We'd be high tax, were it not for the amount of it we pay ourselves

Not better than other countries, not worse. But different

So big is Australia’s middle-class welfare system it turns Australia from a high tax to a low tax nation when government payments and tax benefits are taken into account.

An Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report released Wednesday in identifies Australia as the third highest taxing of the OECD’s 34 members in terms of the rate facing a one-earner married couple with two children.

In 2010 the rate facing such a couple on the average wage was 20.4 per cent. Only Finland and Denmark charged more at 22 and 23.6 per cent.

But when cash benefits were taken into account the rate facing the Australian couple fell to 6.6 per cent, the tenth lowest in the OECD.

The rate has slid from 17.4 per cent to 6.6 per over the past decade as tax rates have slipped and benefits become more generous...

The benefits identified by the OECD include Australia’s Dependent Spouse Rebate, Baby Bonus, Education Tax Refund, Family Tax Benefit A and B, Parenting Payment, Large Family Supplement, Private Health Insurance Rebate, Low Income Tax Offset, Mature Age Worker Tax Offset, Superannuation Tax Rebate, Newstart, and Pharmaceutical Allowance.

Published in today's SMH and Age

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Jobs market stalls not. Dodgy figure.

Australia’s expanding jobs market officially came to a shuddering halt in April, casting doubt on Tuesday’s budget forecasts - but few of the experts believe it.

The Bureau of Statistics reported yesterday that 22,100 jobs were lost in April after almost two years of near-continuous jobs growth.

Treasurer Wayne Swan boasted Tuesday that more than 300,000 new jobs had been created in the past year with a further 500,000 on the horizon over the next two years.

The 22,100 slide in April was said to be the net result after a 49,000 slide in full-time jobs and a 26,900 climb in part-time employment.

Fuelling suspicions about the figure was an extraordinarily large reported NSW slide of 44,000 - the second-biggest on record and more than enough to account for the national loss...

The Bureau’s so-called matched records show that among the households it surveyed in both March and April employment increased, meaning the apparent decline in jobs was driven by the status of people in the households who joined the survey in April and left it in March.

The Bureau surveys the same households eight months in a row, with about one-eighth of the sample dropping out each month and another one-eighth joining.

“It looks like a statistical quirk rather than genuine weakness in the labour market,” said RBS economist Kieran Davies. “I think it’s sampling error, reflecting problems in rotating new people into the survey.”

Financial markets took the figures at face value, halving the implied probability of a an interest rate hike next month and pushing the Australian dollar down 1 cent to 105.9 US cents.

“But shortly afterwards the dollar started to grind higher as people thought the employment figure would be a rogue number and would be unwound,” said Commonwealth Bank currency strategist Joe Capurso. ‘‘The jobs market is still in pretty good shape with unemployment at 4.9 per cent.’’

Measured to two decimal places the unemployment rate fell further from 4.92 to 4.85 per cent.

The NSW unemployment rate remained steady at 5.1 per cent, Victoria’s climbed from 4.5 to 4.7 per cent and Queensland’s fell from 5.5 to 5.2 per cent as flood recovery work boosted employment.

Teenage employment continued to fall with the number of 15 to 19 year olds in work down 27,000 after a year in which total employment climbed 270,000.

Published in today's Age


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Coalition's "auditors" still under investigation

Ahead of tonight’s Budget in Reply speech the Institute of Chartered Accountants has revealed that the two Perth accountants who advised Tony Abbott on the $50 billion of savings he put forward in the last election remain under investigation.

Geoff Kidd and Cyrus Patell of WHK Horwath signed a statement endorsing the Coalition’s costings released two days before the 2010 election despite promising the Coalition in a separate letter to make no inquires about “the reasonableness of otherwise of the assumptions used”.

A later examination by Treasury found up to $11 billion of errors in the costings including double-counting and purporting to spend money from funds already allocated.

Institute chief executive Graham Meyer told the Herald the pair were still under investigation eight months after the Institute received a complaint, saying the process had taken longer than expected.

The Institute began investigating Mr Kidd and Mr Patell in August after Sydney University accountancy professor Bob Walker alleged they had breached both auditing and ethical standards by allowing their work to be described as an audit when it was not...

Shadow Treasurer Hockey repeatedly described the work as an audit in the lead up to the election, saying later he had used the word "as would be understood in laymen's terms".

Mr Meyer was unable to say how much longer the investigation might take saying such things depended on “the complexity, the availability of material, the availability of witnesses, the availability of tribunal members, a whole range of factors”.

Mr Kidd is a former Western Australian chairman of the Institute.

Published in today's SMH

Statement from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia

26 August 2010

The Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia (the Institute) has received a complaint about a matter that involves publicly raised allegations regarding the conduct of two members with accountancy firm, WHK Horwath, Perth.

The Institute has commenced an investigation which involves an opportunity for the members to respond to the allegations.


Professional Conduct Process

As a professional organisation, membership of the Institute is based on meeting the highest standards of professional conduct and performance. The Institute treats matters that bring the profession into disrepute very seriously.

Issues arising from members’ conduct are investigated under the Institute’s By-laws and relevant cases are referred to the Professional Conduct Tribunal for determination.

Based on legal advice, specific commentary cannot be provided while matters are considered for investigation or for the duration of any subsequent Tribunal hearings. All information relating to complaints lodged with the Institute and produced during the investigation process is confidential.

To ensure the privilege of professional membership is upheld the Professional Conduct Tribunal has the power to impose sanctions on individual members who act inappropriately.

The ultimate sanction that can be imposed is exclusion from membership and withdrawal of the right to use the Chartered Accountants designation. Other sanctions include suspension, reprimand, fines or the requirement to undertake additional professional training.

For further information about the Institute's disciplinary process please visit http://www.charteredaccountants.com.au/A116936841

Auditing Standard 804

Section .02: In an engagement to audit prospective financial information, the auditor should obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence as to whether:

. management's best-estimate assumptions on which the prospective financial information is based are reasonable for the preparation of the prospective financial information;

. the prospective financial information is properly prepared on the basis of the assumptions;

. the prospective financial information is properly presented and all material assumptions are adequately disclosed, including a clear indication as to whether they are best-estimate assumptions or hypothetical assumptions; and

. the prospective financial information is prepared on a consistent basis with historical financial reports, using appropriate accounting principles.

