pharmacy sector. The report concludes that ‘pharmacy restrictions potentially impose large costs on consumers, taxpayers and the wider community’. A new Commonwealth Government agreement with the pharmacy sector must be completed by June 30, 2005. The Pharmaceutical … more

Labor’s Malaise and What to Do About It: Mending the ALP

Keeping the ALP on course and effective has never been easy. The battle to preserve its social-democratic identity and integrity has had to be fought and fought again. The problem in the past has been would-be takeovers, both from within and without. In the 1930s – to go back no further – it was the Langites in NSW and their allies elsewhere who had to be overcome, in the 1940s the communists, in the 1950s … more

 

The dangers of American-style health reforms for Australia

The Productivity Commission has flagged in its recently released Review of National Policy Reforms, 2005 that ‘major changes could be made to the roles, responsibilities and funding arrangements’ of the Australian health system. One ‘possible option’ is permitting, or even requiring, those who can afford it to leave the public system, and be treated privately. Everyone else would remain in the public health system. The main problem with this suggestion is the high risks of … more

Common Wealth

When we saw the need for the CPD, we acknowledged that there were numerous think tanks in Australia but none of them seriously attempting to engage a broad group of Australians in a conversation about policy in a meaningful way. None were linked to a network of citizens campaigning for change. We have a long way to go in promoting this conversation and achieving policy outcomes. Eva Cox's article 'How do we define fair' (issue … more

How do we define fair? A summary

Can we establish some principles that would frame the development of policies to produce and support a fairer Australia? How do we define fairness? Perceptions of governments’ roles in Australian society differ from the USA and UK. We had no aristocracy and few private capitalists, so much of the funding of infrastructure and services came from Governments. Our citizens still expect, or hope for, leadership and good services from our public and political systems. The … more

 

How do we define fair?

Can we establish the principles that would frame the development of policies to produce and support a fairer Australia? How do we define fair? We tend to use terms like the public and common good, social justice, fairness and equity but rarely do we define what we mean or, explore which aspects of public/social policy are more or less likely to succeed. How do we create political and social cultures that make risk bearable, turn … more

An invitation to join us

A major reason for the establishment of the Centre for Policy Development was the need to revive the policy debate and policy development on important issues affecting Australia. At the last election we saw little policy. Instead there was a rash of programs and bribes. Most of us were turned off. What little policy there was, was injected at the last moment with little chance to involve the community in sensible consideration and discussion. the … more

Re-engaging communities

Evidence of our alienation from institutions is everywhere. Yet I am optimistic that we can change this. If our institutions won’t or can’t be reformed, we look for alternate ways of expressing our need for community. Let us look at some examples of alienation and institutional failure in this country. The most obvious example is the political parties. After WWII the major parties had about 300 000 members each. The ALP now has about one … more