Name: Michael Keating AC
Bio: Former head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and author, Who Rules? [Federation Press, 2004]
Who Rules? How Government Retains Control of a Privatised Economy
This speech was printed in Sydney Papers Vol.17 No.1 in 2005 (pages 127-137)
Michael Keating AC, former head of the Department of Prime Minister & Cabinet under the Hawke and Keating governments is the author of Who Rules? [Federation Press, 2004]. In an address to The Sydney Institute on Tuesday, 1 February 2005, Michael Keating challenged the notion that a privatised economy in any way diminished the control of government. In his view, the deregulated economy has seen government responsibility increase sharply in ways not envisaged when reform was introduced. For example, a single income family with two children now receives half its disposable income in government support, a dramatic increase from 1983 when such a family received just four per cent of its disposable income from the government.