So you thought Honest John was a conservative

Ten years of John Howard's supposedly conservative leadership has turned Australia into something of a socialist utopia. While that may sound extreme, consider: There are now 700,000 Australians on the Disability Support Pension, an increase of 20 per cent in the past five years – a time when workplaces have become ever safer. According to the Australian, not so. Australia is more like Sweden in the way it takes and distributes tax to keep people broke and happy. The consequence is middle income earners being squished and then given some bones to keep them happy. Here the marginal tax slug, made worse by bracket creep, is particularly cruel: a couple with one earner making $50,000 a year and the other $33,000 loses 61.5c out of every additional dollar they make. This social engineering squishes initiative and is a major disincentive to getting ahead.