Boats secrecy leads to bad policy without democratic accountability

Alex Reilly (Director of the Public Law and Policy Research Unit, University of Adelaide) writes in The Conversation that there is confusion about the role of government, and the role of information in holding the government to account. The agencies of the bureaucracy are a central part of government. They carry out the will of the executive and as such need to be open to the same scrutiny as ministers themselves.

Why pensioners are cruising their way around budget changes

David Ingles and Miranda Stewart (both from the Crawford School of Public Policy at ANU) write in The Conversation that anecdotal evidence of pensioners significantly changing their lifestyle behaviour is a rational response to the recent Budget changes to the income and assets tests for the part pension. In contrast to the Budget changes, the Henry Tax Review and the Shepherd National Committee of Audit both recommended that the separate age pension asset test should be replaced by a comprehensive means test.