APES 110 Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants

Section 130.6: Where appropriate, a Member should make Clients, employers or other users of their services aware of limitations inherent in the services to avoid the misinterpretation of an expression of opinion as an assertion of fact.


Coaltiion Costings Document August 18 2010


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Budget reality check. Is $150,000 typical

Anyone would think the budget had frozen the income limits for getting family tax benefits at $150,000.

Talkback radio was alive with calls about it the day after the budget. Was a family income of $150,000 high or typical?

Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey thought it was typical. “$150,000 a year for a family is certainly not rich Australia, it is very much middle Australia,” he told the ABC. “Besides I want people to aspire to earn $150,000 or more.”

The budget documents themselves say that for the next two years the cut-off for getting Family Tax Benefit B, paid parental leave and dependency tax rebates will be frozen at $150,000. That’s $150,000 of personal, rather than family income - anything but typical.

The cut-off for getting the baby bonus will be frozen at $150,000 of family income and the cut-off for getting Family Tax Benefit A will be frozen of at $94,316 of family income, increased by $3796 for each additional child after the first.

What the budget doesn’t make clear - but should - is that these cut-offs are already frozen...

Labor introduced the $150,000 ceilings in 2008. Before that Family Tax Benefit B and other payments could go to the families of millionaires.

In its 2009 budget it froze indexation of those benefits and also Family Tax Benefit A for three years.

Since then anyone whose income has sailed through the ceiling has lost the benefit.

This Budget extends the freeze for a further two years.

Although booked as a saving, it changes nothing. The $150,000 cut-offs have never been indexed. The $94,316 cut-off hasn’t been indexed since 2009.

(The benefits themselves will still be indexed. That hasn’t changed either. Family Tax Benefit A will climb by between $113 and $146 in July, Family Tax Benefit B by between $66 and $95.)

The number of families who’ll be shut out of benefits as a result of the extension when their income climbs is relatively small.

Around 1.9 million families receive Family Tax Benefit A. Treasury believes that in 2012-13 the 31,000 best-off of them will lose the benefit.

Around 1.6 million families receive Family Tax Benefit B. Treasury believes the best-off 9000 of them will lose the benefit.

Some 700 families will lose the baby bonus and just 17 families will lose paid parental leave.

As to the contention that they are typical, or typical Sydneysiders, the tax statistics show NSW residents are far from Australia’s highest earners. On average Western Australians and ACT residents earn more.

In 2008-09 the average NSW resident earned $55,300. In Point Piper and Darling Point the average was $176,400, but away from the harbour it was much less.

Published in today's SMH


The Australian on middle-class welfare. It used to oppose it.


UPDATE: Matt Cowgill:

"median gross household income was $67 003 a year, less than half what the $150k-$200k “battlers” of News Ltd’s imagination scrape by on"

"Mr Gray, the man in the Daily Telegraph’s story, earns $150 000, which would put him in the top 3% of taxpayers by income"


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TaxWatch on the budget changes

TaxWatch:

Comments by Professor Julian Disney

WHAT’S IN THE BUDGET ?

> The Dependent Spouse Tax Offset will be phased out for most people under 40 years old (saves $755 million over 4 years)

Comment: This is a long-overdue reform, although it will increase the incentive to exploit the larger and more damaging income-splitting loophole which is available through the use of trusts. That loophole should have been addressed directly in this Budget.

> The portion of Low Income Tax Offset (LITO) which can be received fortnightly will be increased from 50% to 70% (costs $1.25 billion over 4 years).

Comment: This is a very modest but desirable benefit for low-income people. Improvements to the LITO are generally preferable to increasing the tax-free threshold or cutting the lowest marginal rate, both of which flow on excessively to high-earners.

> The LITO will not apply to minors who get income from other sources rather than earning it themselves (saves $740 million over 4 years).

Comment: This is a good reform, addressing a loophole which had escaped the attention of many reformers but not of inveterate tax avoiders on high incomes. It will reduce to a significant extent the attractiveness of using trusts to split income with children although there will remains scope for tax avoidance through transfers to children which purport to be earned income.

> The Fringe Benefits Tax on company cars will be at a flat rate of 20% irrespective of usage (saves $970 million over 4 years).

Comment: This is a useful but flawed reform to reduce excessive car usage, inequity and erosion of revenue. It desirably reduces the previous incentive to drive very long distances but regrettably increases the incentive to drive shorter distances rather than, for example, use public transport. It also suffers from the inherent weakness of the basic FBT regime being based on the top marginal rate rather than a more progressive structure. There will be some scope for abuse of the preserved right to base claims on log books.

> The Family Tax Benefit A will be increased very substantially for parents of people aged 16-19 years who are in full-time secondary education (costs $770 million over 4 years).

Comment: This increase should be accompanied by much better availability of secondary education that meets the interests and aptitudes of people seeking employment opportunities which do not require tertiary education.

> The freeze of indexation of thresholds and rates which affect payments of Family Tax Benefit A to high-earners will be continued for two more years (saves $1.2 billion over 4 years). The freeze will also apply to indexation of Family Tax Benefit supplements (saves $800 million over 4 years).

Comment: The modest reductions in payments to wealthy families are justifiable savings to help achieve a tight budget.

> The Child Care Rebate will be claimable on a weekly to fortnightly basis and can be paid directly to the provider.

Comment: The Rebate should have been merged in to the Child Care Benefit (as recommended by the Henry Review) or means-tested more tightly.

> The Education Tax Rebate will be increased considerably to help pay for school uniforms.

Comment: An increase of this kind is of dubious merit when the rebate is not means-tested and the educational uses to which it can be put are so limited.

> The Entrepreneur’s Tax Offset will be replaced by the previously announced cut in the corporate income taxrate and by other tax concessions for small business (net cost or saving is undisclosed)

Comment: These changes are generally appropriate, although the cut in the corporate income tax rate should not exceed 1-2% at most (rather than the foreshadowed cut of 5%).

> The annual caps on concessional superannuation contributions for people over 50 who already have accumulated benefits of $500,000 will be set at $25,000 and one-off relief from penalty rates for excess contributions will be provided.

Comment: These changes modestly improve the scheme.

> The tax treatment of losses on Infrastructure Australia’s priority projects will be more generous.

Comment: This change is broadly acceptable.

> Charities will be taxed on profits from unrelated commercial activities and their GST and FBT concessions will not be available for those activities.

