As the demands for economic reform grow ever shriller, identifying the reform killers becomes ever easier – they’re everywhere. Without an attitudinal change in Australia’s democratic institutions, reform is dead.
Academics prepare pretty papers detailing essential reforms and lazily blame parliamentarians for refusing to commit political suicide by implementing their prescriptions. Some argue for cutting the company tax rate funded by an increase in the GST rate on the basis that Australia must be internationally competitive in attracting overseas productivity-raising capital and that the GST is an efficient tax.
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Craig Emerson is managing director of Emerson Economics. He is a distinguished fellow at the ANU, director of the Australian APEC Study Centre at RMIT and adjunct professor at Victoria University’s College of Business.
