The Australia Together Podcast

Episode 67: Bronwyn Kelly reads Parts 1 to 5 of Chapter 4 of her latest book, The Public Interest Economy: the path to wellbeing, security and sustainable consumption in a democratised Australian economy.

Chapter 4 is about how to arrange Australia’s economy in the public interest. Bronwyn starts with sections about how Australians can take an influential role in this by using National Inegrated Planning & Reporting – National IP&R – to build a long term plan for economic and resource sustainability.

This activity of collaborative economic planning by the community is key to defeating neoliberalism. It is possibly the only way Australians can overcome the poverty, inequality, loss of wellbeing and unfair taxation caused by thirty years of the dominance of neoliberalism and neoclassical economics in Australia and many other advanced countries.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bronwynkelly.substack.com

Episode 66: Bronwyn Kelly reads Parts 2 to 5 of Chapter 3 of her latest book, The Public Interest Economy: the path to wellbeing, security and sustainable consumption in a democratised Australian economy.

Chapter 3 is called A framework for trust in a democratised Australian economy. It’s about how we can rebuild the trust that is essential for an economy that will deliver wellbeing and security for everyone.

Australians can democratise their economy and increase their influence in decisions by using National Integrated Planning & Reporting (National IP&R) to design their preferred future as a nation and to strike an essential new agreement with their governments – a National Accord on Wealth, Welfare and Wellbeing. This is Accord is necessary for the restoration of trust in Australia’s governments and for the effective functioning of a democratic economy.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bronwynkelly.substack.com

Episode 65: In this episode of the Australia Together Podcast on Substack I read the Introduction to Chapter 3 of my latest book, The Public Interest Economy: the path to wellbeing, security and sustainable consumption in a democratised Australian economy.

Chapter 3 is called A framework for trust in a democratised Australian economy. It’s about how we can rebuild the trust that is essential for an economy that will deliver wellbeing and security.

The keys to a democratised economy are National Integrated Planning & Reporting (National IP&R) and the National Accord on Wealth, Welfare and Wellbeing.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bronwynkelly.substack.com

Episode 64: In this episode of the Australia Together Podcast on Substack Bronwyn Kelly reads Parts 12 and 13 of Chapter 2 of her latest book, The Public Interest Economy: the path to wellbeing, security and sustainable consumption in a democratised Australian economy.

Chapter 2 is called Deploying money so that it can make Australians safe. It describes how Australia’s macroeconomic policy and governance arrangements can be reformed so that in future all Australians can be assured of their prosperity through the achievement of both full employment and price stability.

In these final sections of Chapter 2, Bronwyn sets out the arrangement of economic governance in Australia that is the most appropriate for a nation where money is issued by government fiat.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bronwynkelly.substack.com

Episode 63: Bronwyn Kelly reads Parts 9 to 11 of her book, The Public Interest Economy: the path to wellbeing, security and sustainable consumption in a democratised Australian economy.

She discusses how Australia is suffering under a disintegrated macroeconomic management system where priority is given to ineffective monetary policy and governments are prevented from using fiscal policy to it fullest and best potential. The result is an economy that fails to control prices, unnecessarily increases unemployment, stifles private investment especially by small business, and reduces the welfare and wellbeing of the people of Australia.

To replace that failing macroeconomic governance arrangement, Parts 9 to 11 suggest that Australian governments need to restore democratic influence over the Reserve Bank. They can do this by integrating responsibility for the macroeconomy under the control of the Treasury.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bronwynkelly.substack.com

Episode 62: Bronwyn Kelly reads Parts 7 and 8 of Chapter 2 of her latest book, The Public Interest Economy: the path to wellbeing, security and sustainable consumption in a democratised Australian economy.

Chapter 2 is called Deploying money so that it can make Australians safe. It describes a project of reform of the macroeconomic policy and governance arrangements for Australia’s economy so that in future all Australians can be assured of their prosperity through the achievement of full employment and price stability.

