Public Money. Public Good. formed out of Sustainable Prosperity Action Group Naarm (SPAGN) as a way to promote the urgent change we all need in the world.
WE ARE FOR FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RIGHTS
In 1948, the United Nations declared the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This milestone sets a common standard of fundamental human rights to be universally protected.
Australia was influential in drafting the Declaration, a founding member and original signatory in 1948. The Commonwealth Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade states: ‘For over 75 years, Australia has been a strong advocate for the promotion and protection of human rights, especially in the context of advancing human rights in the Indo-Pacific region’.
Despite such promises, progress on many of the Articles has been slow, ineffective to non-existent. Though stated assertively on paper and on websites, far too many people’s lived experience is the absence and denial of such fundamental rights.
THE FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RIGHTS THAT WE DEMAND:
- Comprehensive public healthcare free at point of service (including mental, vision, dental, reproductive care, aged care, and gender-affirmation care)
- Free, quality and well-resourced public education from early education to post-tertiary
- Right to safe and secure housing
- Right to secure, meaningful and purposeful employment and living wage
- Right to reliable, affordable and sustainable public transport
- Right to quality and inexpensive utilities including sustainable electricity, heating, cooling and high-speed internet
- Right to quality and sustainable infrastructure and public spaces
- Right to secure public banking
Far too many people skip preventive medical treatment, use the ER as opposed to their GP, and, too many people avoid dental work or pay through super.
Public school funding has lagged, with extreme inequalities becoming entrenched by postcode while the price of tertiary education skyrockets.
Many people struggle to make ends meet with mortgages or renting, with the latter facing an even greater insecurity in housing.
Australia’s social security system has become a punitive, compliance system that serves as a box-ticking exercise for those who can and want to work, and denies proper services to those with disabilities.. Australia has one of the highest rates of underemployment, involuntary part time employment, and hidden unemployment, leaving tens of thousands of Australians without access to the dignity of work and a livable income.
Public transport is lacking in many major cities, privatised or continually at risk of privatisation. Public transport is inaccessible or unavailable for many on the city fringes and regionally, causing even greater material inequity.
WHY WE ARE DIFFERENT
Though these issues require continued efforts of those already working to achieve greater justice and equity, the common thread that links them all is the false belief that we cannot afford them.
Unlike other organisations, we bring a real-world empirically grounded and indisputable understanding of economics to demands for assured wellbeing of our public good.
Approaches by far too many other organisations are well-intentioned but make a fatal mistake about macroeconomics that impedes progress on all these fronts.
We intend to organise with existing movements to create a position consistent with the reality of public finances, one that by that very nature, empowers these rights.
Our public services that constitute our fundamental human rights can readily be assured through our Australian public money.
The following are facts, not beliefs, not ideology, not theory, not speculation:
- It is a fact that the Australian Government cannot default on the currency it issues as it is not indexed to a foreign currency, nor is it a commodity, and we do not have large amounts of foreign-currency debt.
- It is a fact that the Australian Government spends currency into existence prior to the Australian dollar being taxed. We create money out of thin air.
- It is a fact that the Commonwealth can run sustained and significant deficits for the foreseeable future. This Commonwealth investment in public resources does not have to be met with an equal amount of taxation.
- It is a fact that a surplus of all of us, will appear as a “deficit” of the Commonwealth Government (their red ink is our black ink).
- It is a fact that we do not have to “pay back” the public money that is invested for the public good. We do not need to “balance the budget”.
When other movements demand taxation to “pay for” services of ambitious policy goals, this is not only incorrect, but binds us to the destructive, continued existence of self-serving private interests. It is a complete falsehood that we need to rely solely on receiving taxes first prior to resourcing programs that will increase collective wellbeing.
Such a misunderstanding in fact binds us to the interests of sociopathic billionaires and ultra-rich that have bought our politicians, are destroying our planet and are pushing us toward a dismal future that lacks hope and imagination.
It is a fact that we do not need the rich at all, we have the power and ability to ensure our wellbeing through our collective public money.
We do not need the money of rich people and institutions. In the form of public money, we have had the power to invest in sustainable, just and fair policies that would improve everyone’s standard of living.
These goals are ambitious and they are wholly realistic. We could start to realise them tomorrow.
We cannot wait for incremental changes. While we may, and should, disincentive damaging behaviour -such as taxing carbon polluters and the rich who impose political power over others- we do not have to suffer in the meantime.
Public Money. Public Good. 