Precarious, unsafe and socially inadequate

Having acknowledged this it is important to point out that is not the end of the matter. There are many things which could be done to find the extra money needed to pay for a real people's welfare state undergirded by a basic income.

I would start with the tax system:

• reintroduce death duties on all estates over $2 million,
• abolish the tax free area for income tax purposes,
• remove negative gearing on all housing,
• reinstate capital gains taxes to original levels,
• abolish family trust tax scams,
• ensure multinationals pay taxes at reasonable rates,
• clamp down on rich Australian individuals and firms avoiding and evading taxes, and
• sort out the superannuation system as will be detailed below.

The changes in capital gains and negative gearing would help take some of the excessive heat out of the private housing market and if we were to combine that with reinvigorating the social and public housing systems we might seriously address homelessness and its associated despair.

Subsidies

The next thing I would concentrate on is business and farm subsidies. Well over $25 billion is provided in subsidies to business annually. A lot of the money is disguised as employment promotion schemes which would be unnecessary once a basic income was in place. There are a multitude of subsidies to rural industries which would no longer have the same imperative once a basic income underpinned every permanent resident. The idea of propping up the development of northern Australia by subsidising those who want to open up marginal enterprises would be laughable if it did undermine much of the ecology of northern Australia. Such pipe dreams should be sole prerogative of people with enough money of their own to pursue such ecocide. There may well be good reasons to subsidise renewable energy schemes like the wave generator off Bunbury and thermal electricity generation. Solar and wind technology may also need continuing subsidisation. Emerging forms of renewable energy could also be helped by subsidies but no more money should be put into diesel subsidies for mining industries. Coal should not get another cent. The myths about clean coal should be sequestered in disused mine shafts.

There are many other taxes which could be tweaked; such as transaction taxes on money transfers. All these changes whist quite momentous are not so far out of the ball park as to be not worth considering. Clearly we could afford to introduce a basic income without impinging on the wellbeing of Australians receiving up to average weekly earnings. It needs to be remembered that two-thirds of Australians receive less than average weekly earnings.

The one-third of affluent Australians earning more than average weekly earnings would be required to pay more than they are currently paying to Treasury and yes some of them will whinge that their wealth is not continuing to increase at a far greater rate than ordinary workers. But even though they might not immediately recognise it, they too will benefit by residing in a more egalitarian society.

Superannuation

In 1991 the ACT Council of Social Services produced a monograph entitled The Super Tax Rort. At the time, Keating was foreshadowing the introduction of a privatised form of compulsory superannuation and the Council foresaw a number of potential pitfalls with his proposal arguing that low income earners, recently arrived migrants, casual workers, women and older workers would receive few benefits. The Council saw the potential for rich people to grab the bulk of the tax windfall.

Today we see that there are many rich people who receive, as a result of their superannuation investments, a greater financial benefit in foregone tax than do age pensioners. The superannuation schemes are riddled with inequities, risks, constant changes and contradictions.

There exists no clear equity argument to regard a dollar of superannuation any differently from a dollar of social security or a dollar of earned income or a dollar of unearned income received. Treating them in a different way in the tax and social security system is illogical and results in inequities.

Once a basic income was in place it would be important to tax monies received from superannuation in exactly the same way as money received from employment, investment, royalties and tax should be paid on each and every dollar received from any source. The basic income would not be taxed.