Big Government Fails Treasury’s ‘Wellbeing’ Test

I have an op-ed in today’s Australian taking Treasury Secretary Ken Henry to task for resigning Australia to a permanent expansion in the size of government.  I argue that the expansion in the size of government since Gough Whitlam fails the criteria set by the Treasury’s ‘wellbeing’ framework for public policy.

Note that the Oz has an unfortunate habit of leaving out quotation marks.  There should be quote marks around ‘25 per cent as the maximum tolerable proportion of taxation’.  The quote is from a letter Keynes wrote to Colin Clark.