The following article was published in "The Guardian", newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia in its issue of Wednesday, June 6th, 2001. Contact address: 65 Campbell Street, Surry Hills. Sydney. 2010 Australia. Phone: (612) 9212 6855 Fax: (612) 9281 5795. CPA Central Committee: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> "The Guardian": <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Webpage: http://www.cpa.org.au> Subscription rates on request. ****************************** Federal Budget: A budget for the people What if Australia had a government of a new type, a government of people's unity, truly representing the interests of the people. A government closely linked with the people's mass movements and struggle. A government that would implement the policies of the left and progressive political forces, of the trade unions, environmental, peace, education and community groups. What sort of budget might such a government have brought down on May 22? by Anna Pha The main thrust of the Coalition's pro-big business budget is the transfer of wealth from working people and small business into the pockets of the rich and the big corporations. It does this by such means as privatisation, deregulation, cuts in funding to the public sector (health, education, housing, employment assistance, etc), so-called tax reforms, assistance to employers, and giving more power to "the markets" to determine Australia's economic direction. It fails to deal with many of the pressing issues concerning workers, pensioners, the aged, the unemployed and others on low incomes. Nor does it really address the problems of rural and regional Australia or Indigenous Australians. Present conditions call for an expansionary budget, one that puts money into ordinary people's pockets, which gives a boost to the public sector, creates jobs and protects the environment. Defend and extend the public sector The question of government planning and the public sector is central to any budget that is going to tackle economic development and job creation. The Communist Party of Australia calls for the adoption of a national investment policy that would outlaw control of the national economy by foreign investors. The CPA also proposes the return to public ownership of public services and enterprises, including transport, health, education, social services and social security, banking, insurance, water and electricity, and other key industries. No public education institution should need to rely on corporate funding. Education is a basic right. There should be sufficient funding to provide free, secular and universal education from elementary school to university. Public money should be used to improve resources, increase staffing, and ensure adequate salary increases. State funding to private schools and colleges should be phased out. Likewise in the health sector, the CPA calls for the maintenance and extension of Medicare and the full restoration of a publicly-funded national health and dental service providing care to all at home and in the workplace. It is a disgrace that in such a resource rich country so many people are homeless or driven into poverty by the high cost of private housing. A pro-people budget needs to give priority to increasing government funding for public housing so as to provide accommodation for cheap rental and for purchase. It is time the government resumed responsibility for key public infrastructure and utilities. Privatisation and contracting out have resulted in a rail tracks and stock, roads, water plants, airports, ports, telecommunications and other important public infrastructure being handed over to the private, for-profit sector. Cost-cutting, short-cuts and shear neglect by the greedy private operators have already begun to take their toll. In 20, 30 or 40 years those operators will have taken their profits and run, with no responsibility for what they leave behind. The budget could be used to commence the rebuilding process, halting and reversing privatisation and contracting out. The money spent in restoring the public education and health systems, in providing housing and maintaining and building infrastructure is badly needed, and would benefit all. Jobs & income redistribution Not only would people benefit from better and cheaper or free services, hundreds and thousands of jobs could be created in the process. Legislation would be passed to introduce a 35-hour working week without loss of pay, with a view to eventually reducing the working week to 32 hours. Apart from improving the quality of life and health of workers, such a measure would reward workers for the productivity gains that they have already achieved. Legislation is required to end the use of "casual" labour for ongoing work. The employment of more government officers to ensure that occupational health and safety standards are met would be of considerable benefit to workers. There is a great deal that could be done to transfer wealth in a progressive direction through increasing wages (particularly the minimum wage and abolishing junior rates), and making reforms to the social security and taxation systems. Social security payments should be increased so that the anomalies between different types of benefit are removed and payments increased to bring all recipients well above the poverty line. "Mutual obligation" and the stringent testing and harassing of recipients should end; the government should concentrate its energy and resources on job creation and genuine support for the unemployed. Workers need to be sure that when they retire their superannuation and other entitlements will be there. Thousands of workers are seeing their future incomes go up in smoke as companies crash and wealthy employers cheat them out of their legal entitlements. A publicly administered pension fund will guarantee the security of workers' retirement income. The taxation system plays an important role in income redistribution. The tax-free threshold could be doubled, providing instant benefit to all social security recipients, part-time, low and middle-income workers. The GST is aimed at draining the pockets of ordinary working people, students, pensioners and others on low incomes to provide tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy. The onerous GST collection requirements are killing small business. "Rolling back" the GST does not change its basic regressive and anti-people nature, and the exemptions for health, education or any other service or goods will not be permanent. The GST must be repealed and the tax cuts for corporations and high-income earners reversed. Funding the people's budget The above are some of the reforms that a government of a new type could introduce in a Federal Budget that put people first. Pipe dreams you might say. How would it be funded? By simply reversing the government's corporate tax cut and restoring the rate to 36 cents in the dollar, the government would have another $2.5-3 billion at its disposal. If dividend imputation on shares and negative gearing were abolished, and tax-dodging trusts treated the same way as business entities (as previously promised by the government), then there would be millions more for public infrastructure and higher social security payments. In the health area, savings of more than $2 billion a year could be made by abolishing the 30 percent private health insurance rebate. Instead of lining the pockets of private health insurers and the transnational corporations, which dominate the private hospital system, this money could be used to eliminate public hospital waiting lists, widen bulk billing and create a public dental health service. The many families who would then abandon private health insurance would save $1000 a year or more. If the government just halved the planned $14 billion for private schools over the next four years that would give a considerable boost to public education. Many parents are frustrated by the teacher shortages, school closures and other difficulties facing our under-funded public education system, and a number have been driven into the private system, believing it will give their children a better chance in life. With adequate funding, present difficulties could be overcome and many more parents would turn more confidently to the state system, which is what the overwhelming majority would prefer to do. This would also have the additional benefit of saving those families literally tens of thousands of dollars. Many billions more dollars could be raised from the profits of public enterprises over future years if the government were to nationalise the Commonwealth Bank and other privatised services and restore Telstra to full public ownership. Australia only needs one provider of telecommunications services. The One.Tels and other parasites riding on Telstra's back create many inefficiencies, unnecessary duplication and layers of profit. The government plans to spend an additional $25 billion on "defence" over the next 10 years for Australia to develop its role as the US's "deputy sheriff". What a waste! Think of all the childcare places, migrant English classes, sports and arts grants, community work and other social and cultural needs that $25 billion could provide. How far that money would go towards restoring our environment, funding desalination and re-forestation programs, and research into sustainable development. The CPA has for some time been calling for a 10 percent reduction in military spending ($1.2 billion) and a change in policy to one that genuinely strove to meet our defence needs. That $1.2 billion could be used for saving and improving the quality of lives. Why should our children's hospitals go begging? Why are there not enough support services and high quality, affordable care for our aged? And finally, if all of those measures did not raise adequate funds for a people's budget, then there is always the possibility of running a deficit. There is nothing wrong with borrowing, as long as care is taken not to overstretch the limits of what is necessary to service and repay the loan. With an expansionary budget that put hundreds of thousands more in work, the savings on social security along with the additional taxation revenue from those in work, would very soon see the budget back in the black. ******************************************************** -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
