Latest news with #AustralianClimateandBiodiversityFoundation

Sydney Morning Herald
7 hours ago
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
Ordinary Australians robbed of half a million dollars each: Henry
Working Australians had been robbed $500,000 since the turn of the century by the failure of the country to find ways to get businesses and people to work smarter, the former head of the federal Treasury has revealed, saying the situation will only get worse without substantial reforms. Before the federal government's productivity roundtable next month, Ken Henry, who headed a review into the tax system under the Rudd government and was pivotal to the introduction of the GST under the Howard government, said the nation's children were being short-changed by a current generation afraid to make hard decisions. Henry, the chair of the Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation, used an address to the National Press Club to argue the nation's poor productivity performance would become worse if environmental laws were not overhauled to both reduce red tape and protect nature. As Treasury secretary, he oversaw the first intergenerational report, released by then-treasurer Peter Costello, in 2002. After a sharp lift in productivity through the 1990s, the report assumed it could continue to grow over the next 40 years at around 1.75 per cent annually. Instead, productivity has slowed both here and around the world. In Australia, it has averaged less than 1 per cent since the turn of the century and has been negative over the past two years. Henry said as wages usually grew in line with productivity, the drop in productivity over the past 23 years had resulted in smaller pay packets for ordinary workers. 'The average full-time Australian worker has been robbed of about $500,000 over the past 25 years because of our failure,' he said. 'When I hear people say, we cannot do this to enhance productivity, cannot do that because it will hurt somebody, I think – give me a break. Who are we talking about here?'

The Age
7 hours ago
- Business
- The Age
Ordinary Australians robbed of half a million dollars each: Henry
Working Australians had been robbed $500,000 since the turn of the century by the failure of the country to find ways to get businesses and people to work smarter, the former head of the federal Treasury has revealed, saying the situation will only get worse without substantial reforms. Before the federal government's productivity roundtable next month, Ken Henry, who headed a review into the tax system under the Rudd government and was pivotal to the introduction of the GST under the Howard government, said the nation's children were being short-changed by a current generation afraid to make hard decisions. Henry, the chair of the Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation, used an address to the National Press Club to argue the nation's poor productivity performance would become worse if environmental laws were not overhauled to both reduce red tape and protect nature. As Treasury secretary, he oversaw the first intergenerational report, released by then-treasurer Peter Costello, in 2002. After a sharp lift in productivity through the 1990s, the report assumed it could continue to grow over the next 40 years at around 1.75 per cent annually. Instead, productivity has slowed both here and around the world. In Australia, it has averaged less than 1 per cent since the turn of the century and has been negative over the past two years. Henry said as wages usually grew in line with productivity, the drop in productivity over the past 23 years had resulted in smaller pay packets for ordinary workers. 'The average full-time Australian worker has been robbed of about $500,000 over the past 25 years because of our failure,' he said. 'When I hear people say, we cannot do this to enhance productivity, cannot do that because it will hurt somebody, I think – give me a break. Who are we talking about here?'


Perth Now
7 hours ago
- Business
- Perth Now
‘Mind boggles': Big call to bring back old tax
Former Treasury boss Ken Henry has renewed calls for a carbon tax, lashing former governments for dropping the tax. He said 'it still boggles the mind that we had the world's best carbon policy' and questioned: 'Why the hell did we ever drop it?' The carbon pricing scheme was introduced by Labor in 2012 and placed on about 500 of Australia's largest polluters. Under the policy, companies had to purchase credits to offset the amount of carbon produced, with the funds generated form the levy returned through tax cuts and increases to welfare payments. The measure was later repealed by the Abbott government in July 2014 and replaced with an offset scheme to incentivise companies to avoid emitting CO2 by earning carbon credits. Speaking at the National Press Club on Wednesday, Mr Henry, who was the Treasury secretary from 2001 to 2011, criticised the scrapping of the tax. 'It still boggles the mind that we had the world's best carbon policy and then, for purely political reasons, decided that we can afford to do without it,' he said, speaking as the chair of not-for-profit Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation. Former Treasury boss Ken Henry said 'why the hell did we ever drop it? when asked about the carbon tax. NewsWire/ Martin Ollman Credit: News Corp Australia 'A country that's capable of creating the best and then decides that it doesn't need anything at all – well, my God, of course we need a carbon tax.' Mr Henry urged the government to not 'give up' and fix Australia's 'broken' environmental laws, taking aim at the 'not fit for purpose' and outdated Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC). 'Report after report tells the same story. The environment is not being protected. Biodiversity is not being conserved. Nature is in systemic decline,' he said. 'Of particular concern, they are incapable of supporting an economy in transition to net zero, and they are undermining productivity.' He noted that the government's pledge to erect 1.2 million homes by 2030 would require more land and transport, meaning more interaction with EPBC assessments. In strong criticism, he said there was 'no point in building a faster highway to hell', and while approvals needed to be granted faster, the environment needed to be protected. 'These projects, be they wind farms, solar farms, transmission lines, new housing developments, land-based carbon sequestration projects, new and enhanced transport corridors or critical minerals extraction and processing plants, must be delivered quickly and efficiently,' he said. Speaking more broadly about government spending, Dr Henry, who authored the Henry Tax Review in 2010 to guide tax reforms over the next 10 to 20 years, said there needed to be more 'spending discipline'. 'If the budget is to meet these growing spending pressures, then we've got two options. We either increase taxes, as a share of GDP, or we grow the economy faster,' he said, noting productivity growth had slumped from an average of 2.31 per cent in the '90s to 0.98 per cent in the last 25 years. 'That's a pretty fundamental difference. 'If we continue on that trajectory, as we said in 2002, we will have no option but to raise taxes, and quite significantly, by several percentage points of GDP … or cut spending.'