Comment: These changes are sound in principle but raise great difficulties of interpretation in practice. The associated promise to define charity by statute could be useful but must not swing from being too permissive to too restrictive.

WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN THE BUDGET ?

> Trusts should be taxed on the same basis as companies (including the equivalent of dividend imputation) or taxed in the hands of the controller.

Special arrangements could be made for legitimate concerns affecting rural land holdings.

> Negative gearing should be restricted by allowing expenses to be deductible only against income from investment, not other sources such as wages and salaries.

Alternatively, it could have been restricted by reducing the CGT discount and deductibility of expenses along the lines proposed by the Henry Review.

> The superannuation tax concessions for high-earners should be reduced substantially, as recommended by the Henry Review.

This could have helped fund, amongst other things, the relaxation of the income test for age pensioners which is promised in the Budget.

> The previously foreshadowed cut in the corporate income tax rate to 28% should have been abandoned or delayed further and the longer-term goal of a 25% rate should have been abandoned.

The corporate income tax rate is not very high by the standards of comparable OECD countries, and the overall tax on corporate incomes and payrolls is extremely low by OECD standards. In addition, we have about the most generous system of dividend imputation for shareholders.

Read more >>

The ultra user-friendly budget guide

From Commonwealth Securities:

CommSec Budget 2011

Read more >>

Budget 2010-11 reviews: Mostly favourable

Colebatch:

HOW do we explain it? Unemployment is less than 5 per cent. Banks and mining companies are reporting record profits, even if High Street is hurting. The global financial crisis ended here long ago. Soaring export prices have made Australia richer than ever.

Yet our federal budget is sick. This year's deficit will be almost as big as last year's. And then, even with a formidable $22 billion of spending cuts and revenue rises announced yesterday, and on optimistic forecasts of economic growth, Treasury estimates that it will still be in deficit next financial year, although less so, and will deliver only small surpluses in the following three years.

The Liberals want us to think it's because Labor is too weak to cut spending. Sorry, guys, but this budget cuts spending quite a lot. We will see that in coming days because the Liberals and Nationals will be screaming blue murder against the very cuts they say there should have been more of.

It can't have been an easy political decision for Labor's leadership to take $2 billion off middle-class families by freezing family benefit payments and thresholds at the upper levels. It can't have been easy to choose to lose votes by cutting younger Australians' access to a dependent spouse rebate, or to halve the discount for making HECS payments as you go.

This budget has hundreds of savings measures, mostly transparent, and some of them deliberately opaque...

Gittins:

Julia Gillard and her government may be suckers, but they deserve an even break. Every budget contains things to criticise but, overall, this one is good. We were warned it would be tough and it is - especially on the better-off.

It could have been more excruciating - economists are hard to please when it comes to inflicting pain - but it's tougher and more courageous than all but the first of the 12 budgets the now-sainted Peter Costello delivered.

Wayne Swan plans to tighten up on people with company cars, private health insurance and family trusts. He will get at those who pay their university fees up-front, mothers who stay at home and wealthier couples with dependent children and older workers using salary sacrifice to supplement their super.

Not only is this the first budget in nine years not to include a tax cut, it imposes the temporary flood tax levy. Tony Abbott will be righteous in his condemnation - but the man's so relentlessly negative he would have ripped into the budget whichever way Gillard jumped, adjusting his criticism to fit.

So why is a government that is travelling so badly in the polls, and without a majority in either house, proposing so many unpopular measures? Because there's nothing like having your back to the wall to focus the mind.

This government, in both its incarnations, got nowhere trying to be popular and to avoid offending anyone who matters. What it desperately needs is respect. The way to win it is to be seen as willing to make the hard decisions needed to secure our future.

Whatever the voters' immediate reaction, I suspect in time there will be a grudging recognition that Gillard has guts...

Stutchbury:

The inadequacy of Wayne Swan's fourth budget has left Australia highly vulnerable to the gathering risks in the global economy, punting everything on our China luck continuing to hold.

Australia already has spent more than this China luck has delivered in the form of a 170-year high in our terms of trade and record high mining export prices. This includes the blowout in Swan's current-year budget deficit to just under $50 billion or 3.6 per cent of gross domestic product.

Even assuming our China luck will hold, the budget will only just scrape into the black in 2012-13. And the surplus will remain below 1 per cent of GDP for the following two years.

That is, Labor offers no prospect of building up a solid surplus or "stabilisation" fund that could be kept in reserve to cushion the economy when it next turns down. He's ruled out any fair dinkum tightening of budget policy at the top of the biggest commodity price boom in Australian history. Remember, as a post-election budget this is the one that is supposed to be the tightest in the political cycle...

Read more >>

Budget 2010-11: In some ways the economic picture is bleak

By numbers:

Mining investment in the pipeline: $380 billion
Mining exports to jump 20% in two years
Jobs growth to slow to 1.75% per annum
Unemployment to fall very slowly to 4.5% by June 2013
Inflation to climb to RBA ceiling of 3% by June 2013
GDP growth of 4% in 2011-13, 3.75% in 2012-13


Australia is about to be showered in more mining income than ever before, but relatively little of it will flow through into jobs according to budget papers.

The volume of Australian minerals shifted offshore should climb 20 per cent over the next two years. The mining industry is set to invest record a record $76 billion in 2011-12, around eight times what it did before the boom. In the pipeline is $380 billion of resources investment.

Rural exports will soar 13.5 per cent this financial year despite Cyclone Yasi and remain high for the next two years.

But when it comes to jobs the gains will be minimal by recent standards. Australia’s unemployment rate is at present 4.9 per cent. Treasury forecasts no improvement by June and then a minimal slide to 4.75 per cent a year later, inching down to 4.5 per cent by June 2013.

The rate of job creation will slow from more than 300,000 this past year to 250,000 in each of the next two years - and it will do it at a time when Australia’s economic growth rate explodes from 2.25 per cent this financial year to a blistering 4 per cent in 2011-12 and 3.75 per cent in 2012-13.

Treasury says this mining boom won’t generate as many jobs as the last one, in part because Australia is running low on skilled workers. As it puts it: “The starting point of the economy is now different, with the economy operating closer to full capacity at the start of Mining Boom mark II, indicating less room for above-trend growth without generating wage and price pressures”.

Put more brutally... Treasury thinks unemployment can’t fall much lower without igniting wages and inflation and inviting retaliation from the Reserve Bank.

