by Kate McFarland | Sep 2, 2017 | News
The Autumn 2017 issue of the left-wing political magazine Australian Options includes a special “viewpoints” section dedicated to basic income.
The issue can be read in full here.
The section on basic income consists of three short articles:
- “Basic income: An idea whose time has come?” by Troy Henderson (PhD Candidate in Political Economy at the University of Sydney)
- “Basic income: Political economic considerations” by Frank Stilwell (Professor Emeritus in Political Economy at the University of Sydney)
- “Basic income or job guarantee: What is to be done?” by Neale Towart (Unions New South Wales).
Henderson provides an overview of the idea of basic income, and then addresses four concerns facing its implementation in Australia: cost, cultural opposition to giving “handouts” to the poor and unemployed, lack of agreement between left-wing and right-wing proponents of basic income programs, and lack of mass social support.
Stilwell briefly articulates five political economic reasons in favor of basic income: sharing the nation’s abundant wealth, quelling anxiety about the future of work and technological unemployment, reducing inequality, simplifying the social safety net, and increasing individual freedom. He weighs these advantages against two main concerns: “could the nation afford to pay a BI?” and “would a BI have a big cost in terms of national output because people might decide not to work?” Stilwell offers tentative support for basic income, but only if combined with a strengthening of public health services, education, housing, transportation, and utilities.
Towart argues in favor of a job guarantee as a way to harness the potential of automation to free people from unfulfilling toil while ensuring well-paid employment in “work that we need done to create a fairer, sustainable society.” He raises concerns that a basic income would act as a subsidy for low wages and fail to empower workers to the extent of a well-designed job guarantee.
Reviewed by Russell Ingram
Photo (Lake Clifton, Western Australia) CC BY NC-ND 2.0 inefekt69
by Kate McFarland | Aug 31, 2017 | News
Nature Needs More, a wildlife conservation group based in Australia, is currently investigating the potential of basic income to help curb illegal hunting.
Founded in 2013 under the name Breaking The Brand, the group’s first advocacy and educational campaigns focused on curbing the demand for the products of illegal hunting, such as rhinoceros horns. As its work progressed, however, Breaking The Brand realized that its demand reduction campaigns could not be sufficient to stop illegal wildlife trade; successful wildlife conservation “needs more”.
Now called Nature Needs More, the organization is exploring new strategies, including a basic income pilot project designed to measure its effects on hunting and wildlife conservation.
Elephants in Namibia, CC BY-NC 2.0 Frans Vandewalle
Nature Needs More is inspired in part by the Basic Income Grant Pilot Project conducted in 2008 in the Namibian town of Otjivero. Prior to the introduction of the basic income grant, the local police station commander told researchers that poaching was the most common criminal activity, stating, “Poverty and unemployment are the reasons for these criminal activities. Otjivero is a tiny place and there is no source of income there. Most people hunt or poach just for survival.” In 2007, 20 instances of illegal hunting and trespassing were recorded between January 15 and October 31. In 2008, however, after the introduction of the basic income pilot, the count fell to only one instance during the same time period.
As Nature Needs More notes on its website, current basic income experiments–such as the 12-year randomized control trial that the non-profit GiveDirectly is due to launch in rural Kenya in September–are not linked to conservation outcomes.
Thus, the organization is considering the possibility of launching its own basic income experiment within the next two years.
Describing its hypothesis, Nature Needs More states, “Financial security would not only mean less poaching for food [and] less illegal harvesting … but would [also] mean wildlife trafficking syndicates would have less leverage to recruit poachers from the impoverished communities neighbouring key conservation areas.”
The organization is also exploring whether a basic income might help conservation areas convert to ecotourism as a revenue source.
Reviewed by Caroline Pearce
Rhino photo CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Martin Heigan
by Kate McFarland | Aug 27, 2017 | News
Dutch journalist Rutger Bregman will speak at Sydney’s Antidote festival on the theme of his bestselling book Utopia for Realists, in which he argues for a universal basic income and 15 hour work week.
