by Kate McFarland | Oct 28, 2016 | News
The 2016 Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) National Conference, convening in Sydney on November 17-18, will include a discussion of universal basic income.
The opening session of the second day of the conference is titled “Should Australia Implement a Basic Income?” The following description is provided in the official conference program:
With Finland and Netherlands to introduce a universal basic income, attention has been turned to whether Australia should consider adopting such an approach. The changing nature of employment due to technological change has led some commentators to suggest a universal basic income would provide a buffer for those employed in industries with uncertain futures. Others argue that a universal basic income would dismantle overblown welfare bureaucracies and give people the freedom to purchase their own services. What is the role of a basic income? Is it to provide a safety net or is it to provide assistance to all? And is such an approach even feasible in Australia with its highly targeted social security system?
Founded in 1956, ACOSS is an advocacy group dedicated to combating poverty and inequality in Australia. Its annual conference focuses on practical strategies to realize this aim.
In recent years, the ACOSS National Conference has drawn over 500 attendees from non-profit organizations, government offices, businesses, unions, universities, and other backgrounds.
Instead of centering on lectures, the conference aims to encourage conversation between panelists and attendees. Panels will also be streamed live, and remote viewers will also be encouraged to join the discussion.
See acossevents.org.au for more information.
Photo CC BY-NC 2.0 Alex Proimos
by Kate McFarland | Sep 26, 2016 | News
On September 9, the New South Wales Fabians hosted a discussion of universal basic income in Haymarket.
The event featured a lineup of three speakers. First, Ben Spies-Butcher (Department of Sociology at Macquarie University) argued that Australia should pursue a universal basic income as a way to provide individuals with more freedom and control over their own lives and work. Next, Peter Whiteford (Crawford School of Public Policy at Australian National University) outlined the cost of a UBI. Finally, Louise Tarrant (formerly of United Voice) laid out many of the pros and cons of the policy. The three individual speeches were followed by the question and answer session with the audience.
About 80 to 90 people attended the event, which had been widely publicized on social media. Lachlan Drummond, president of the NSW Fabians, states that this crowd was the largest that the group has seen at any of its events over the past three years.
Among the unexpected attendees were two Italian members of the Five Star movement, who video-recorded the entire event:
The NWS Fabians have also released an audio-recording of the event as a podcast.
Drummond explains that several factors prompted the NSW Fabians to organize and host the event. First, the Fabians were interested in opening discussion of UBI simply because it is a “big transformative economic idea” that is already being talked about by the British Labour Party and some think tanks in the UK, as well as by other groups in Europe, Canada, and elsewhere. Second, the group saw a gap in Australian political discussion surrounding UBI:
We’ve seen some far-left and even some right wing groups talking about it here in Australia but none on what we might call the “mainstream centre left”. We wanted to help push that debate along. We know there are people in both the Greens and the ALP [Australian Labor Party] who are keen on the idea, but as yet we hadn’t seen one event where everyone was all brought together to discuss it.
Third, Drummond notes that many members of the Fabians are personally undecided on the issue of UBI–and yet, previously, UBI had never been given a fair hearing at any NSW Fabians event. When previous guest speakers had broached the issue, their comments were negative and dismissive. Notably, at a March event on The Future of Work, Dr. Victor Quirk of the University of Newcastle spoke against UBI in favor of a return to full employment.
Not content with such a swift rejection of UBI, Drummond said that the NSW Fabians “wanted to look at the policy in a systematic way–to go through the positives and negatives, to look at the numbers, and the political realities, and whether pilot studies have shown it to actually work”.
According to Drummond, the main goal of the event was to leave the audience better informed about the issues surrounding UBI–both moral and practical–and that, by this measure, the event was a “big success”:
I think when you see a big progressive idea like this, it can be easy to jump on it and say it’s a great idea without knowing the arguments and practicalities (or even some potential alternatives).
Ben Spies-Butcher was great on the moral arguments, and how it should interact with other parts of the welfare system. Peter Whiteford gave us some useful numbers on how much it would cost and what pilot studies had actually discovered. Louise Tarrant was also very clear headed on the positives and negatives, both practical, economic and political.
We also had great impromptu contributions from Eva Cox on shorter working hours, and Luke Whitington who rebutted the argument about inflation by stating we are currently in a deflationary environment, and by outlining some creative and progressive ways it could be paid for. The audience was really engaged and asked great questions.
Luke Whitington, Deputy Chair of the NSW Labor Party Economic Policy Committee, found it “well-organized” but believes that all three features speakers overlooked one of the most important reasons to support UBI:
None of the speakers talked about deflation, either in relation to the specific term of falling prices, nor in relation to the more general term for a long term low growth period, as exemplified by Japan since the 90s and the world in the 30s, and in milder form, advanced economies since the 70s, compounded and accelerating now with financialisation and automation. That none of the panel speakers raised the necessity of basic income as a counter deflationary mechanism was a pity, especially as Yanis Varoufakis’ speech on the topic has been on YouTube for a number of months. They did, however, inform the audience on a wide range of ethical and economic issues that a BI would affect.
As Drummond pointed out, though, Whitington was eventually able to broach the issue of deflation himself, in response to issues raised by Tarrant. On Whitington’s view, based on his experience as an organizer in the Labor Party, the most politically viable approach to a UBI in Australia is to promote the policy as a counter-deflationary measure and to support its financing through a sovereign wealth fund. This, he notes, was not stressed by the pro-UBI speakers at the NSW Fabians event.