Treasury has reestimated the so-celled non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU) and found it be between 4.5 and 5 per cent, meaning that from here on gains in employment will invite higher interest rates choking off further gains.

As evidence that it means it, it has plugged in an unemployment rate of 5 per cent to calculate its economic projections for 2013-14 and 2014-15.

Away from products that can be imported Treasury says inflation is already 4 per cent, well beyond the Reserve Bank’s 2 – 3 per cent target zone. It expects overall inflation to climb to the top of the band by mid 2013.

The non-mining economy will suffer as much as it benefits from the mining income flowing into Australia. Non-mining businesses have to live with higher interest rates and a contractionary budget (“tightened macroeconomic policy settings”); increased competition for workers; unusually cautious consumers, and a historically high dollar.

Tourism and education exports will remain weak. Services exports will slip 0.5 per cent this financial year and 3.5 per cent in 2011-12 before climbing back 1.5 per cent in 2012-13.

Employment will be patchy. Figures presented in the budget documents show that while regions such as Whyalla in South Australia and the Hunter in NSW more than halved their unemployment in the past mining boom, the Western Mallee in Victoria and central western Sydney boosted their unemployment rates 50 per cent.

The floods and cyclone ripped $9 billion out the Australian economy earlier this year, almost certainly pushing economic growth negative in the March quarter and in combination with Japan’s disasters slicing 0.75 per cent off annual economic growth.

Treasury sees that effect fading quickly. It believes it will have to deal with effects of the mining boom for years to come.

Published in today's SMH and Age


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Budget 2010-11: Is Swan's surplus credible?

As credible as could be

Treasurer Swan has navigated a return to surplus in the face of heavy head winds. Larger than expected corporate losses accumulated during the global financial crisis and a weaker than expected economy will cut tax receipts this financial year and the next by $16.3 billion more than was anticipated in the November budget update.

The direct cost of rebuilding and assisting the states after the floods will come to $6.6 billion.

To get back into surplus by 2012-13 Mr Swan has slowed spending to a crawl – it will climb by just 0.5 per cent after inflation in 2011-12, fall by 0.1 per cent after inflation in 2012-13 and climb 1.9 per cent in 2013-14.

The average growth rate of 1 per cent per annum contrasts with around 3.7 per cent per year in the decade before the financial crisis.

To do it while expending spending in some high priority areas he has made $22.2 billion of savings cuts over four years.

Cuts to the defence budget and reprioritising of defence spending contribute $2.5 billion; freezing indexation of the thresholds for family payments and family tax benefit supplements brings in $2 billion; the flood levy brings in $1.7 billion, and a temporary increase in the efficiency dividend required of public service departments adds another $1 billion.

Equally important as a driver of the return to surplus will be what Mr Swan will not do.... Whereas during the previous mining boom the Coalition and later Mr Swan made personal tax cuts an annual event, from here on he won’t cut personal tax at all.

As the economy recovers, growing 4 per cent in 2011-12 and 3.75 per cent in 2012-13 and as tax losses are used up corporate tax revenue should increase quickly, all the more so as the minerals resource rent tax ramps up.

Wage growth of 4 per cent per annum climbing to 4.25 per cent in 2012-13 will push more and more workers into higher tax brackets.

Bracket creep will become the Treasurer’s semi-secret weapon.

His decision to freeze until July 2014 the upper income limits for families claiming family payments will make sure bracket creep bites.

By co-incidence - despite the floods, cyclone and earthquakes that have got in the way - the surplus he is projecting for 2012-13 will be exactly the same as the $3.5 billion he took with him to the 2010 election.

The government will become debt-free just a few months after it was scheduled to in 2019-20.

It’ll be the fastest budget turnaround in 44 years of records, from a deficit of $49 billion in 2010-11 to a surplus of $3.5 billion in just three years.

As with any forecast it is far from guaranteed. The world economy could turn down and mining revenue slip. Conversely the mining investment boom could continue longer allowing mining companies to write off expenses against their profits for longer. Or wages mightn’t grow by as much as the government needs in order to rake in the proceeds of bracket creep.

But given the Treasury’s central forecasts the surplus looks achievable. If profits and wages grow even faster than forecast it will be even bigger.

Published in today's SMH and Age


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Budget 2011-12 I'm going in.

At 1.00 pm I go into the lockup.

They won't let me out until 7.30pm, when the Treasurer begins his speech to Parliament.

Like I said, the budget speech will be here at 7.30pm eastern time, and instant analysis will be here.

Any last minute tips on things to look out for?

Any thoughts to carry into the lockup?

Any questions you want answered?

I'll be reading comments (until 1.00pm).

Read more >>

Budget 2011-12: What we know

The give...

$772 million (over five years)
Extending Family Tax Benefit A to cover teenagers aged up to 18

$425 million (over four years)
Awarding performance bonuses to teachers

$350 million (over four years)
Allowing small businesses to instantly write-off the first $5000 of new cars cost from 2012-13

$309 million
Giving each full pensioner a free digital TV set top box

$292 million (over four years)
Taking 4000 genuine refugees from Malaysia

$281 million (over four years)
Giving each trades apprentice a $1700 bonus

$200 million (over 2.5 years)
Grants to schools to support students with disabilities

$47 million (over four years)
Enforcing tougher welfare rules for teen parents

$27 million
Giving former prisoners of war an extra $500 each fortnight

Negligible cost:

Lifting the proportion of the Low Income Tax Offset paid weekly

Requiring very long term unemployed to volunteer two days per week 11 months per year

Boosting skilled migration 20,000


...the take

$3.1 billion (over four years)
Closing chronic dental disease scheme

$1.9 billion (over four years)
Means testing private health insurance rebate

$1.1 billion (over four years)
Boosting public service efficiency dividend

$950 million (over four years)
Tightening FBT rules for employer-provided cars

$700 million (over one year)
Deferring until 2012-13 tax discounts on interest earned

$500 million (over four years)
Halving upfront discount for HECS payments

$365 million (over four years)
Axing Entrepreneurs Tax Offset

$300 million
Cutting 1000 Defence jobs

$54 million (over four years)
Tightening tax rules for charities


...and the forecasts

2.25%
GDP growth 2010-11

4.5% unemployment
By June 2012

500,000 extra jobs
By June 2013

$51 billion
Budget deficit 2010-11

$16 billion
Budget deficit 2011-12

More than $3 billion
Budget surplus 2012-13

More tonight!

