The appointment of Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price to establish a new ‘government efficiency’ platform to crack down on wasteful spending could be brilliant for the nation — if the Coalition wins the next election.
But, Australian political history is littered with the garbage of Opposition shadow ministers taking on such a role and being failures in office. Unless Price is very disciplined, she will end up in the same garbage bin as her predecessors.
As I have written previously, the approach of President Trump and Elon Musk — albeit untried in government affairs — opens the possibility of cutting government expenditures while enhancing or not significantly reducing government services.
A trip by Price to the US to consult with Musk would make great sense.
But, in the absence of such a visit, let me apply what we know of the Musk agenda to the situation in Australia.
While Trump himself is eliminating departments or parts of departments, Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) does not start with an attack on government departments or benefits.
Rather, Musk starts with 400 government bodies which he hopes to reduce to 100 by slashing duplication and introducing computer enhancement, including artificial intelligence.
And part of the process will be Musk’s ‘Idiot Index’ which he used to dominate US space communications and electric cars. Musk compares the actual price of a particular item of goods or services with the cost of the raw materials.
In the case of products like spaceships or electric cars it’s simply a matter of adding up the amount of steel, plastic, rubber, aluminium, et cetera, and comparing it to the final product.
If the difference is too big then the CEO is an “idiot”, as measured by the index. (Musk is now helping Boeing).
Applying the Idiot Index to services compares the direct benefit provided to the cost of delivering the benefit.
If Musk came to Australia he would find thousands of government bodies covering a multitude of areas scattered around the three levels of our government with little co-ordination and enormous wasted expenditure.
In Opposition, policy preparation must be selective because these bodies are so scattered.
My advice to Price is to pick three or four areas where the proliferation of government bodies is extreme and is greatly harming overall activity.
The first and most obvious is closest to Jacinta Price’s area of expertise — Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander activities — where huge sums are being siphoned off by the agenda-setting bodies and not reaching places like Alice Springs where people desperately need it.
My second obvious area is, of course, the NDIS but this involves having a chief executive who is set the task of designing a completely new system. It can’t be done in Opposition and so for the moment let us put it aside.
So, my second priority is the Australian building industry where in many areas the market value of dwellings is markedly below the current cost of building.
A key reason for the gap is the cost of building is artificially inflated by the multitude of bodies and the delays and costs they inflict on the industry, which adds to the massive taxes imposed on new buildings.
Politicians and government officials often have large investments in existing dwellings so have a vested interest in keeping building costs high and are sensitive to local communities who don’t want new builds.
In most states government bodies and taxes contribute to about 40 per cent of the cost of constructing a dwelling.
This is an enormous problem which can’t be solved in Opposition, but what Price can do is prepare a “map” of the bodies and taxes in each state and how they increase the cost of dwellings, including the clamps on new housing construction methods.
In Victoria a revitalised Opposition is now preparing such a map, with the aim of following Musk. And the Victorian government is actually aware of the problem, but not finding it easy to tackle. Price needs to co-ordinate with the Victorian Coalition.
NSW has the worst set of bodies in Australia and is an example of how bodies become totally mixed up in a political morass. There is limited point in talking to the agenda-ridden NSW government but those big builders in NSW who have not been driven out of the industry can explain to Price how the system works. Solutions will require the carrot and stick approach with the NSW government.
Queensland has the best approval process, but the hard left elements of the CFMEU have captured Brisbane’s building industry so the state’s approval advantages are being eroded.
Price needs to establish the best practice and, if the Coalition wins the election, demand states follow said practice or have grants slashed.
A third area covers nurses and paramedics, where Australia-wide for an average of about 2.5 nurses there is one administrator, in most states.
Given the world standard is about 10 nurses/paramedics to one administrator, there is an opportunity to shift some administrators into real work, increasing the number of people on the ground and perhaps increasing their remuneration at no cost to the community. Such a radical approach requires working with all segments of the industry.
Proper management of the above three areas (and, later, the NDIS) would deliver enormous community benefit and might even help the budget deficit.
More Coverage
How much sleep do you need to stay heart healthy?
Sleeping too little or too much doesn’t just make you cranky, forgetful or tired. This little-known risk factor affects millions of Australians.
Buckle up, we are just a pawn in China-US chess game
We don’t want to be left out in the cold when the US and China figure out metals refining agreements. Too bad, we need sensible energy policy to avoid that.