Casting a fresh eye over social, economic challenges

Combative parliamentary chambers are vital for debate but often are not ideal forums for producing solutions to complex financial and social problems. Likewise academic and professional conferences, at which theory can overlook the pressures of realpolitik. On Wednesday, the Economic and Social Outlook Conference, a 20-year collaboration between The Australian and the Melbourne Institute, produced vital discussions on the hardest social and economic issues facing the nation, canvassing workable though controversial public policy options. Indigenous leader Marcia Langton, for example, warned green energy projects could have worse consequences for the poorest Indigenous people because vast solar farms would have a bigger impact on their lands than mining.

Another key issue canvassed was the sustainability of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. The budget showed it would cost $50.3bn in 2025-26, compared with $44.5bn in March. NDIS Minister Bill Shorten set out why. In a frank, enlightening speech he highlighted “spiralling numbers of children with developmental delay entering the NDIS”. With the numbers of young people with autism and psychosocial conditions (terms Mr Shorten did not use) driving rapid growth in NDIS numbers, he said more services and support for those young people needed to come from outside the scheme. At the same time, he conceded, the scheme was “not properly serving the people it was designed for”. It needed to be fixed. We have argued the same for years.

The NDIS has 555,000 participants, a total projected to reach almost 860,000 by 2030. About a third of participants have an autism diagnosis and four in 10 are aged 14 and younger. The fact one in 11 boys in Australia aged five to seven is on the NDIS beggars belief. Such realities need to be faced if the NDIS is to be rebooted to provide severely disabled Australians with the long-term security they deserve. The scheme, instigated by Labor, is a vital part of Australia’s social policy. Given political realities, Labor is the party best placed to secure the NDIS’s future.

As business and domestic energy consumers reel from soaring costs, sparking warnings of job losses at manufacturing plants, Australian Competition & Consumer Commission chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb foreshadowed advising the government to intervene in the domestic gas market to lower prices. “There is a high degree of urgency with what we are looking at,” she told the conference. Jim Chalmers said he was a “reluctant intervener”. But there was now a strong case for action, the Treasurer told the conference, to ease a price crunch driven in part by factors such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A price cap would provide short-term price relief. Anthony Albanese pledged to broker short-term relief from soaring energy prices by consulting with business and governments. The Prime Minister said he would negotiate with gas companies and the broader resources sector to help achieve household relief. But the most effective solution would be to boost supply. The serious downside of a price cap, energy producers told the conference, is heightening sovereign risk for gas companies, discouraging investors.

In his address, Dr Chalmers outlined a new, evidence-based approach to the “long road of budget repair” with a new position of evaluator-general within Treasury. The idea has merit. Fiscal repair must be a major goal of public policy.