I played my little part in the political theatre that was the Commission of Audit, with about 15 seconds on ABC Lateline. I’m pleased to see that other reviewers agreed with me in dismissing this tired remake of the 1988 and 1996 hits as stale and derivative. Attempts to gin up a bit of excitement by introducing the minimum wage as a new villain wnet nowhere, and reviving the golden oldie (last performed by Malcolm Fraser in the 1970s) of returning income tax powers to the states fell flat. And of course, a supposed audit of the public finances with tax expenditures cut out of the show is like Hamlet without the Prince. About the only thing to be thankful for is that they toned down the Hockey-Abbott melodrama of a debt crisis and budget emergency, preferring instead some dark murmurs about ominous long term trends.

I give it one star.

Most of the discussion of the Abbott government’s recently announced revenue raising measure has focused on semantics: is there a meaningful difference between a levy and a tax, has the government broken its promises and so on. All of this is boringly predictable. The last government to treat its election promises as binding obligations was Whitlam’s. Perhaps Rudd would have kept his promises if it weren’t for the GFC (I don’t think he broke many before that), but with that exception we’ve got used to the various theatrical devices associated with ditching promises: Black Holes, debt crises, Commissions of Audit and so on. The reaction of Bill Shorten and the Labor Opposition is equally predictable. The job of the Opposition is to oppose, and in particular to excoriate the government for breaking any promise, no matter how ill advised.

On the other hand, I’m disappointed that the Greens have taken the same line. Their job, in my view, is to use their leverage to promote sustainable social democratic policies, and to oppose regressive market liberal and environmentally destructive policies, regardless of source. So, for example, they were sensible to wave through Hockey’s abolition of the debt ceiling, even though it involved breaking a silly promise. They can’t stop the government breaking lots of promises on the expenditure side, so they should try and achieve balance by supporting sensible proposals to raise additional revenue.

The case in favor of an increase in taxes for higher income earners[1] is obvious. The big cuts promised by Howard in the leadup to the 2007 election, and largely matched by Rudd were unaffordable at the time and became even more so when the GFC led to slower growth in real and nominal incomes and therefore to less of the bracket creep that normally pays for such cuts. Along with Costello’s massive handouts to “self-funded” (but publicly subsidised) retirees the previous year, these cuts are the main reason it has been so hard to achieve a return to surplus after the GFC stimulus was wound back under the Labor government.

So, it makes sense to increase the rate, and to keep it high until bracket creep finally works its magic and restores the revenue raising capacity of the income tax to something like its pre-2007 level. I haven’t done the numbers but it seems as if four more years ought to do it. So, a temporary increase that can be called a levy makes sense. And, if everything else is held constant, an increase in revenue translates one-for-one into a reduction in debt.

Summing up, if Abbott wants to increase income tax on high earners, I’ll support him. And, if he wants to call this policy a “debt reduction levy”, I don’t have a problem with that.

fn1. Doubtless, we’ll get objections that taxpayers on $80 000 a year aren’t really high income earners, although the median wage for full time workers is around $60 000. But the extra tax payable by someone on $80 000 is precisely zero: the levy is only payable on income in excess of that level. Even at $180k, the levy is only $2000/year or about $40/week – a small fraction of the discretionary spending of most people earning this kind of income.

Only a few weeks until Budget Day and Joe Hockey is sitting on, or rather, selectively leaking the report of the so-called Commission of Audit. As promised, I’ve written a review in advance, which I presented to a Senate Committee a couple of weeks ago. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, needs changing when the actual report is released.

Ross Gittins has a piece, drawing on research by Jeff Borland of the University of Melbourne, in which he presents a “glass half-full” view of the Australian manufacturing sector. He makes some good points, but the overall picture is misleading.

It’s true that, on standard statistical definitions of the manufacturing sector, there’s still a fair bit of employment and output, though both have declined in recent years and will almost certainly continue to do so, given the recent closure announcements. But what’s left of manufacturing looks very different from the mental image the word ‘manufacturing’ produces, at least for me: a large factory, with hundreds of manual workers producing complex industrial products (consumer goods, motor vehicles, industrial equipment and the like).

A closer look at Borland’s data reveals the following:

* Within manufacturing, the main growth area is food processing typified by the production of meat, bread, milk and wine. More traditionally manufacturing-oriented parts of the sector like canning fruit are in decline as we saw recently with the near-closure of SPC.

* As regards employment, the share of managerial and professional staff is expanding, while that of laborers and machinery operators, the kind of jobs we would typically think of as ‘factory work’, is falling. [1]

On the latter point, Borland shows that laborers and machinery operators now represent 30 per cent of a manufacturing workforce of 955 000, implying around 285 000 jobs in total, around 2.5 per cent of all employment. By contrast, in 2011, there were 290 000 schoolteachers in Australia.

To sum up, manufacturing in the traditional senses of the term, is no longer a significant part of the Australian economy. This has a number of implications.

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