Agree with some of this, but not much! What the government needs to do is lift the asinine, self-imposed embargo on nuclear energy.

That should take the wind out of inflation and put a brake on inflation/cost of living increases.

As for pensions and the NDIS. JC said, inasmuch as you do unto the least among you, you also do unto me.

Let those who want to and are able to earn more and even contribute to income tax.

Get rid of the server rorts and rip offs in NDIS.
Alan B.

Subsidies as government spending are overlooked; e.g the money being thrown at solar and wind developers.

Foreign aid to bludger Pacific Islands.

Mass immigration is lunacy.

NDIS is being scammed, but Bill Shorten is starting to notice some of the scams, particularly the sudden ‘growth’ in autism.

Increased, communistic, dependence on government will eventually make us all poor and under the absolute power of Big Brother.

WTF?

According to Richard Denniss from the Australia Institute.

"Privatisation has made a mess of Australia’s vocational training system.

Back before economic rationalism and neoliberalism entered the minds of Australian politicians, government-owned corporations employed tens of thousands of young apprentices each year, most of whom left to work in the private sector when they finished their on-the-job training supported by formal training in publicly run “tech colleges”.

These days most of the public corporations and public tech colleges have been replaced with private companies, but perhaps unsurprisingly, the privatisation of training has not delivered an increase in its quality, but a so-called skills shortage.

Given that companies like burger chain Grill’d were the largest recipient of the former Coalition government’s “boosting apprenticeships commencement” wage subsidy scheme, and that privatised training colleges had to be banned from offering free iPads to trick vulnerable people into enrolling in inappropriate courses, it should come as no surprise that despite spending record amounts on training, Australia needs to look overseas to provide workers with a huge variety of skills, including electricians, bakers and bricklayers."

Yet the myth of the greater efficiency of private ownership of once government run industries persists.

What WTF Not again says.
Alan B.

Yes all these things would help to alleviate the inflation disaster. But out-weighing all of the other eight is the issue of immigration.

600,000+ people per year (a new Brisbane every four years....isn't one enough!!) vying for housing, food, consumer goods, white goods etc. Sure these new folk add to the nations nominal GDP but our per capita GDP is lower now than it was back in the halcyon days of the Abbott government.

Rents make up 6% of the inflation basket and have exploded due to the competition for housing. Governments are throwing money at the problem but as with all such programmes the costs will inevitably outweigh the benefits.

Graeme Richardson pointed out that back in 2000 Australia's population by 2050 was projected to be 26 million. Instead we got there in 2023. BUT, despite having 2050's population, we didn't get 2050's infrastructure spend. Indeed we have the government cutting back on infrastructure in a vain attempt to fight entrenched inflation.

Its not entirely clear to me what the government sees as the advantage of bringing in 600K new mouths each year. If we need bodies to meet the various ambitions for industry in the country, perhaps we need to cut back on the ambitions. After all, the ultimate goal ought to be the welfare of the current population and that has been going backwards.

Tony Blair's government in the UK admitted that their immigration programme was all about bringing in future Labour voters. I fear we have something similar here.

WTF?

mhaze states: "but our per capita GDP is lower now than it was back in the halcyon days of the Abbott government."

This, of course, is a nonsense.

In 2014 (Abbott's first full year as P.M ) the GDP growth was -8.28%.

In his second year the GDP growth was -9.29%.

And as a result of his disastrous management growth was -12.05% in the year after he was given the boot. This was turned around in the following year with GDP growth of +8.13%.

Abbott came to power at the end of 2013 (September) where he inherited a per capital GDP that has yet to recover from his mismanagement.