In the Beginning

09 Nov In the Beginning

I started my journey in public policy as a new graduate in the public service. John Howard had just been elected for his second term on a public policy platform of tax reform. The reforms meant massive increases to public service staffing and lots of promotions for anyone willing to move to Canberra. I accepted the job offer, without a clue what ‘public policy’ was.

In Canberra, I was welcomed by a group of graduates from across the country. I went to public policy courses… and fell in love with public policy.

Public policy impacts our everyday lives and influences many of our everyday decisions. Take taxation. Public policy isn’t designed to question legitimate business decisions, but it does define what counts as ‘legitimate’. These definitions in turn guide business decisions; and some of those decision, if timed right, can make a big tax difference.

Some of the more interesting projects I have worked on involved charities. We can all recall times when charities have made ethically questionable decisions that hit the headlines.

Charities were accepting large ‘donations’, in return for which they would provide a tax deduction receipt for the full ‘donation’ amount AND then return money to the donor. Variations on this theme abounded; sometimes the charity could retain just 10% of the ‘donation’ amount and the ‘donor’ would come out financially well ahead due to the tax decrease.

To illustrate very simply, say Ewe Buyte Ltd ‘donated’ Smiles Charity $1million. Smiles Charity gave a tax receipt to Ewe Buyte for $1million. The corporate tax rate is 30%, which equates to $300,000 lower tax bill for Ewe Buyte. Smiles Charity also returns $900,000 to Ewe Buyte via a separate arrangement.

Obviously, that doesn’t pass the ‘pub test’ and so we created a rule to say that the donor cannot receive, or expect to receive, a material benefit in return.

It fascinates me that public policy – gift donation rules – resulted in this highly artificial situation.

And that’s why I love public policy – it’s an intellectual challenge to work out how to design public policy that makes the world a better place, without leading to artificial situations that advantage a small number of people and organisations who are prepared to engage in those practices.

This article comes from my column entitled “Here to Help” in Hunter Local, November 2025. If you have an everyday problem just begging for a simple, real world solution, send it to “Here to Help” and let’s see what we can achieve.

Elaine Abery has a closet full of great ideas and empowering solutions. She’s also the Director of Unravelling Red Tape, a company dedicated to helping everyday people, not-for-profits and companies change the world through improved decision-making and legislation.