This is not an either or moment over reform

Treasurer Jim Chalmers speaks to reporters. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

I was amused to read the other day the Treasurer is adamant that the structural deficit needs to be addressed, but increasing the GST is a no-go area. Doing one without the other is close to impossible.

Jim Chalmers’ logic was that states get the revenue from the GST, so increasing it would do nothing to address commonwealth debt. True, if reforming the GST or the federation couldn’t include a second look at the way GST collections were originally structured. Of course that’s possible. The way the Howard government implemented the GST in the first place isn’t set in stone. Reform is supposed to be about, well, reform. It’s not meant to be easy and simple. Unless political courage is lacking.

Which of course it is.

And that’s before you even think about the absurdity of a political leader only caring about one tier of government’s economic viability, not the nation’s. The commonwealth encroaches on the states all the time when it suits them.

Tax reforms to address structural deficits are going to be much more effective if federal and state tax structures are looked at holistically.

Ken Henry, the man who was Treasury Secretary when Chalmers was a political staffer to Treasurer Wayne Swan, wants the GST to be reformed. What would he know … he only has a PhD in economics and professorship alongside a lifetime of public policy and private sector expertise.

Former Labor PM Paul Keating started the debate about introducing a GST as Treasurer at the 1980s tax summit. Chalmers wrote his politics PhD on Keating’s bold leadership.

When Dr Henry was Treasury Secretary he made more than 100 tax reform recommendations as part of the Henry Review Kevin Rudd commissioned in his first year in office. Less than a handful of the recommendations were enacted by the then Labor government. Henry wasn’t even allowed to investigate GST reform – he was banned from doing so in the terms of reference.

Fast forward to today and modern Labor still doesn’t have the courage to include GST reform as part of a tax reform agenda. It won’t even consider it before rejecting it. But it also doesn’t have the courage to abolish it and restructure our tax system without it. It leaves it to wither on the vine, structured as it was all those years ago, no longer fit for purpose.

One of the problems with modern politics is that those with power are too afraid to be bold and use it. Too afraid to be bold even in their thinking, before you even get to the timidity of their actions or lack there-of.

It certainly wasn’t a fear Keating had. Nor John Howard, Bob Hawke or Peter Costello. The era of great reformers is ever so sadly behind us, replaced by an era of time servers occupying the parliamentary benches. Those who go into politics these days are a sad shadow of the greats of the past.

Which is not to single out Chalmers for contempt. He has many peers in parliament. He’s actually one of the better ones. And it’s hard to blame modern MPs for their collective weakness in isolation.

Courage isn’t rewarded by the commentariat. Increasingly polarised on partisan grounds. Party memberships are unrepresentative of the wider community. Steering their MPs in all the wrong directions. Too many political staffers are untrained in serious policy development even though they wear badges as policy advisers. The public service isn’t what it once was, including not as independent. Journalists are uniquely placed to access and report on political decision makers. Yet no qualifications in either politics or public policy are necessary to do so. And the fourth estate is in financial decline anyway.

This county is overdue for major economic reforms. The government either doesn’t understand that or simply doesn’t care. Window dressing its plans to appear as something they are not. More significant than they really are.

New governments are supposed to use the political capital they arrive with to really achieve great things. The Albanese government hopes to do that regarding the voice. Good on them. But now can’t be an either or moment. The economy and the tax system needs urgent extensive surgery.

The nation desperately needs our major parties to do what the major parties did in the 1980s and embrace economic reforms. They didn’t agree on everything back then, but they agreed on enough to set up future prosperity. The political leaders of today aren’t rising to the same challenge.

Peter van Onselen is a professor of politics and public policy at the University of Western Australia and Griffith University.