On October 25, the Carmichael Centre and the Centre for Future Work hosted a symposium on the living standards and cost of living challenges in Australian themed 'Big Problems Can be Solved: Protecting Living Standards through Investment & Inclusion (not Austerity & Division)'.
The economic and social disruptions that have followed the Covid-19 Pandemic (not least inflation) have brought cost of living to the top of Australians’ list of concerns.
Active, progressive policy has a vital role to play in repairing post-pandemic damage to real incomes and living standards: by lifting wages, investing in services, addressing the housing crisis, regulating prices and profits, and strengthening income supports and social inclusion. Alternatively, divisive and populist forces will try to turn public anger against government, taxes, and immigrants. Debate over living standards and how to protect them will become more intense as the next federal election approaches.
For these reasons, this symposium brought together trade unionists, advocates and activists, representatives from charitable organisations, policy experts, researchers and academics. Attendees were united in the understanding that Australia faces a crisis of incomes as well as prices, and any solutions to improve living standards must address both these facets.
The symposium received the following suggestions for a progressive platform to raise living standards:
- Maintain full employment and fight for high quality employment standards
- Ensure the adequacy of pensions and benefit payments, including through raising JobSeeker to above the poverty line and abolishing mutual obligations.
- Boost the social wage through universal, free childcare, strengthening Medicare with dental and universal bulk-billing, building significantly more public housing, and fully funding public schools.
- Transition the energy system to renewables to bring down power prices
- Implement a progressive tax policy which can raise necessary revenue and bring down inflation while improving equality, housing affordability, and environmental outcomes
Attendees also agreed on the importance of building a broad-based progressive movement to win this agenda, and avoid siloing into specific policy areas.
The symposium also saw the launch of Doing It Tough: How Australians are experiencing the cost of living crisis, a new report from Dr Lisa Heap, Senior Researcher at the Centre for Future Work. This report documents the results of a recent survey of Australian adults regarding their experience of the cost of living crisis.
The results show that:
- Almost three-quarters (72%) of respondents felt their wages had grown slower than prices over the previous year.
- Over half of respondents (53%) said their household’s financial situation was worse that it was two years ago.
- The cost of living crisis has had differential impacts. Because it has affected lower-income Australians most severely, the cost of living crisis has exacerbated inequality.
- Respondents identified higher grocery prices as the most visible source of the increased cost of living. Six out of 10 (60%) of respondents identified groceries as the purchase where they have most noticed higher prices followed by utilities (21%) and transport (7%).
- There was strong support for measures across a broad range of policy areas to address the costs of living. 64% of respondents said it was very important to lower utility costs to reduce cost of living pressures. 64% said it was very important to increase supermarket competition, 60% to lower medical costs, and 58% to increase the pace of wages growth.
