On the day that ‘stops the nation’, the RBA will tackle inflation (again)

October 28, 2026 — 2:00am

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In case you haven’t worked it out, I’ll put my cards on the table: I want bigger, not smaller, government. There’s no end to the services the government could provide for us, rather than some of us paying the private sector to do it while those who can’t afford it miss out.

It follows that there need be no arbitrary limit on how much government spending may be done, whether as a proportion of the economy (gross domestic product) or anything else.

But my training as an accountant tells me there’s no magic fairy who pays for all this spending. So a bigger spending government is one that needs to raise taxes. Fine by me – so long as the well-off (including yours truly) pay more than those whose pockets are less well-lined.

I don’t delude myself that the burden of additional government spending can be covered by taxing the James Packers of this world – there aren’t enough of them.

Nobody wants to pay more tax, except me

Ross GittinsEconomics Editor

Although the economy is hardly growing fast, the Reserve Bank is worried that the production side of the economy – the industries, businesses and workers producing goods and services – is close to full capacity. That, unless we stop growing or even go backwards for a bit, demand will exceed supply, causing the rate of inflation to worsen. It’s already above our target of prices rising by only........

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