Simple concept Australia must consider: The Age
Nearly 800 years after Robin Hood began launching raids from Sherwood Forest, redistributing wealth from the rich to the poor is back on the agenda.
“[And] while the banks will inevitably attempt to position the concept as a feel-good aberration from a handful of hippies beating their drums, it is anything but,” writes Jo-Anne Schofield, executive director of Catalyst Australia, in The Age.
Instead, the tax is supported by some of the world’s most prominent and respected thinkers – and it couldn’t come at a better time for Australia.
“Our health and education systems are at breaking point; infrastructure bottlenecks are thwarting opportunities for job creation; homelessness remains as entrenched as ever; and thousands of children are still growing up in poverty,” she writes.
“With hundreds of thousands of baby boomers sliding into retirement in the coming decade, serious skills shortages and overstretched aged-care services will need to be tackled, and urgently.”
And then there is the $US100 billion set aside for aid programs and disaster relief, and $US100 billion for climate action.
Eight hundred years on, Schofield concludes, Robin Hood is on the ride once more. And the need to redistribute just a fraction of the world’s wealth to those in need is just as pressing as ever.
To read the full article in The Age, click here.
