Qld Flood Levy Proposal

This post is taken off the http://www.crikey.com.au web site.
A flood levy to pay for the cost of the catastrophic Queensland floods would be lazy policy from a fiscally lazy government. There’s something faintly absurd about a government with a budget loaded with superfluous spending and the lowest debt levels in the developed world insisting that it needs a new tax to pay for the impact of natural disasters — especially when this government itself has been arguing that climate change will cause more extreme weather and preaches “adaptation” to Pacific Island states.
It also suggests this is a government that feels more comfortable playing on voters’ sympathies for the victims of the floods than about making the case for cutting spending in politically sensitive areas.
Slapping a one-off levy on voters and telling them it’s for the floods is clearly more politically palatable than telling voters they’ve gotten used to levels of government spending that aren’t sustainable in the face of an ageing population.