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Australia's welfare system was designed for an era where men were the breadwinners and women worked outside the home only until marriage. Australia is a different place now, and the McClure review is an opportunity to update and simplify the system. But it must not confuse short-term cost-cutting with efficiency.
The Australian Government needs to be less cavalier and reticent to subsidise local manufacturers, who are obliged to be transparent about their work practices and bear the costs of this. When our politicians praise workplace efficiency in other countries, they are promoting manufacturing processes that often exploit workers.
As the China boom fades Australia is experiencing a delayed version of the GFC, without the banking crisis. Until now we've been reasonably well served by both sides of politics, in terms of macro-economic strategy. Now we require a way of dealing with more mundane economic issues like productivity and efficiency. Neither side has many good ideas about how to achieve the required structural shifts.
A certain metaphorical framework sees community organisations as factories and the people they serve as consumers. It can be useful to focus attention on the costs and efficiency of programs. But when it becomes the master model for caring for human beings, it betrays all that most community organisations are about.
Minority government has presented unique challenges to Gillard and her team, to which they have responded with dignity, clarity and efficiency. Politics in the Australian party system is a team sport, and it's clear Kevin Rudd has a thing or two to learn about loyalty and solidarity.
Considering the severity of South Australia's mice infestation and earlier plagues of locusts, you can be forgiven for feeling positively biblical. Many Australians, some in 'high places', need climate change to demonstrate its presence with such murderous, repeated efficiency.
Increasing the cost of cigarettes hurts the poor more than the rich. Kevin Rudd is acting with the callous efficiency of The Terminator when he really needs to find a more equitable incentive to give up smoking.
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