Melbourne

People are obsessed with their pensions. People with large Super balances generally don't recognise that they have received and continue to recieve, more benefits in the way of tax exemptions on their Super than people on the pension get. Many seem convinced they will somehow be better off with less assets and the "free government money".

I personally think all of our welfare payments - unemployment, aged pension, childcare subsidies etc. should be paid regardless of income to anyone in the right category and keep a progressive tax system (that charges people with more means a higher percentage) with no tax-free threshold and higher taxes at the very top. Get rid of HECS - if the education leads to higher wages then those wages will be paying higher tax anyway, there is no need to double dip! People on high incomes would still be paying much more in tax than they receive back in benefits and the reduced time wasted on bureaucratic compliance and assessment procedures would probably free up enough working capacity to change everyone to a four day work week.

Obviously it would be difficult and destabilising to actually bring in such a major change, but when I become Supreme Leader of the world that is what I intend to do. Along with mandating that pets count as family for workplace leave policies.