Squandering the benefits of the resources boom ignores -
1) When the price of ore increases, again (by 20%) how will Govt respond?
2) What about the FF? Not a SWF?
3) What was outcome of recent eco conference at UniMelb, led by KellyP?
4) How will Govt recruit the best talent to carry out the financial reforms & structures to map out infrastructure builds? (Hawker, AICD).
Call it Costello's legacy & expect nothing will come of next ore boom, but another round of Fed-State squabbling & blame-shifting.
Hard to see Labor turning round in Qld this year. If they came up with a formula to turn resources income into public infrastructure, that would more likely be a case of giving Qlders what they need, not what they want, eg, better health care & schools. Even "jobs for Qlders" likely to suffer perverse spin, 'cos "jobs" would have to attract the hated non-Qlders.
Try What I Learned in the Poverty War for Qlders:
But once we dismantle cash welfare and other forms of aid and offer paying jobs in their place, what about the children of those few people who simply refuse to work? I think that we should seriously contemplate removing these unfortunate children from their irresponsible parents. Under current child-welfare laws, social-services agencies can already take kids away from their parents if their home environment is unsafe. Is it so extreme to extend that policy to homes ruined by willful poverty and neglect? I concede that the alternatives here are not pretty; government-regulated foster care, in particular, has its own risks of abuse. Adoption, however, works fairly well in most of the country. Another solution would be the establishment of government-funded institutions, operated by voluntary and religious nonprofits, to care for the children.--
sent 28/12
Letters editor, The Australian
The editorial 'Squandering the benefits of the resources boom' (28/12) is all the more interesting for what it leaves out.
It refers to the need for a sovereign wealth fund, but omits any reference to the Future Fund.
It fails to build on the Economic and Social Outlook Conference, held less than two months ago.
The gravest omission, though, is the news about the coming boom in ore prices being reported in the financial sector. Will anything improve our ability to convert profits from iron ore into solid infrastructure? Or, will 2013 see a continuation of the bickering that passes for Federal-State cooperation?
Perhaps all governments could look at public transport as a single entity contributing to productivity. The latest admission about Myki, the all-purpose ticket for Melbourne, is that "it is a little bit clunky". Well, long-suffering commuters may say, "Fix it!", before trying to improve anything else.
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