Perth Now
8 hours ago
- Politics
- Perth Now
Call for help with big algal bloom choking coastal life
Calls are growing for immediate federal support and intervention in SA's algae crisis, as fishing and tourism industries struggle with the impact of a months-long bloom with no end in sight. The naturally occurring algal bloom has killed tens of thousands of marine animals of almost 400 species and caused widespread disruption to commercial fisheries and aquaculture since being identified off the Fleurieu Peninsula in March. SA senator Sarah Hanson-Young said the algal bloom was a national disaster requiring a national response, calling on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese "to come to Adelaide to stand on the beaches with me and to take some action". "People are seeing dead fish and marine life washed up on our metro and country beaches every day, people are reporting their dogs are getting sick after walking along the beach," the Greens senator said on Wednesday. Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation chair Ken Henry said the massive destruction of marine life was "not an early warning, that's a late warning". "It's well past time that we and others in the world dealt properly with threats of climate change and the warming of the oceans, which ... lies at the heart of the catastrophe that's occurring (in SA)," Dr Henry told the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday. On Tuesday, SA Environment Minister Susan Close said the bloom was a natural disaster but it did not fit the criteria of the National Natural Disaster Arrangements. The state government was working with the federal government on ways to tackle it, she said. A fisheries patrol vessel began underwater observations in the Gulf of St Vincent on Wednesday to understand the effect of the bloom on the ecosystem. Opposition primary industries spokeswoman Nicola Centofanti said she was shocked the government waited almost four months to start monitoring the impact on marine life. The algal bloom has spread along the SA coastline to the upper Spencer Gulf, the north coast of Kangaroo Island, the Fleurieu Peninsula, the Coorong and Adelaide's Port River. Toxins linked to the bloom have been found in oysters and mussels at Port Lincoln, and harvesting at local farms has been halted for at least four weeks. Senator Hanson-Young hosted a community forum in Adelaide on Tuesday attended by hundreds of people, and will call for a parliamentary inquiry into the algal bloom when federal parliament returns next week.


West Australian
8 hours ago
- Politics
- West Australian
Call for help with big algal bloom choking coastal life
Calls are growing for immediate federal support and intervention in SA's algae crisis, as fishing and tourism industries struggle with the impact of a months-long bloom with no end in sight. The naturally occurring algal bloom has killed tens of thousands of marine animals of almost 400 species and caused widespread disruption to commercial fisheries and aquaculture since being identified off the Fleurieu Peninsula in March. SA senator Sarah Hanson-Young said the algal bloom was a national disaster requiring a national response, calling on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese "to come to Adelaide to stand on the beaches with me and to take some action". "People are seeing dead fish and marine life washed up on our metro and country beaches every day, people are reporting their dogs are getting sick after walking along the beach," the Greens senator said on Wednesday. Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation chair Ken Henry said the massive destruction of marine life was "not an early warning, that's a late warning". "It's well past time that we and others in the world dealt properly with threats of climate change and the warming of the oceans, which ... lies at the heart of the catastrophe that's occurring (in SA)," Dr Henry told the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday. On Tuesday, SA Environment Minister Susan Close said the bloom was a natural disaster but it did not fit the criteria of the National Natural Disaster Arrangements. The state government was working with the federal government on ways to tackle it, she said. A fisheries patrol vessel began underwater observations in the Gulf of St Vincent on Wednesday to understand the effect of the bloom on the ecosystem. Opposition primary industries spokeswoman Nicola Centofanti said she was shocked the government waited almost four months to start monitoring the impact on marine life. The algal bloom has spread along the SA coastline to the upper Spencer Gulf, the north coast of Kangaroo Island, the Fleurieu Peninsula, the Coorong and Adelaide's Port River. Toxins linked to the bloom have been found in oysters and mussels at Port Lincoln, and harvesting at local farms has been halted for at least four weeks. Senator Hanson-Young hosted a community forum in Adelaide on Tuesday attended by hundreds of people, and will call for a parliamentary inquiry into the algal bloom when federal parliament returns next week.