In Australia it would be much more difficult to argue that unemployment benefits be paid without any activity or eligibility tests (which Spies Butcher correctly pointed out would immediately improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of people currently stuck in the welfare ‘safety’ net), than to set up a fund that collected mineral or other revenue and distributed it equally to all citizens as a dividend.
Douglas Maclaine-Cross, who has previously worked with Whitington to promote UBI, also attended the event. Maclaine-Cross was struck by the apparent level of agreement: “Generally nobody seemed to object to the policy [UBI]; on the contrary it seemed that most people were very keen on it”:
[P]eople generally agreed that it could be afforded though it would of course mean raising more revenue. The estimates and suggested amounts involved a more generous payment than I was thinking of, which I took as a positive sign. …
From the floor there was a plea on commercial grounds from a libertarian. There were a few very positive and inspiring comments. I heard the word utopia mentioned a few times. There seemed to be a consensus from the audience that growing inequality was a very real problem and needed to be addressed somehow. So perhaps it was a case of preaching to the choir. However having made the case to people from a broad spectrum of politics myself, there is a chance for bipartisan support; so I have very high hopes for the policy in Australia.
by Kate McFarland | Aug 30, 2016 | News
The Australian Fabians — Australia’s oldest left-leaning political think tank — will host a discussion and debate about universal basic income in Haymarket, NSW on September 9.
Speakers include Ben Spies Butcher (Senior Lecturer at Macquarie University), Peter Whiteford (Professor at ANU Crawford School of Public Policy), and Louise Tarrant (former National Secretary of United Voice).
Luke Whitington, Deputy Chair of the NSW Labor Party Economic Policy Committee, reports that interest and discussion surrounding has UBI has been on the rise within Australia’s Labor Party. Whitington sees the Fabians’ event as exemplifying this new trend.
The labour movement in Australia is getting serious about basic income. It’s great to see the Fabians facilitating this debate. The motion calling on the ALP to investigate a basic income is gathering momentum in the Labor Party branches. The next NSW and National Conferences will see a strong push for the ALP to investigate a basic income.
Douglas Maclaine-Cross, a Sydney-based software engineer who will be attending the meeting, remarks:
I’m just looking forward to the meeting, and getting an idea for how much support there is for it. Finding out if there are any concerns from people I’m not yet aware of. The prospect of finally having a way of solving out-of-control inequality, that people can rally behind has given me hope.
There are some additional signs that interest in UBI is increasing throughout Australia. In June, for instance, a Productivity Commission of the Australian Government released a research paper on “digital disruption” in which UBI was brought up as a potential solution to economic disruption caused by technological change. The Australian Pirate Party has endorsed a basic income (in the form of a negative income tax), also in June of this year, and one of the newest books in Palgrave Macmillan’s Exploring the Basic Income Guarantee series contains essays concerning the implementation of a UBI in Australia.
For more information about the event on September 9, see the website of the Australian Fabians.
Photo CC BY-NC 2.0 Emmett Anderson
This basic income news made possible in part by Kate’s patrons on Patreon
by Kate McFarland | Aug 22, 2016 | News
A recent episode of the Asia & The Pacific Policy Society’s Policy Forum podcast examined the benefits and costs of basic income.
In the episode, editor Martyn Pearce interviews a series of four experts on the topic: Guy Standing, economist at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies and co-founder of Basic Income Earth Network; Charles Murray, W. H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute; Peter Whiteford, Director of the Social Policy Institute at the Australian National University; and Olli Kangas, researcher at KELA, the group planning Finland’s basic income experiment.
Guy Standing speaks about a multitude of issues, including the immediate need of a basic income to prevent the rise of “neo-fascist populists” and the justification of basic income as a type of public inheritance, which is owed to everyone due to the collective contributions of our forebears. Standing also describes possible models to introduce a basic income, such as beginning with a small social dividend alongside current welfare programs. Near the end of the interview, he provides an extended argument against the charge that a basic income “will make people lazy”.
Next, Charles Murray delivers quite different views on why a basic income is necessary and what a model of basic income should look like. Murray stresses that, on his proposal, a basic income “would replace the entire welfare state; it would not be an add-on” — and that the amount would be low enough that no individual could live alone in “splendid isolation”, encouraging employment and cooperation (combining resources).
Peter Whiteford, the third interviewee, briefly overviews the popularity of the idea of basic income in Australia, before turning to address two major arguments against basic income: that it is too expensive and that it would discourage (paid) work.
Finally, Olli Kangas discusses many details related to Finland’s upcoming basic income experiment — including Finland’s decision to test only a partial basic income, the structure of the experiment, and what is being tested (spoiler: primarily the effects on employment).
Listen to the full episode here:
Martyn Pearce and Peter Whiteford, “A basic income, or the end of welfare?” Asia & The Pacific Policy Society, Policy Forum; July 15, 2016.
Photo CC Slilin
by Kate McFarland | Aug 7, 2016 | News
Australia Broadcasting Corporation’s podcast The Money aired an episode on universal basic income on July 21, 2016.
The podcast focused on basic income as a potential solution to technological unemployment, featuring interviews with guests Andy Stern (former president of the Service Employees International Union and author of Raising the Floor), DC-based journalist Megan McArdle, and Henning Meyer, a research associate at the London School of Economics’s Public Policy Group and editor-in-chief of Social Europe.
Unlike Stern, McArdle and Meyer oppose universal basic income, and believe that governments should pursue alternatives policies, such as job guarantee programs.
Listen to the full episode here:
Richard Aedy, “A universal basic wage?” ABC: The Money, July 21, 2016.
“Australia Dollars” photo CC Will
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