Synod Senior Social Justice Advocate Mark Zirnsak has called on the Federal Government to seize the opportunity next week to address serious inequality in Australia.
Mark said the Economic Reform Roundtable, being held in Canberra from August 19-21, offers the Government an opportunity to commit to measures that would address inequality and contribute to a better future for all Australians.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers is hosting the roundtable, with a stated aim of “lifting living standards for Australians”.
Mark said key priorities for the roundtable should be:
- Tax reforms that will make our tax system more progressive and provide the revenue needed for services for groups such as people with disabilities, older Australians, people with mental health issues, survivors of family and domestic violence, and First Peoples;
- Measures to curb growing inequality;
- Measures to curb climate change; and,
- Proper regulation of artificial intelligence, to ensure it will be of benefit to the common good while curbing harms it will cause.
“Since the 1980s there has been growing income and wealth inequality in Australia,” Mark said.
“The World Inequality Database shows that income distribution in Australia has matched the global trend for wealthy countries.
“By 2022, the neoliberal economic policies pursued by Australian governments saw the income share of the bottom 50 per cent of Australians drop to 16.4 per cent, while the top 10 per cent had their share increase to 32.9 per cent.
“As French professor of economics Thomas Piketty has argued, ‘history shows that inequality is essentially ideological and political, not economic or technological’.”
Mark said scrapping negative gearing and phasing out the capital gains tax (CGT) discount would address inequality and make the tax system more progressive.
“The federal budget forgoes an estimated $20 billion per year through negative gearing and the CGT discount,” he said.
“These concessions disproportionately benefit high-income earners, and do little to stimulate new housing supply.
“It makes no sense to tax capital gains at a discount rate, providing a bonus to those who have investment income, compared to those who are taxed at a higher rate on the income they earn from work.
“The Australian Government should reform the use of trusts both at a personal level and within corporate structures.
“The abuse of trusts to avoid tax liability and decrease transparency of ownership of assets and income must be addressed.”
Mark said further reforms to the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT) are urgently needed.
“Due to flaws in the design of the PRRT much of the gas extracted off the coast of Australia is given away to multinational corporations for free,” he said.
“A solution would be to introduce a 10 per cent royalty on offshore gas extraction in Commonwealth waters.
“In addition, the Australian Government should introduce a levy on fossil fuel extraction and use the funds raised to compensate lower-income people to shift their energy usage to renewable sources.
“Some of the funds should also be used to provide a government insurance scheme for people who can no longer obtain affordable insurance from the private sector due to the impacts of climate change.
“The levy would also help deter further fossil fuel extraction, which urgently needs to be phased out.”
Mark said while artificial intelligence (AI) has demonstrated it can provide some benefits to our society, it also comes with significant risks.
“Many of the technology corporations behind AI are pushing for little regulation and tax breaks, to maximise their profits,” he said.
“The Government must place the common good first and ensure we are protected from significant harm AI could cause.”
Mark said embracing AI meant the potential for significant job losses, the facilitation of child sexual abuse online and harm to other vulnerable people online, and the potential for AI systems like recommendation engines and AI companions to exacerbate loneliness and dependency, compounding harm already seen with social media.
He said other potential risks included AI lowering the barrier for creating sophisticated cyberattacks, and even bioweapons, and the use of AI to generate and spread convincing disinformation at an unprecedented scale, undermining social cohesion and democratic processes.
“There is also risk around the inappropriate integration of AI into government processes and services,” Mark said.
“AI claims the potential to enhance a range of government powers and functions, improving service delivery and decision-making, however it also creates the risk of abuse through expanded surveillance, manipulation of public opinion, automated decision-making without transparency, and the erosion of procedural fairness.
“The risk of AI systems exhibiting biases or learning to deceive users, with developers often using terms and conditions to indemnify themselves from liability, also needs to be considered.”
Mark said next week’s roundtable represented an opportunity for the Government to make a significant and positive difference to the lives of many Australians.
“Let us hope our Government uses the roundtable to further the common good and not be swayed by vested interests seeking primarily to enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of us,” he said.