The baby-boomer reforms

Economic eggheads and academic boffins: unrealistic recommendations from an out-of-touch organisation. These are some of the politer views of the leadership, staff and work of Australia's Productivity Commission, particularly from those who might be disadvantaged by Productivity Commission recommendations. In 1962, the newly created Director of the Institute for Applied Economic Research at University of Melbourne, Ronald Henderson, wanted to attract political and policy attention to ameliorate the plight of poor Australians. His interest had been stirred by a study, by the University of Cambridge, of acute poverty in southern Wales in the 1920s. This study revealed significant long-term damage to families from poverty and Henderson realised that the condition was probably also present in Australia. The conversion to metricisation, and its twin, decimalisation - both base-10 measurement systems - was relatively swift and painless in Australia.