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Welfare for the rich? How tax breaks are transforming Australia's Welfare State

CPD Fellow, Ben Spies-Butcher considers how tax breaks are transforming Australia's welfare. Are these new forms of social security promoting self-reliance or more welfare for the rich? If you’re in Melbourne, come along to this joint Centre for Policy Development and Australian Fabians event on 6pm Wednesday 1 July.


Tax: A Broader Mission

Are we asking our tax and transfer systems to do too much? Ian McAuley believes we have been trying to use transfer payments to compensate for our economy's inability to provide enough well-paying jobs - a strategy that can only last so long.


Reforming Australia's hidden welfare state: Tax expenditures as welfare for the rich

As Australia heads into a recession and our budget heads into deficit, one of Australia's least fair and least effective forms of public investment is still growing like topsy. In this paper for the Centre for Policy Development Dr Ben Spies-Butcher and Adam Stebbing uncover Australia's hidden welfare state. Using the superannuation tax concessions as a case study, they explore options for transforming tax expenditures to make Commonwealth spending fairer and more transparent.


A Rather Too Conservative First Year

CPD fellow Eva Cox assesses the Rudd Government's performance on Indigenous issues, income support, child care and parental leave: Rudd has apologised to the Stolen Generation, signed Kyoto and fixed some of the worst conditions for asylum seekers. These actions seemed to suggest a serious change in political directions, but other signs show he is leading a government designed to avoid scaring off the Howard voters. This is worrying as the social agenda of the government could be defined as a more modern form of social conservativism, with some residual neo-liberal tendencies. It lacks the fire and imagination that would challenge some of the retrograde social assumptions that drove most of the last government’s policies.


Paid Maternity Leave: Time for One Last Push

Natasha Stott Despoja on Paid Maternity Leave: After the past few months with the deliberations and report of the Productivity Commission, it looks like Paid Maternity Leave (PML) may finally happen – that is, unless the Government can think of reasons to delay further. But what took them so long and, more to the point, why did both major parties persistently kill legislation that has been on the table for over 6 years?


Abuse and Neglect in Care - Then and Now

Philip Mendes considers contemporary leaving care policy and practice: Looking at the 2004 Forgotten Australians report on people who experienced institutional or out-of-home care as children, it would be very easy to conclude that these events were an historical anomaly which have little bearing on contemporary child welfare policy and practice. And to be sure the state care system has changed considerably since that time, and arguably for the better. But the evidence suggests that some (and perhaps even many) children and young people currently or recently in care have experienced forms of abuse and neglect similar to those described in the Forgotten Australians, and that this abuse and neglect is similarly undermining their long-term life chances. So there is no doubt that we need to learn some key lessons from the Forgotten Australians if we are to avoid similar suffering in the future.


How Productive is Social Policy?

Sean Regan writes: The ideal of social and economic integration is one to which few object, at least in public (what is moot is the kind of integration we’d accept). For social democrats ‘fairness’ and ‘prosperity’ are a passable shorthand; and ‘social inclusion’ an adequate policy framework. Clearly, though, these terms have to be unpacked and their practical applications spelled out, as there is an inherent tension between the two elements of the putative integration.


WELA submission to the Productivity Commission about Paid Maternity Leave

As Chairperson for the Women's Electoral Lobby Australia (WELA), I've been heavily involved in preparing a submission for the Productivity Commission's inquiry into Paid Maternity, Paternity and Parental Leave.

The WELA strongly supports introducing industrial based, paid maternity leave as soon as possible with three clear arguments supporting this proposal:

1. Financial reasons for maintaining income in households around the time of birth rather than decreasing it by the loss of an income earner;



Mean tests: middle class welfare or redistributive fairness?

Arguing in favour of universal paid maternity leave, Eva Cox scrutinises means tests and government payments.


Common Ground: Paid maternity leave

CPD's flagship public event series, Common Ground, kicked off on Wednesday April 23rd in Sydney. Sharan Burrow, President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, and Tony Steven, CEO of the Council of Small Business of Australia explored what they have in common on the topic of paid maternity leave. Common Ground was opened by David McKnight, author of 'Beyond Right and Left', and moderated by Marie Claire editor Jackie Frank.


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