Readers will be aware that Australia is facing huge deficits, despite the promise of the previous Government to get into surplus.
As a response to this, the Centre for Independent Studies has proposed some fiscal rules to bind future Governments. They are:
Fiscal rules are not new for Australia. The Labor Hawke/Keating Government set rules being:
Anyway what I like most of all is their mechanism to encourage Governments to keep to the fiscal limits or rules. They propose:
This would involve cutting federal politicians’ overall remuneration by 1% for every percentage point breach of each fiscal rule for the duration of the breach.
Now that appeals!
NB: This post also appears on my personal blog kiwiblog.co.nz. Please feel free to comment on the post there.
David Farrar
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