Weekly roundup Saturday 18 May
Reflections on the budget
Weekly roundup of links to articles, reports, podcasts and other media on current political and economic issues in public policy.
Because of commitments requiring me to travel, I am taking a three-week break from the roundups. (That should give the budget noise time to abate.) The roundups will resume on Pearls and Irritations and on my own website on Saturday June 15.
The budget
Missing – a plan to reform and raise taxes. Treasury’s cleverness in using the CPI as a measure of inflation. Slowly rising wages, a Keatinesque-scale economic transformation, and a big problem with housing. Budget politics including Dutton’s pathetic response.
Other economics
How 24 million Australians living east of Longitude 129 degrees are generously subsidizing our most prosperous state. Cooking with gas, even if we don’t want to. The shonky economics of football stadiums.
Politics
McBride’s jail sentence: can’t we maintain better standards than Russia? The Coalition’s nuclear power policy explained: it’s about the party’s internal divisions. How John Howard debased the nation’s policy debate – and it hasn’t recovered. A warning from from Slovakia.
Health policy
Three ways we can make better use of the $250 million we spend on health (start by getting rid of private insurance). A positive evaluation of the budget from a health perspective. A reminder that people are still dying with or of Covid.
Public ideas
Wider systems thinking. An observer on how we have changed over 50 years. What happens when we stop breeding. We need to think more clearly about regions because we all live in one.
An Australian in Venice
If you have comments, corrections, or links to other relevant sources, I’d like to hear from you. Please send them to Ian McAuley — ian, at the domain name ianmcauley.com
