Why the federal budget is not like a household budget

This is a timely article from Warwick Smith (research economist at the University of Melbourne) on the simplistic and misleading view that many in the public and the Parliament (and, alas, many economists) have of Government budgeting.

Managing Government finances is very different from managing a household Budget, and confusing the two approaches leads to poor public policy. The key differences include:

• Governments can compulsorily levy their income from taxpayers according to its needs, albeit that there may be some political pain and economic implications which may impose some limits
• Governments can (and do) print money (creating income out of nothing), with the only limits being balancing the inflation and exchange rate effects
• the need to balance budgets is a myth, which harks back to the days when currencies were backed by the gold standard

Higher education changes a ‘fraud on the electorate’

This is an excellent article on the Government's poorly conceived and executed higher education "reforms" from Stephen Parker, Vice Chancellor at the University of Canberra, and one of the only University leaders to speak out against the proposals.

Public sector performance measurement and reporting

The Victorian Auditor-General has recently published a report which documents the lamentable nature of public service performance reporting, not just in Victoria but across all Australian jurisdictions.

The role of rice in the food security of Asia

It was a pleasure to read an authoritative survey on food security recently. Peter Timmer is an Adjunct Professor at the Crawford School of ANU and was previously at Harvard.

Timmer's article, Food Security in Asia and the Pacific: The Rapidly Changing Role of Rice, is a survey of the changing role of rice in the food security of Asia, the behavioural dimensions of food security, and policy approaches.

Treasury workshopped dealing with recession in 2003-04

The Treasury has released papers, under a Freedom of Information request, documenting how it's Executive Board considered dealing with a possible recession in 2003-04. The issues raised in the papers figured large in Treasury's advice to the Rudd Government in 2008, when considering a response to the global financial crisis.

Lacking political leadership: Comparing the treatment of boat people in 1977 and today

An excellent article by Klaus Neumann, Professor of History at the Swinburne Institute for Social Research, in “Queue jumpers” and the perils of crossing Sydney Harbour on a Manly ferry provides the historical context for the current morass that is Australia's refugee policy.

Neumann provides a survey of the Vietnamese boat people "crisis" that occurred in 1977 and draws parallels with the politics of boat people during the last decade or so.

Former PS Head: Five problems with the state of the public service

Two recent articles in The Mandarin on problems with the APS—one from a former APS Head and the other a former Minister.