Jacinta Allan's WFH WTF
Victoria's Premier is characteristically deaf to the national economic debate.
Just when you thought Victoria couldn't sink any further into the mire.
The mendicant state that Daniel Andrews built is groaning under its debts and leads the nation in both unemployment and business insolvencies. A full 15 per cent of Victoria's labour force works for the state government (19 per cent if you include local government workers and Commonwealth employees based in Victoria).[[In New South Wales, the state government employs 13 per cent of the labour force.]]
Has Andrews' successor Jacinta Allan responded with a handbrake on runaway spending? That's a good one! Only naturally, she's jacked up payroll and property taxes and invented a raft of exotic new levies.
After its triumphant re-election in May, the Albanese government released its carrier pigeons from atop Capital Hill, seeking the best ideas from the brightest minds across the land to fix Australia's chronic productivity malaise. This month, Treasurer Jim Chalmers is convening a much-vaunted economic reform roundtable to deal with the problem.
Allan has chosen this context to unveil her latest brainwave: enshrining in Victorian law the 'right' of all employees to work from home at least two days per week.