Reform agenda has slowly COAGulated

He also outlined a list of reports awaiting response including Indigenous Reform, Disability, Affordable Housing and Healthcare, along with Water Management, Education and Skills and Workforce Development and Education.

Clearly, the Gillard Government is continuing the Rudd theme of outsourcing responsibility for an ambitious reform agenda to the COAG Reform Council, without first exerting any pressure on relevant agencies to provide up-to-date data to track the progress of reforms.

Instead of taking responsibility for promised reforms that are way overdue, the Government spends all of its time defending the policies it didn’t promise, like its friendless carbon tax.

Aside from further eroding the Government’s already flagging credibility, this creates more uncertainty for emissions-intensive sectors like the transport industry that already has to navigate a maze of different state regulations due to Labor’s inaction on COAG transport and road reform, and now faces inevitably higher fuel costs under a carbon tax.

It is high time for this Government to get back to basics and focus on the reforms that are expected of it by mainstream Australia, not the demands of the Greens, who look like increasingly like the ones in the driver’s seat in this minority government.