Stone was the last of the old-style Canberra mandarins, serving eight Australian treasurers, from Snedden to Keating.
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Former treasury boss Ken Henry has fessed up to helping dumb down debates about tax and budgets to lists of winners and losers. He says what matters is what wins rather than who.
The official figures tell us inflation is 5.4%. But for working families, it’s actually 9%. Yet there is some good news ahead.
Up until December 9 1983, officials used to announce each morning how much the dollar was worth. Even bankers were shocked about letting the market set the price – but it’s served Australia well.
Hayden investigated floating the dollar a decade before Labor did it, and he cut taxes and slashed spending growth, putting Labor on a new course.
Former Reserve Bank and Treasury chiefs have gone on to run Westpac, the National Australia Bank, the ANZ, and Macquarie Bank. It makes regulating those banks hard.
Australia’s past reports have been largely ignored big issues like housing and climate change. Ahead of the latest report’s release, here’s what we’re still missing – including giving you a say.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers wants to make the national wellbeing framework part of how governments make decisions, as others like Wales have done. But international experience suggests it won’t be easy.
When COVID-19 struck, Australia’s Treasury didn’t have the luxury of years of work, refinement and debate to develop JobKeeper. It had to perform battlefield surgery.
There’s a lot the treasurer could do, but there’s an argument for leaving things as they are.
Top contributors
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Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
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Senior lecturer, Canberra School of Government, University of Canberra
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Honorary Associate Professor in the School of History, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University
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Scientia Professor of Economics, UNSW
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Professor of Health Economics, University of Technology Sydney
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Honorary Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, The University of Melbourne
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Visiting Fellow, Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University