The deficit levy, the one that seems to have become an accepted certainty in three days of leaking while remaining coyly unconfirmed, should become a permanent tax increase.
As I wrote last year (No crisis, but taxes still need to rise, December 18; Income tax has to go up, December 16), Australia’s tax revenue is too low for the level of government spending that’s locked in, largely as a result of the ageing of the population as well as the extra spending agreed for education and disability.