Interesting article. I would gladly give up my tax cuts for greater investment in education and infrastructure, which the Howard Porkbarrellers shamefully neglected while they pretended that budget surpluses solely from mining revenue somehow made them economic geniuses.

However, calls for a more generous welfare state will fall on deaf ears. Howard knew that working people would applaud his attacks on a bloated welfare state which had undermined the incentive of many Australians to work at all.

When a welfare system is developed that can adequately separate the genuinely vulnerable and temporarily needy from those who would endlessly exploit the generosity of the taxpayer, calls for a more generous welfare state might get some traction.

Dear Cosmogirl,

To called the welfare state 'bloated' is to miss the reality of a system that is failing dismally to keep up with a spiraling cost of living.

Petrol, internet, water, energy, interest rates: all contribute to the desperate straits felt by those on welfare. In Victoria we face the prospect of a private desalination plant which will - as far as I've heard - will triple the price of water.

Believe me - surviving on welfare is no easy task. And we bipartisan support for 'active labour market programs' - sometimes the process is crushing, oppressive and demoralising.

This in mind, I cannot see any justification for policies which force the burden of combatting inflation on those least able to afford it

And finally - if the burden can be - to a greater degree - shouldered by those who CAN afford it - why put pressure upon those whose financial situational is strained - or even desperate.

I am at least glad, though, to see some debate.

*Believe me - surviving on welfare is no easy task.*

Well the general idea is that you go out and get a job
like everyone else.

Perhaps our retired politicains could also stop living on our welfare. $80 000 per year superannuation after nine years for a back-bencher and $330 000pa plus countless perks for failed Prime Ministers are far too much, especially when such can tread the world, at our expense, earning massive ammounts of money from "consulting" and giving paid-for speeches about how they screwed the rest of us.

This was a good article, full of interesting ideas and facts and figures. (One question on the facts, Tristan. You refer to a Ken Davidson article showing the shift in GDP from wages to profits since 1996. ABS figures from memory show the shift actually began much earlier - I think from about the time of the Accord under Hawke and Keating. Do you have those figures for say 1980 to 1996 by any chance?)

I too believe that Labor is a party of inequality. Unlike Tristan I don't think forming a party to the left of the ALP is the solution if such a party is trapped in the archaic idea that parliamentary parties can fundamentally challenge capitalism, the source of inequality.

Parties elected to parliament and then government are about managing capitalism. This would be as true of a parliamentary left party as it is of the ALP.

For me the solution is to build an organisation (at this stage party would be too grandiose a word to describe it) of the left committed to abolishing the font of inequality, capitalism and the way it is organised.

Nevertheless, congratulations to Tristan for a well thought out and well argued article. It was a real pleasure to read.

I voted for Labor because Howard was moribund. Although I believe that Rudd is a conservative politician who thought he would do better as a Labor politician I had hoped that he would inject some vision into the Australian political landscape so that this country could have a future not just a mediocre past.

It has been apparent since September 2007 that the world and Australia was entering a period of economic instability just when the effects of global warming were starting to bite.

The promise of tax cuts for the people who earn over $180,000 has to be broken. If we are serious about making the transition from welfare to work easier even larger tax cuts for those earning under $30,000 should be implemented. Ross Garnaut's recommendations have to be implemented otherwise even more than 1 in 7 Australian households major income stream will be welfare payments. I am sure Yabby would like to see all the unemployed, single parents, disabled and old age pensioners fend for themselves like we make sick people do.