Read more >>

Looks like Hockey's getting help

Read more >>

A Penny for her thoughts. Wong on making Tuesday's budget.

Finance Minister Penny Wong says she has prepared a “Labor budget” and has at times had to stand up to the prime minister to do it.

Speaking to the Herald ahead of her first budget in the role Senator Wong said she had a dress rehearsal with the flood levy package in January which made $3 billion of savings by scrapping programs such as the poorly-conceived cash for clunkers scheme.

“It’s an arduous process, although very intellectually interesting. I have managed to get home to Adelaide only once in the past few weeks,” she said.

Sitting around the cabinet table at times until ten at night with expenditure review committee members including the treasurer and prime minister her role has been to sometimes say no and to always “argue for better decisions”.

“I have been trying to remind them of opportunity cost. When you think about a proposal you need to think about what other spending that proposal would cut off. The job is to bring minds back to core priorities.”

Those priorities are returning the budget to surplus and expanding employment opportunities...

“I disagree with those who claim this isn’t a Labor budget,” Ms Wong said.

“Labor values are about enabling opportunity. In this budget, at this time, with the economy growing we are able to do that.”

“And ensuring the budget is sustainable is a Labor value. We need ensure we can continue to afford a safety net. People who say they are progressive and care about the effect of climate change on future generations should also care about the financial legacy we leave future generations.”

Asked whether she has always won her fights in the committee she says she has tried to “win more than I lose”.

Has she had to argue against proposals put up by the prime minister?

“My job is to put my view on any proposal regardless of who puts it forward,” she replies.

Asked whether she won the day on those occasions she replies, “the prime minister is the prime minister, let’s just say that.”

Alongside the closing of tax loopholes and saying no to a raft of new spending proposals much of the saving in Tuesday’s budget will come from simply increasing the so-called efficiency dividend facing each department from 1.25 to 1.5 per cent.

Ms Wong rejects the suggestion that its an easy way out.

“Ministers such as myself shouldn’t be deciding which stationary departments buy,” she says. “The departments are in the best position to do that.”

She confesses to a slight fear they will make deliberately unpopular savings, something she refers to as the “Washington Monument syndrome” after an episode of the West Wing in bureaucrats cuts by the opening hours of the monument in order in order to garner public support.

“I think the professionalism of the public service will protect us against that,” she said, adding that it was “human not to be too pleased about being asked to save money.”

Published in today's SMH and Age


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Budget be damned. Why rates are going up regardless.

Believe it now.

The Reserve Bank will raise interest rates weeks after the budget regardless of its content.

Taking advantage of the traditional release of its own economic forecasts on the Friday before the budget the Bank said unless it acted swiftly inflation would climb to the top of its target band and sail beyond it.

It has held its cash rate steady at 4.75 per cent since Melbourne Cup Day 2010. An increase of 0.25 per cent would push the variable mortgage rates charged by Westpac, the Commonwealth and ANZ banks above 8 per cent. It would add around $50 to the monthly cost of servicing a $300,000 loan.

The next opportunity for the Bank to move is on June 7 at its next Board meeting four weeks after Tuesday’s budget.

It’s made plain that the increase would be the first of several.

Financial markets had already pencilled in two Reserve Bank increases, in early 2012 and mid 2013.

The Bank presented forecasts showing that if those were the only increases it imposed the underlying inflation rate would shoot to the top of its 2 to 3 per cent target band by December 2011 and climb to 3.25 per cent by December 2013...

Signalling it would not be dissuaded by negative economic growth in the March quarter national accounts to be released on June 1 the Bank said it would “look through the volatility in inflation and economic activity as a result of the natural disasters during the summer”.

It would set rates “to ensure a continuation of the low and stable inflation that has made an important contribution to Australia’s strong economic performance over the past two decades”.

The bank expects inflation to accelerate as wages climb in response to falling unemployment and is concerned mining companies will “compete aggressively for labour” pressuring wages further.

It expects economic growth to accelerate to a blistering 4.25 per cent by year’s end, easing to 3.75 per cent by December 2013 as the high Australian dollar eats into the profitablity of non-mining companies.

Also driving inflation will be higher utilities charges (especially electricity) and rents with a more stable Aussie Dollar no longer holding back import prices.

The dollar surged on the Reserve Bank’s statement climbing half a cent to 107 US cents despite falling international commodity prices.

Economists from Westpac, Nomura, HSBC, Deutche Bank and the ANZ all switched their forecasts to a June rate hike followed by more as needed to caintain inflation.

The Commonwealth Bank thought a June hike was likely.

 Westpac chief executive Gail Kelly said on Wednesday Australians would not be able to handle more than one rate hike for the remainder of the year.

National Australia Bank chief Cameron Clyne said further rate rises were inevitable.

Treasurer Wayne Swan warned against “jumping to conclusions about future decisions” on the basis of what the Reserve Bak said.

“The Reserve Bank takes its decisions independently of the government, but the government is playing its role in bringing our Budget back to surplus in 2012-13 and building those surpluses over time to make sure we make room for the investment boom,” he said.

Separately yesterday a Senate inquiry rejected calls for Australia Post to go into banking to provide competition in the mortgage market and called for a new commission of inquiry into the financial system.

Published in today's SMH and Age

Reserve Bank May 2011 Economic Outlook



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Human Guinea Pigs. How the ATO used us to test its computer

The Tax Office decided to turn on its new income tax processing system over the Australia Day long weekend in 2010 knowing it was “virtually certain that significant errors will emerge as processing ramps up”.

The internal advice, detailed in the Inspector General of Taxation report released yesterday was that many of the defects could only be fixed when the system was live, meaning taxpayers would effectively used as guinea pigs to bed down the system.

Aware that if they didn’t take the system live in January 2010 they would have to wait until January 2011 after the 2010 tax year to try again, the Tax Office went ahead in part because of the high risk of losing key staff if they waited another year.

Two years late and $300 million over the $445 million budget the Tax Office felt that if it waited the new system would cost them an extra $200 million. It also wasn’t sure it would be any better prepared.

An external investigation had found morale low, the development team “somewhat dysfunctional” and the quality assurance process promised by the contractor Accenture “not being followed in practice.”

Over the Australia Day long weekend 27 million taxpayer records were transferred to the new system. On February 2 it was impossible to go back...

By May 5 Tax Office staff had applied 395 e-fixes or workarounds, an average of 30 per week.