Describing itself as a “festival of ideas, art and action”, Antidote brings together speakers and artists concerned about political, economic, social, and environmental issues.
The event takes place at the Sydney Opera House on the first weekend of spring in Australia, September 2 to 3. Bregman will present his ideas — which the organizers call a “compelling alternative to our current reality” — on the second day of the event.
Antidote supplants the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, also held at the Sydney Opera House, which was held annually since 2009.
More Information
Official page: “Utopia for Realists: Rutger Bregman” at the Sydney Opera House.
Andrew Taylor, “Work-life balance: Why we should only work 15 hours a week”, The Sydney Morning Herald, August 20, 2017.
Reviewed by Caroline Pearce
Cover Photo CC BY 2.0 Hai Linh Truong
by Roberta Stewart | Jul 16, 2017 | News
Chris Bowen. Credit to Britta Campion
Shadow Treasurer of the Australian Labor Party, Chris Bowen who is the Opposition Minister for Government expenditure and revenue raising, delivered a speech to the progressive think tank PerCapita in Sydney on June 9th, expressing his resistance to the concept of a Universal Basic Income (UBI), despite the support within the Labor Party for such a policy. Bowen describes the UBI as a “terrible idea” and claims that the model would undermine the Labor Party principle of ensuring dignity through work in Australia. Bowen then makes another common argument against a UBI, that it delivers unnecessary payments to the wealthy. Following this line of thought, Bowen expresses support for means tested benefits where citizens can access welfare on a conditional basis, claiming that this would be a more cost-effective measure for alleviating poverty. This claim, however, is made without establishing his grounds for comparison.
Bowen has also said that UBI could lead to a “savage cut” in people’s current benefits, namely pensions or disability allowances, and also that unsustainable tax rises would be necessary. These are reminders of two other common arguments against basic income: that UBI will demolish social security and that it cannot be financed (due to an unsustainable tax system).
Meanwhile, the Australian Green Party support the consideration of a UBI in conjunction with a four-day work week. This proposal is consistent with the idea that a UBI is best implemented as part of a broader policy package that aims to address concerns such as inequality and the impact of technological change on working conditions.
More information at:
Katharine Murphy, “Chris Bowen attacks universal basic income as ‘payments to millionaires’”, The Guardian, 8th June 2017
by Andre Coelho | Jun 30, 2017 | News
The Green Institute in Australia has just released a report named “Views of a universal basic income – perspectives from across Australia”. Published under the Creative Commons, it is a compilation of articles by several Australian authors, namely Tim Hollo, Tjarana Goreng-Goreng, Millie Rooney, Lyndsey Jackson and Amy Patterson, Michael Croft, Patrick Gibb, Luke van der Muelen, Petra Bueskens and David Pledger.
This report is a compilation of several views on basic income, from very different social corners of the Australian society. Tim Hollo, this report’s editor, Executive Director of the Green Institute and contributor to the report with the article “Views on a UBI”, starts out by asking three fundamental questions:
“What would your life be like if you – and everyone around you – had a Universal Basic Income?
How would it change the choices you make to know that there was a no-questions-asked, non-judgmental, society-wide support in place that we all contribute to and all benefit from?
What would you do differently if our society explicitly valued unpaid contributions, recognizing that paid employment isn’t the only – or even necessarily the best – way to participate?”
The answers, views and thoughts of the above cited authors follow from these fundamental questions about the human condition. Their perspectives stem from their particular angles and walks of life, which vary from indigenous culture, caring, welfare experience, college studying to unionism, gender equality and art.
More information at:
Gareth Hutchens, “Universal basic income could greatly improve workers’ lives, report argues”, The Guardian, 14th June 2017
Tim Hollo (Ed.), “Views of a universal basic income: perspectives from across Australia”, The Green Institute, June 2017
The Green Institute website
