Big Ideas

Is there one clear possible area of policy reform that would provide a good basis for making society more civil? A core issue that affects a range of social well being indicators and our life choices? Could too much to do and longer working hours be at the heart of the discontents and social inadequacies of contemporary life?

Reducing standard working hours would challenge some basic political and social assumptions such as the ways our time is allocated between paid work and the rest of our lives. In most developed nations, we have moved in the opposite direction, from long-term commitments to reduce standard working hours (48 hours to 35) in the last century to implicit support for ever longer working hours. 

I remember debates in the 60s and 70s about how we might use the increased leisure that we expected to come from technological change and automation. 

Continue reading "Hands up who wants a 30-hour working week" »

This is the fourth in a series of essays adapted from the Centre for Policy Development book, More Than Luck: Ideas Australia needs now. Australian culture is rich, deep and diverse and our new federal cultural policy should recognise this, writes Ben Eltham.

Australia has been promised a new cultural policy by the Gillard Government, due sometime in 2011. What is a cultural policy and why do we need one?

Cultural policy is not often treated as an important public affairs issue. But culture touches on many of the things that Australians do, see, hear and engage with everyday. Watching television, reading a newspaper, playing a computer game, updating your Facebook status, sending a tweet, going to a bar to see comedy, even things like gardening and cooking: all of these activities are explicitly cultural.

Continue reading "Putting Australian culture under the microscope" »

This is the third in a series of essays adapted from the Centre for Policy Development book, More Than Luck: Ideas Australia needs now. Now that the kinks are being fixed, what will version 2.0 of the controversial My Schools website actually tell us about our education system, asks Chris Bonnor.

For students, teachers and parents, each school year carries all the atmosphere and expectations of a new beginning – a clean slate on which to score the year’s learning and achievement.

The beginning of last year was accompanied by the launching and immediate crash of the My School website. It staggered back on its feet and sustained millions of hits from the curious, accolades of support from the media and columns of analysis from both supporters and opponents.

After a while, and following an industrial skirmish, the excitement subsided - but concerns about the accuracy and efficacy of the site increased when its flaws were subject to closer scrutiny. The Australian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (ACARA)  came under siege, not only from a host of critics but also from a Senate inquiry and from the State education ministers.

Continue reading "My School 2.0 might actually tell us something useful" »

This is the third in a series of essays adapted from the Centre for Policy Development book, More Than Luck: Ideas Australia needs now. The Labor Government has set itself up for failure by upholding the view that asylum seeking is a national security threat, writes Kate Gauthier.

It is said that any civilised society can be measured by how it treats its most vulnerable people. Asylum seekers, vilified by the media and feared by the public, make an excellent target for unscrupulous public figures who seek to gain power or position through a culture of fear.

In order to appear tough on asylum seekers – tough on the victims of human rights abuses – successive governments and political parties have enacted or proposed policies that severely curtail the rights of people fleeing war, persecution and torture.

The argument in favour of taking a punitive approach is that it discourages onshore asylum seeking. This is shown to be false by two issues.

Continue reading "Big ideas: a sensible policy solution on asylum seekers" »

This is the second in a series of essays adapted from the Centre for Policy Development book, More Than Luck: Ideas Australia needs now.

A Medicare credit card could make healthcare co-payments simpler and more affordable, writes Jennifer Doggett.

If you’ve ever been sick – really sick - in this country, you know that paying your medical bills isn’t cheap.

It’s also complex. Health insurance seldom covers the full cost of a procedure, so patients often leave hospital with a big bill waiting for them. Some of it can be claimed back on Medicare; some of it can’t. As well as being expensive, medical expenses are difficult to understand and a huge waste of time and effort. And all when you’re supposed to be resting and recuperating! 

Our current system of health funding is failing. We spend more on health services every year and still many Australians miss out on the care they need.

Continue reading "A Medicare credit card could solve our health headache" »

This is the first in a series of essays adapted from The Centre for Policy Development‘s book More Than Luck: Ideas Australia needs now. Stayed tuned to The Punch this week for more Big Ideas.

What use is politics? It’s a question many Australians began to ask in the lead-up to the 2010 election as the Rudd and then the Gillard government ditched what seemed like a policy a day in a bid to lighten their electoral baggage. It was as if the government stood for nought except getting re-elected. What do we expect our governments to deliver, beyond our narrow self-interest?

Some say we get the governments we deserve. To some extent, this is true. When we stop paying attention to politics, we make it easier for politicians to stop paying attention to us.

Yet it is also true that governments get the citizens they deserve. If politicians treat elections as a marketing campaign instead of a genuine contest of ideas, then they should expect people to shop around for the best deal they can get for themselves.

Continue reading "Big ideas for Australia’s future" »