Australia: Dangerous growth of the welfare state

Michael McLaren from 2GB speaks with Benjamin Herscovitch, Policy Analyst at The Centre for Independent Studies, who discusses the dangerous growth of the welfare state in Australia.

Listen to the audio interview

The CIS has launched a TARGET 30 campaign to restrict government spending — currently 35 percent of GDP — to 30 percent.

4 Replies to “Australia: Dangerous growth of the welfare state”

  1. Australia is blindly following the United Kingdom and most European countries into financial oblivion.

  2. We are making it too easy for people to get free money instead of getting active and looking for income. Eg, single parenthood is now considered a ‘norm’ so if someone wants to have child on their own fine but why should they get direct govt support for years? Tell ’em to go get a job to support your child! Looks like the NDIS is just gonna be another huge handout. What happened to all the disability support communities and training programmes and the supporting industries that flourished? What happened to ‘Youth Training’ initiatives or the ‘Work for the Dole’ programs or the re-training programmes for the long term unemployed? The so called ‘Welfare Society” do nothing to improve the general well being or wealth of the country – they only take. It is taxes from the working population that is being used by govt’s of both parties to try and buy votes. Time to stop guys and rope in some of the waste. Just about everycountry in the world with generous hand outs are in deep financial trouble and now Australia is about to join them. The latest April news of a 12 billion dollar hole in the accounts is a warning of what is about to come. The treasurer is keeping the really bad news secret yet the Gillard Labor govt seem to be hell bent on leaving the country in a huge bloody mess as they know they will not be elected back in to office and the Lib/Nats will have to deal with it.

  3. By far the worst government Australia has seen in the modern era. Sadly they are allowed to continue the spiral into financial oblivion, despite an election being called in September, the Gillard Govt is still making financial decisions for the country; whatever happened to caretaker conventions once an election is called?
    As for the Welfare State, it couldn’t be further from the truth, the working population is robbed and robbed and robbed to feed the welfare recipients, the non contributors to society, what a sad state of affairs this once great nation is in.

  4. A lot of the problem goes back to the huge rise in family payments that came about during the years of the mining boom. The government spent that surplus, which was obviously only cyclical mining income and never a structural increase in national revenues. Thank Mr Costello for that.
    Enter the other mob and they have been allowing us to live in fantasy land for years that large cuts to balance the budget weren’t needed. I always thought Wayne Swan’s idea of getting the budget back into balance was ridiculous without much greater spending cuts than we have seen, simply because cyclical tax revenue was never something the government was ever going to be able to control. Now we are projected to be $12 billion dollars in the hole this year and Swan has quite predictably got egg on his face, pretty much as the economists have been predicting for the last two or three years..
    Assuming Abbott and Hockey take over shortly, things will be changing in terms of government spending. They seem to know that some deep cuts are required in that respect. No doubt the cuts will be sharp, as needed, similar to what Campbell Newman has done in Queensland. Only thing that concerns me is that ridiculous parental scheme that Abbott is proposing for the silver tails, rather than a base line system for everyone. So it could be we will be getting a different sort of welfare that favours the rich, including accountants and lawyers, than we are now. Which is exactly the problem that this guy in the video is talking about. Worse in some respects, because the rich will be getting more out of it than those on lower incomes. So if nothing else. I hope that Hockey makes Abbott sees the madness of his proposed scheme so the cuts in government spending simply don’t go out the door instead as increased welfare payments on the rich!

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