Some were as simple as manually turning on and off parts of the system.

Negative taxable income figures sent to Centrelink were being read as positive and Centrelink was demanding repayment of benefits. Refund letters were being set out without refund cheques and as many as one million tax returns were held up.

The ATO diverted 1200 staff from other duties to answer phones and process forms.

The number of staff manually processing urgent hardship payments swelled form the usual four to 200. Tax officers had to manually input information into the old computer system, email the result to other parts of the government to check whether there was an outstanding debt, and then type the assessment into a Microsoft Word document which was then double checked by another officer. If a refund was due the case was referred to another officer for approval and a hardcopy cheque manually prepared on different computer system.

Taxation Inspector General Ali Noroozi believes the Tax Office probably had little choice but to bring the imperfect system on line in January 2010 and saves his criticism for its approach to communication and compensation.

An update on the Tax Office website on March 2 referred to the problems holding up returns as “minor” when it was likely they would have been classified as Severity 1 defects were it not the presence of a “safety net” that withheld returns from processing.

Mr Noroozi recommended the Office communicate more openly with taxpayers and its staff and improve the process for offering compensation. Tax Commissioner Michael D'Ascenzo has accepted the recommendations about communication but has not agreed to reassess the rules for compensation. As of November it had received only 94 claims for compensation.

The Inspector General’s report has been with the government since December. His chief recommendation is that in future such projects the government avoid over-reliance on one contractor and introduce the new system in modules rather than in one hit.

Published in today's SMH and Age


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About that economic growth. Expect a one per cent slide

Westpac is forecasting a sharp contraction in the Australian economy in the March quarter - the most severe for 20 years - after much weaker than expected retail spending figures forced it revise down grim forecasts.

The Bank now says economic output will slide 1 per cent in the March quarter figures to be released after the budget, a slightly worse decline than the 0.9 per cent recorded during the global financial crisis.

Retail spending slid 0.5 per cent in March taking the trend rate of growth to just 0.1 per cent. Adjusted for inflation the Bureau of Statistics seasonally-adjusted estimate of the volume of goods sold in the March quarter was no higher than the December quarter.

The zero real spending growth came at a time when the Australian population grew 0.4 per cent.

Annual growth slid to just 0.8 per cent...

Inflation-adjusted spending rose most in a category known as “other” retailing including flowers and antiques climbing 5.6 per cent, followed by shoes (up 3.8 per cent) and pharmaceutical goods (up 1.5 per cent).
Spending fell most in sporting goods, toys,
video games (down 5.3 per cent) and electrical and electronic goods (down 2.9 per cent).

“The March quarter was a wash-out in every sense,” said Westpac economist Matthew Hassan. “Sales were dominated by the impact of severe flooding and Cyclone Yasi.”

“Volumes were flat in the after sliding 0.4 in the December quarter. That is borderline recessionary if you subscribe to the idea that two consecutive quarterly declines constitute something more serious than just a slowdown.”

The Reserve Bank will release its set of forecasts this morning (FRI) and has indicated that it too will be forecasting negative growth in the March quarter, followed by a swift bounceback later in the year. It is has singnaled that it prepared to lift interest rates to control inflation even if economic growth is negative.

Commonwealth Securities economist Savanth Sebastian said he doubted the Bank now would raise rates, saying anyone who had thought so “had better think again”.

“Consumers are not spending. Retailers have been telling us conditions are the weakest since the height of the global financial crisis. Well the data bears it out, in fact department stores have experienced the largest real drop in sales for a decade.”

Shares in Myer slumped 1.6 per cent; shares in David Jones Ltd 1.8 per cent.

The dollar fell to its lowest level in more than a week, sliding from 107.6 to 107.0 US cents.

Published in today's SMH and Age

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Hockey said what? He'd get the budget to surplus earlier

New private sector forecasts showing a dramatic deterioration in the government’s budget position suggest the Coalition is promising the impossible in saying it could bring the budget into surplus one year early.

The Access Economics forecasts released this morning say this year’s budget deficit will be come in at $51 billion instead of the government’s most recent forecast of $41 billion; the 2011-12 deficit will be $22 billion instead of the officially-forecast $12 billion, and the promised 2012-13 surplus will be a paper-thin $710 million instead of the officially forecast $3.1 billion.

“The surplus will be a rounding error,” said Access director Chris Richardson. “But then so too was the government’s November surplus forecast of $3.1 billion. We don’t expect a sizable surplus until 2013-14.”

Coalition Treasury spokesman Joe Hockey turned attention away from the government towards himself yesterday when he might be able to bring in a surplus earlier...

“When we laid down our plans at the last election, we outlined $50 billion of savings, hard measures that included a reduction in the Commonwealth public service of more than 12,000 people,” he said.

“Given that, and given the rules that we applied to ourselves in Opposition, we would be delivering a surplus as quickly as possible, perhaps even earlier than 2012-13.”

Finance Minister Penny Wong pounced on the claim asking his leader Tony Abbott to explain where the Coalition would make the extra savings.

“In eight days’ time when Mr Abbott stands up as the alternative prime minister before the Parliament, he will have to outline to the Australian people just how he is going to get the budget back to surplus earlier than the government,” she said. “That’s the test that Joe Hockey has now set.”

Mr Abbott replied he had already outlined savings during the 2010 election campaign and would do again “in good time before the next election”.

“But I’m certainly not going to respond to cheeky challenges from a minister who is going to be guilty of helping to bring down a budget without the carbon tax in it,” he said.

Senator Wong said the $50 billion of savings the Coalition identified in the election were later costed by Treasury and found to contain errors including double counting.

“We saw a $10.6 billion black hole which Tony Abbott has never accounted for. The Coalition thinks it can simply wish its way back into surplus by rocking up at a press conference and telling people it is going to achieve it without doing the work, without doing the savings, without doing the costings.”

Deloitte Access said flood reconstruction and the delayed flow-through of corporate losses sustained during the financial crisis would be a drain on the budget on 2013-14. From then on the budget would be healthier and surpluses bigger as the mining income flowed into tax revenue aided by the new minerals resource rent tax.

“But those surpluses will be hostage to China’s demand for our resources,” Mr Richardson said. “Future budgets will come with a Made in China stamp.”

