Brotherhood Comment April 2011

ISSN 1320 8632A regulAr updA te from the reseArch And policy centreApril 2011Inclusive growthThe new action imperativeIn an address to the University becoming uncompetitive. Today, of welfare protection through of Tasmania, outgoing federal by contrast, what constitutes the wage system was largely Treasury Secretary Ken Henry becoming competitive is not so dismantled and social services were (2011) asked, ‘How does one clear. As Eslake and Walsh (2011) deemed better privatised, while communicate the imperative for observe, all the big-ticket reforms commentators were inclined to action’ in Australian economic of economic rationalism (floating proclaim the end of ‘welfare as we policy? The speech amplified a the dollar, dismantling tariffs, etc.) know it’. Social policy shrank to popular perception among the were inherently ‘one off’. Then the dimensions of ‘welfare’; and Henry generation that unless the the issue was simply about freeing ‘reform’ became identified with post-1983 economic reform agenda the market. Over the last decade, getting people off income support.is reinvigorated we will end up however, it has become more about face to face with the consequences devising the kinds of positive, We now realise how much this of an economic decline currently ‘smart government’ interventions narrow focus on income support masked by the minerals boom. which can deliver our human obscured from policy view some But surely their agenda belongs capital and ...