• Print
  • Email

Government Spending

economic-policy-govt

Governments spend taxpayers’ money on a wide range of programmes from education to defence and from welfare to infrastructure. Yet there can be too much of a good thing, and some government spending is just wasteful. How can we ensure that taxpayers are getting value for money?

Publications

  1. Saving Medicare But NOT As We Know It

    Jeremy Sammut | 30 Apr 2013 | TARGET30 Research Papers

    High growth in health spending is the area of public expenditure that will unsustainably increase the size of government... Read More...

  2. TARGET30 SNAPSHOT: Saving Medicare But NOT As We Know It

    Jeremy Sammut | 30 Apr 2013 | TARGET30 Snapshots

    High growth in health spending is the area of public expenditure that will unsustainably increase the size of government... Read More...

  3. After the Welfare State: Politicians Stole Your Future … You Can Get It Back

    Tom Palmer | 08 Apr 2013 | Occasional Papers

    History, economics, sociology, political science, and mathematics are the tools to understand and evaluate welfare states,... Read More...

  4. Tax Welfare Churn and the Australian Welfare State

    Andrew Baker | 27 Mar 2013 | TARGET30 Research Papers

    The welfare state currently consumes $316 billion a year; however, much of this spending is not targeted at those who need... Read More...

  5. TARGET30 SNAPSHOT: Tax Welfare Churn and the Australian Welfare State

    Andrew Baker | 27 Mar 2013 | TARGET30 Snapshots

    The welfare state currently consumes $316 billion a year; however, much of this spending is not targeted at those who need... Read More...

View All

Opinion & Commentary

  1. Gillard Deal Risks NDIS Timebomb

    Andrew Baker | 13 May 2013 | The Australian Financial Review

    In its eagerness to lock in the funding and governance arrangements for the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), ... Read More

  2. Only a super-style savings system now will help Medicare survive

    Jeremy Sammut | 30 Apr 2013 | The Australian

    THE intergenerational reports have told us repeatedly that escalating government spending on health is unsustainable in an ... Read More

  3. It’s time for surgery: the public purse is in dire health

    Simon Cowan | 26 Apr 2013 | The Australian Financial Review

    Reducing inefficient spending may harm vested interests, but meaningful reform cannot occur if no one is ever allowed to ... Read More

  4. The magic pudding state

    Benjamin Herscovitch | 23 Apr 2013 | The Drum

    Australians want government to spend more money on us, but we do not want to hand any more of our cash over to the tax office.... Read More

  5. Cure for a bloated public sector

    Simon Cowan | 05 Apr 2013 | The Canberra Times

    TARGET30 is not a slash-and-burn campaign; it simply asks people to consider what they really need government to provide.... Read More

View All

Ideas@TheCentre

  1. The elusive budget surplus

    Robert Carling | 17 May 2013

    The idea that we will have a balanced budget by 2015-16 should be met with healthy scepticism....

  2. Timid cuts to middle class welfare

    Andrew Baker | 17 May 2013

    The budget has delivered a new tax and some tinkering with the FTB system to pay for DisabilityCare instead of serious reforms ...

  3. Tax rises are not savings

    Simon Cowan | 17 May 2013

    This budget is further evidence that governments remain addicted to spending, and that is why it is time for TARGET30....

  4. Prospects for NDIS blowout

    Andrew Baker | 10 May 2013

    The NDIS could experience average annual growth of around 8% per year, which would make the entire scheme financial unsustainable ...

  5. How to save the health system

    Jeremy Sammut | 03 May 2013

    Creating a health savings-based system would go a long way in solving the affordability problems facing Medicare....

View All