Published in today's SMH and Age


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Inside your grocery cupboard: Inflation, but not as you know it

Milk (2 litre whole) down 62 cents, $3.11
Eggs (dozen free range) down 22 cents, $5.26
Breakfast cereal (750g) down 11 cents, $3.85
Bread (700g sliced) down 8 cents, $3.71
Baked beans (420g can) down 5 cents, $1.45

Bananas (1 kilo) up $2.84, $5.39
Tomatoes (1 kilo) up 40 cents, $5.67
Tomato sauce (600 ml) up 22 cents, $2.09
Onions (1 kilo) up 21 cents, $3.23
Butter (500g) up 11 cents $4.36

Average Sydney prices, March on December quarters

If you want a handle on the confusing currents and counter currents driving inflation, go through your grocery cupboard.

The detailed price records collected by the Bureau of Statistics in the three months to March show the milk discount war and the soaring Australian dollar aggressively driving down the prices of shelves worth of staples while the floods and climbing commodity prices play havoc with others.

The average price paid for a two litre bottle of full cream milk in Sydney fell 62 cents between the December and March quarters to $3.11 -- a substantial cut, but a long way shy of the $1.99 being charged by Coles and Woolworths, in part because we are continuing to buy milk from other outlets and in part because the lower price didn’t apply for the full three months.

Free-range eggs, also discounted by Coles, fell in price 22 cents to $5.26 per dozen.

The soaring dollar pushed down dozens of other prices and shielded still more from the full affect of climbing international prices...

The average price of a box of breakfast cereal fell 11 cents to $3.85. A can of baked beans fell 5 cents cheaper to $1.45. Although these products are often made in Australia, they are subject to downward price pressure from international competition.

The average banana price recorded by the Bureau was $5.39 per kilo, up an extraordinary $2.84, but well short of the $12 per kilo many Sydneysiders are paying because the bureau averaged prices over the entire three months.

The average price of a kilo of onions climbed 21 cents, tomatoes 40 cents and tomato sauce up 22 cents to $2.09 for a 600 ml bottle.

Products derived from commodities caught up in the world-wide economic recovery climbed in price despite the restraining influence of the dollar.

Instant coffee climbed 18 cents to $7.81 per 150 gram jar and milk chocolate climbed 10 cents to $3.78 per 200 gram block. Sydney petrol climbed 11 cents per litre to $1.38 with the price higher at the end of the quarter than at the start.

The cross currents paint a picture of building inflationary pressure held back for the moment by the climbing Australian dollar and supermarket discounting. With milk and eggs unlikely to discounted further and with the dollar likely to soon find its top they suggest higher inflation in the year ahead partly offset by the unwinding of flood-affected fruit and vegetable prices.

Published in today's SMH


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Going Up. The Reserve prepares to raise rates

The Reserve Bank believes inflation has troughed and it will soon have to lift interest rates, possibly next month.

The Bank’s change of heart emerged during a three-hour board meeting that resolved to leave the cash rate steady at 4.75 per cent but to be prepared to lift it without waiting for the next quarterly inflation figure.

The consensus of the meeting was that last week’s unexpectedly high inflation figure showed the underlying rate had troughed at 2.25 per cent and was set to climb.

There would be no point in waiting for confirmation from the next set of inflation figures due in July which would be dated by the time they were considered at the Bank’s August board meeting...

The Bank would monitor employment, wage and consumer confidence and spending figures and act early if they appeared to confirm inflation was moving.

Bank staff believe the underlying inflation rate of 2.25 per cent leaves very little room for upward pressure if the Bank is to meet its long-run target of keeping the inflation rate to 2.5 per cent.

Another rate rise, the Bank’s first this year, would bring its cash rate to 5 per cent and push most standard variable mortgage rates above 8 per cent, adding a further $50 to the monthly cost of servicing a $300,000 mortgage.

The board resolved not to be dissuaded by news of negative economic growth in Australia's March quarter national accounts due to be released ahead of its next board meeting on June 1.

“The natural disasters over the summer have reduced output in some key sectors and the resumption of coal production in flooded mines is taking longer than initially expected,” it said in the statement released after its meeting.

“It is likely this caused a decline in real GDP in the March quarter. Production levels should, however, recover over the months ahead, and there will be a mild boost to demand from the rebuilding efforts as they get under way. Over the medium term, overall growth is likely to be at trend or higher.”

The bank believes there are already signs of rising inflation, set to be made worse by the coming investment boom.

A Deloitte Access survey released today identifies $767.5 billion in large investment projects underway, almost half of them in mining. Transport, utilities and communications projects account for about one quarter of the total with manufacturing accounting for less than 5 per cent, most of it related to resource projects.

Deloitte Access partner David Rumbens said the two-speed investment profile was a complete turnaround from the start of the last decade when manufacturing had a clear lead over mining with close to double its investment.

The Reserve Bank is keen to signal that it will pay little attention to the two-speed nature of the economy in deciding to move rates, being guided almost solely by its inflation target.

A rate rise at its next meeting in next meeting in June would come just four weeks after next week’s budget and perhaps inadvertently be seen as a judgement on it.

Treasurer Wayne Swan said an average family with a $300,000 mortgage was still paying nearly $160 less per month in repayments than they when labor came to office in 2007.

“That’s a saving in the order of $1,880 a year,” he said. “It’s extra money that’s important given the cost of living pressures many families face.”

Published in today's SMH and Age


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Meet Australia's next Competition Czar

The name's Sims, Rod Sims

The man in line to succeed Alan Fels and Graeme Samuel as the third head of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission says he wasn’t looking for a new job, until he ran into Wayne Swan at the Brisbane Airport.

“I would like to have a chat with you,” Rod Sims recalls the deputy prime minister saying. As they talked later in Canberra it became clear Sims would have to give up several of the jobs he loved.

Often referred to as a former economic advisor to Bob Hawke, he says his passion is world poverty.

“I took the job with Hawke in 1988 as part of a standard two-year public service rotation,” he told the Age after his appointment was announced yesterday.

“I stuck to two years. I took the view that if I had stayed longer I would have crossed a line which I didn't want to cross. I don’t have any political affiliations,” said Sims who needs the approval of state governments, many in Coalition hands, to be formally endorsed as ACCC chairman.

For ten years a bureaucrat ending up as deputy secretary of the department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, and before that for ten years a development economist working in Papua New Guinea and for the Commonwealth Secretariat, Sims these days regulates water, electricity, and gas prices as head of the NSW Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal and provides economic advice to the Gillard government’s Multi-Party Climate Change Committee.

