OPINION: Input from all quarters the best way for reform
Time to push for a more collaborative approach from all sides of politics to ensure economic reform that guarantees our future is sustainable and equitable.
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THE WHEEL needs to be reinvented and fast.
Another federal budget will have dropped by the time you read this.
Among it, increased charges on cigarettes, attempts to reduce bracket creep for those "average" income earners pulling $80,000 a year and mooted tax cuts for both small and medium businesses should have been delivered.
Money for schools, health and infrastructure have also been flagged, along with potential changes to company tax rates.
But will it be enough to fix the decay? Not likely.
Any government is effectively hamstrung in what it can and can't deliver nowadays.
Measures seen as too aggressive to improve the health of the economy can see a party turfed out of power in a flash.
Combine that with senate voting reform which pushes minor parties further away from the corridors of power and you find yourself with two major parties drawing more and more closely aligned.
The result is not pretty.
The age of entitlement is certainly not over, but it's well and truly in effect.
From the expectation of mega corporations to be able to continue doing business in and extracting assets from our nation while paying a bare minimum in tax- to those who may be able, but unwilling, to work and forego benefits- there is an undeniable problem.
Our region will be one of many to suffer until we reform.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics had the average wage and salary income on the Sunshine Coast at $43,688 in 2013. A long way shy of the $80,000 Treasurer Scott Morrison refers to.
Economic profiling in 2014/15 put the number of full-time-equivalent workers on the Sunshine Coast at just shy of 90,000.
If the 2013 average income is applicable to even half of those 90,000, that's a lot of locals for whom bracket creep measures will have no impact whatsoever.
The only thing they will serve to do is continue or exacerbate current pressures, as the cost of living shows no signs of reducing.
So how do we find a solution?
Reducing the number of political parties or the power they can garner seems to be the exact opposite of what we should be doing.
Why restrict our solutions to those coming solely from two parties who every day struggle more and more to differentiate themselves?
Shouldn't we be looking to bring as many heads from as many different backgrounds or leanings together to forge a path towards economic reform?
It's time all parties and politicians shelved pride and collaborated for change.
Originally published as OPINION: Input from all quarters the best way for reform
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