Public ideas
Ross Gittins on small government
Soon the Albanese government will be halfway through its elected three-year term. It has drawn attention to the economic problems bequeathed to it by the Coalition – an administration that neglected to address the nation’s economic structure and was treating public finances as an extension of its campaign funding. Labor has made sensible statements about our economic problems and opportunities, and has set in train a number of enquiries, some of which are reporting back with interim recommendations to address urgent problems.
In spite of this pent-up need, however, the government is hyper-cautious, particularly about anything that may require spending public funds or making a significant reallocation of resources.
Maybe what’s holding the government back, suggests Ross Gittins, is the public idea of “small government”. That is the notion that public spending has to be contained within a small envelope, even though Australia is trying to get by with almost the smallest public sector and lowest taxes of all high-income countries, and in spite of evidence that many of our problems in health care, education, support for the unemployed, and deficiencies in transport infrastructure, result from a long period of fiscal austerity.
The specific context of Gittins’ most recent comment on the cost of the “small government” idea is university education. The problems in our universities stem from successive federal governments trying to get universities off the federal budget. Education Minister Jason Clare has been presented with a report showing where the problems lie, but the government is making only baby steps in addressing these problems, because to do anything requires spending public money. Gittins concludes:
We’re stuck with smaller government in the sense that the pollies aren’t game to ask us to pay more for a better one.
On Fascism
In a previous roundup there was a link to Robert Reich’s five-part definition of Fascism. In a 7-minute video, Reich covers the same ground, with some neat graphics and short clips from Trump: Is Donald Trump a Fascist?. He explains that Fascism goes further than everyday authoritarianism, and that it has a strong layer of misogyny.
If we believe Reich is referring only to Trump we might consider some of the views and proposals circulating in Australia, particularly by those on the political fringe, who see issues such as the Voice and rights for minorities as opportunities to promote their creeds.