He has also been a corporate consultant at Port Jackson Partners advising on mergers and acquisitions, territory he will revisit as head of the ACCC.

But the job he loves most - the one he says will be hard to surrender - is the one that takes to Singapore as head of the InfraCo Asia, a development company funded by foreign aid that sets up wind power, irrigation and hydro electricity projects “in the poorest parts of Asia, where the private sector won’t get involved”...

He has just set up two hydro projects in Nepal and is proud of what InfraCo is achieving.

“But I think I’ll have to give up everything,” he says. “Chairman of the ACCC is a full-time role.”

“Actually I think it is fair to say its the only job I would give up my present jobs for.”

Asked why, he says the ACCC’s is fundamental to the proper working of a market economy.

“It looks after consumer protection, safety standards, market conduct, mergers and acquisitions, the regulation of infrastructure. It’s the core.”

“Unless you have a body that is actively looking after these things, market economies can run off the rails.”

Born in Lorne on the Great Ocean Road two and half hours out of Melbourne and studying development economics at Melbourne University he says the ACCC job is the one his career has been moving towards.

“I honestly think, and this is going to sound a bit arrogant, the role needs somebody who has a good public policy background but also understands the real world of business, and I guess I think I can probably do it pretty well and make a contribution, whereas I wouldn't’ say the same about other positions,” he said.

Announcing the nomination yesterday along with that of Greg Medcraft as the next chairman of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Mr Swan said both who would play an important part in promoting competition and ensuring the integrity and confidence of financial markets.

Graham Samuel had done an outstanding job at chair of the ACCC for five years under both Coalition and Labor governments. He leaves in August.

Mr Sims wouldn't be drawn on his priorities as one of Australia's two new corporate cops saying his appointment hadn’t yet been approved and he didn’t want the states to think he was taking them for granted.

Published in today's SMH and Age


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If the PM said it it must be... Gillard's rubbery figures

The prime minister’s office has been unable to back up one of the key claims about employment made in her scene-setting speech ahead of the budget.

Ms Gillard told the Sydney Institute on April 13 “the social and economic reality of our country is that there are people who can work who do not”.

As evidence she said “we know there are 230,000 people who have been unemployed for more than two years”.

The Bureau of Statistics March labour force survey found 52,664 Australians unemployed for two years or more; less than one quarter the number quoted by the prime minister.

Because the ABS surveys only a sample of the population it cannot be certain its estimate is correct, but its tables suggest it is 95 per cent confident the true number of Australians unemployed for two years or more lies between 36,300 and 69,100...

Late yesterday after two weeks of unanswered queries the prime minister’s office told The Age the figure of 230,000 represented the number of people registered with employment services who had been on income support for at least two years. Defining these people as unemployed was a “long standing practice”.

Asked if he could explain the discrepancy Australian National University economist Bob Gregory said income support was paid to Australians in part-time and casual work, meaning the number of people on income support for two years could not be used to estimate the number of out of work for two years.

He said it was surprising so little had been done to explore the relationship between the two sets of statistics.

In other parts of her speech the Prime Minister preferred the ABS measure, lauding Labor's success in creating 750,000 jobs since it took office. The former employment minister said youth unemployment was "still double the overall unemployment rate".

The latest figures show it more than three times the overall unemployment rate at 16.6 per cent compared to 4.9 per cent.

Published in today's SMH and Age


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The carbon price as Treasury tells it

When asked by Swan. Story below

Impact of Carbon Price


Treasurer Wayne Swan will forecast an unemployment rate of just 4.5 per cent on budget night, predicting Australia will get there in a year. And he says 500,000 extra jobs will be created over the next two years whether or not Australia gets a carbon tax.

Going on the offensive against “outrageous” claims the tax would wipe towns off the map Mr Swan said Treasury analysis showed it would have one twentieth the effect on the steel industry as the gyrations in the Australian dollar over the past four months.

A Treasury executive minute seen by the Herald says a $20 per tonne carbon tax with compensation of the kind proposed in 2010 would cost the industry $2.60 per tonne of steel produced. So far this year the rise in the Australian dollar has cost it $50 per tonne.

Coking coal prices have fluctuated between $100 and $400 a tonne between 2005 and 2010. By comparison coking coal producers faced “a carbon cost per tonne of around $2.80"

Aluminum prices had swung between $1200 and $3000 per tonne. This compared to a carbon tax impost after assistance of $19 per tonne...

The Treasury minute said the carbon price would also be less volatile than the exchange causing fewer problems in budgeting.

“There needs to be a calm and rational discussion about this,” Mr Swan said. “Talk of communities being wiped off the map and industries closing down is not only false, it’s irresponsible.”

“The government does not underestimate the competitive pressures faced by industries such as steelmaking caused by the high dollar, high commodity prices and the fallout from the financial crisis, but let me be clear, the carbon price is not driving these pressures.”

Opposition leader Tony Abbott dismissed the analysis saying the carbon tax would “very badly damage steel making, aluminium making, motor manufacturing and cement manufacturing.”

“It will export jobs to China and Indonesia and it will import emissions. We’ve had the South Australian branch of the Australian Workers’ Union talk about turning Whyalla and Port Pirie into ghost towns if the carbon tax goes ahead. This Government can’t credibly talk about job creation if it’s not going to talk about the jobs impact of its carbon tax.”

The proposed carbon tax will not be incorporated in the forecasts to be released on budget night. They will be updated later in the year in a second statement to be released after the carbon tax becomes law.

The Treasurer accepted the proposition that public service jobs would be lost as a result of the so-called enhanced efficiency dividend planned for the budget saying he did “not necessarily expect any forced job losses”.

The Community and Public Sector Union said he statement amounted to an admission admission frontline public services would be cut.

“The government has gone from promising not to change the efficiency dividend, to promising no cuts to overall public service numbers, to the Treasurer’s weak comments about ‘no forced job losses’,” CPSU national secretary Nadine Flood said.

The decision to increase the efficiency dividend from 1.25 per cent to 1.5 per cent for two years will cost government departments $465 million as part of the drive to return the budget to surplus.

Published in today's SMH


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The Economics of Happiness movie

It's got a great title.



And it features our own Clive Hamilton.

Details here: theeconomicsofhappiness.org

It premiered in Australia last night in Brisbane. It screens tonight and Tuesday in Melbourne, then then Thursday in Sydney. Details here.


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