The effect of a restrictive monetary policy on investment in the private rental market provides a useful lesson. Rate rises have starved investment while demand has increased; add to that record low vacancy rates - is it any wonder that rents across the country have increases in the order of 10%+. 

The release of the Australian National Accounts on Wednesday [Sept 3, 2008] confirms what most Australians already knew, a rapid slow down in domestic economic activity.  In seasonally adjusted terms GDP increased by just 0.3 per cent in the June quarter. Excise investment in machinery and equipment in Western Australia from the result, and you get zero growth for the quarter.

Notwithstanding a rapid slowing in the economy, a pre-occupation with an ageing inflation target has been maintained.  A pre-occupation with this 15 year-old inflation target has muzzled the adoption of a monetary policy that maintains a ‘realistic' inflation target.  Such a target should be mindful of external price shocks and capacity constraints within the Australian economy. 

To suggest that inflation woes experienced over the last 18 months were a consequence of consumer exuberance ignores the fact that investment in capacity building infrastructure has been sadly lacking for quite some time.  Furthermore, it ignores the effect of external price pressures most notably the price of oil.

There has to be an element of "user pays", otherwise, the system will be ripe for abuse.

I'm not a massive believer in mandatory paid maternity leave. And I definitely think it should be restricted. The suggestion of 12 months is too long.

I don't believe in handouts generally. In the case of maternity leave, I disagree with the attitude that just because you want to have a baby that you should expect the government to support you. 

Something I find really immoral is when women choose a new employer based on the fact that they know after a certain period of time they will become eligible for paid maternity leave. Not disclosing your intentions when you plan to need leave after 6months is wrong.

And I'm highly sceptical of paid paternity leave. Men can't breastfeed. I'm sure there are some Dads who use it properly to look after the baby when the Mum returns to work early - but I find it hard to believe they are in the majority.  I think most blokes who take it up will be just having a holiday.

Granted, I'm an old school kind of guy, and I know a lot of these ideas I'm expressing are out of fashion; but before you jump up and down thinking I'm a sexist old fogy, let me finish.

It is great to see women's employment issues and problems - such as lack of equal pay, lack of child care, lack of paid maternity leave - finally being acknowledged and put back onto the political agenda.

While in my last blog I suggested the government has done well in promoting women to senior roles in cabinet, it is important that it does not commit the mistake of typecasting women as mothers, thus alienating those who have yet to have kids, or whose kids have already grown. 

I was disappointed that the Rudd government decided not to reverse the previous government's downgrading of the women's policy advice function from the Prime Minister's department to the welfare area.

As you will recall, the Howard government not only downgraded the Office of the status of Women but also changed its name - to the Office for Women. We lost our power - and our status. 

The Rudd government has given us back the status, at least in the title Tanya Plibersek enjoys as Minister for the Status of Women - but not the power. There is now an Office of Work and Family in the Prime Minister's department, but not an Office of Women. I am not being semantic here. As I will point out in a moment, not all women are in the workforce and not all women are in what is generally understood to be a family - and many don't want to be. An office of women covers all situations. An office of work and family is already premised on a certain set of choices.

Equally problematic is the removal of EOWA from the Employment portfolio to the department of Family and Community Services. This is no doubt so that it can be attached to the Office of Women and Tanya can administer it. Nevertheless, removing equality of employment functions from the Employment Department is a significant change in policy. As is the fact that none of women's policy is now represented in Cabinet. One to watch.

At the same time, I do welcome childcare being removed from the welfare area to Julia Gillard's powerful education and employment portfolio where, finally, the policy looks like it might receive the serious treatment it has long been denied.

I hope that the government will restore the previous practice of monitoring and reporting on trends in employment, income and so on. We suffered greatly under the Howard government, but it was difficult to document the details because all the monitoring mechanisms were silenced or shut down.

Managed well, Risk Equalisation has an important social role to play in ensuring health insurance is available to all Australian citizens, alleviating considerable pressure from the public purse. 

I'd like to highlight an area of regulation pertaining to the private health insurance sector that urgently requires reform.

The Risk Equalisation scheme must be amended, because at the moment, it totally lacks equity. Through my role as Chairman of HIRMAA (the peak body for restricted and regional funds I've been raising this contention with the Federal government (and the previous one) for quite a while. Unfortunately regulatory reform in this area is being stymied, due to no good reason I can see, other than the powerful opposition of the big insurers.

Risk Equalisation is essentially a new name for what we used to call reinsurance. It's a concept which has been a central aspect of private health insurance since October 1976 (having been preceded by a similar arrangement known as the Special Account that had been introduced in 1959). 

I agree we need to retain the system of Risk Equalisation funds pooling. However, because of the differences between the big and small players, a far more equitable approach would be to have two separate pools.