A Budget to enshrine inequality

14 May 2014

Governments have always included in their budgets a 'we're serious' clause. It doesn't address the real problems of the economy, saves relatively little money, but it is a symbol of the government's fierce determination to fix the economy.

It has normally been directed at the vices of the underclass. Once it took the form of increasing the tax on booze and cigarettes, the working man's weaknesses. Nowadays governments slash spending on the disadvantaged.

And so it is in the latest Budget. This change from demonising things to demonising people deserves reflection.

The decision to make an example of welfare recipients in the Budget was clearly taken before the appointment of the Audit Commission. The enquiry into welfare had been announced as a way of reducing unsustainable expenditure. Yet the growth in expenditure on welfare has in fact been relatively modest compared with other areas of government. The decision had to do with politics and ideology, not with economic need.

The impact on disadvantaged young people will be particularly harsh, particularly on those who have no safe home. Their income support will be unreliable, their access to appropriate education more difficult, and health care more costly. The cuts to education and health will also affect the services provided by the states

The practice of further disadvantaging the already disadvantaged reflects growing inequality between the more affluent and the disadvantaged members of society. Although a common response to discussions of inequality is to decry the 'politics of envy', the effects of growing inequality are real and corrosive in society.

Government ministers and the heads of the public service are relatively affluent. They mix with and consult others who are notably affluent. Neither affluence nor consorting, of course, is a moral fault. But the style in which we live and the people with whom we live and speak shape our imagination, the way we instinctively see the world. And what matters to those with whom we mix and what they take for granted will also matter more to us. We come to share their view of the world.

In an unequal society in which politicians and senior bureaucrats are relatively affluent they are likely to share with their conversation partners a working vision whose effect will be to entrench and deepen privilege. They will accept the gods of economic growth, competition and the market as inescapable, if not totally benign, and define the

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AUSTRALIA

A Budget to enshrine inequality

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