Next week will be the 40th anniversary of the Hawke government’s tax summit. Dominated by then treasurer Paul Keating’s unsuccessful bid to win support for a consumption tax, it was the public centrepiece of an extraordinary political and policy story.
That story was about the possibilities for, but constraints on, bold reform; how a determined treasurer can muster a formidable department to push for change, and the way the ambitions of a minister can clash with the pragmatism of a prime minister.
Ken Henry, later secretary of the treasury, was then part of what they dubbed the “treasury tax reform bunker”. He kept a timesheet, averaging 100 hours work a week for a three-month period. Officials brought sleeping bags and their small children (Henry’s were aged three and five) into the office.