In Parts 1 and 2 of Chapter 2 (Episode 60) , Bronwyn foreshadowed the need for a reduction of the degree of independence currently enjoyed by the Reserve Bank of Australia, suggesting that it amounts to an economic governance arrangement that is not in the public interest and is fundamentally anti-democratic.

In Parts 3 to 6 (Episode 61), she began explaining how that economic governance arrangement should be replaced with a new integrated approach to macroeconomic management led by the Treasury via the use of functional finance – a marcoeconomic management system devised in the 1940s in line with Keynesian economics. This system can function as a counter to the failures of neoliberal and neoclassical economic theories.

In Parts 7 and 8, Bronwyn puts the view that good economic management in Australia is not simply a matter of downgrading or removing the independence of the Reserve Bank, although that is essential if we want to democratise the economy. The even more important thing to do is to de-prioritise monetary policy itself, especially since it is not an effective macroeconomic tool. Monetary policy is not conducive to establishing either full employment of price stability. The chapter shows how damaging it is to prioritise monetary policy in macroeconomic management and how fiscal policy will be far more effective in achieving full employment with stable prices.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bronwynkelly.substack.com

Episode 61: Bronwyn Kelly reads Part 3 to 6 of Chapter 2 of her latest book, The Public Interest Economy: the path to wellbeing, security and sustainable consumption in a democratised Australian economy.

Chapter 2 is called Deploying money so that it can make Australians safe. It describes a project of reform of the macroeconomic policy and governance arrangements for Australia’s economy so that in future all Australians can be assured of their prosperity through the achievement of full employment and price stability.

Parts 1 and 2 of this chapter foreshadowed the need for a reduction of the degree of independence currently enjoyed by the Reserve Bank of Australia, suggesting that it is an economic governance arrangement that is not in the public interest and is fundamentally anti-democratic.

Parts 3 to 6 begin explaining how that economic governance arrangement should be replaced with a new integrated approach to macroeconomic management led by the Treasury via the use of functional finance – a marcoeconomic management system devised in the 1940s in line with Keynesian economics. This system can function as a counter to the failures of neoliberal and neoclassical economic theories.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bronwynkelly.substack.com

Episode 60: Bronwyn Kelly reads the first two parts of Chapter 2 of her latest book, The Public Interest Economy: the path to wellbeing, security and sustainable consumption in a democratised Australian economy.

Chapter 2 is called Deploying money so that it can make Australians safe. It describes a project of reform of the macroeconomic policy and governance arrangements for Australia’s economy so that in future all Australians can be assured of their prosperity through the achievement of full employment and price stability.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bronwynkelly.substack.com

Episode 59: Bronwyn Kelly reads the Chapter 1 of her latest book, The Public Interest Economy: the path to wellbeing, security and sustainable consumption in a democratised Australian economy.

Chapter 1 describes what a public interest economy is and its feasibility as a solution to Australia’s economic decline in the 21st century.

Chapter 1 also introduces a theme that underpins the rest of the book: the claim that our economic prosperity, personal safety, welfare and wellbeing are not limited by a lack of money. A public interest economy is entirely feasible once we realise that anything we can actually do, we can afford.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bronwynkelly.substack.com

Episode 1: Bronwyn Kelly reads the Introduction to her latest book, The Public Interest Economy: the path to wellbeing, security and sustainable consumption in a democratised Australian economy.

The Public Interest Economy offers Australians a safe path to wellbeing, economic security and a sustainable natural environment by showing how they can use democratic processes to design their preferred economy.

It shows how they can collaborate to develop plans for safe travel to a better future where no-one will fall into poverty or pay more than their fair share of tax, and where there is full employment in satisfying work. It also shows how an economy can be built in which there is income security, stable prices, equality of access to services sufficient for everyone’s wellbeing, and patterns of consumption and production that are sustainable within the limits of our human and natural resources.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bronwynkelly.substack.com