Prime Minister Scott Morrison has given business and taxpayers an early Christmas present with today’s announcement of cuts to government waste and red tape in what is expected to be the largest cull of government departments since 1987.

The government is not a jobs program for struggling bureaucrats. ScoMo is taking a knife to government waste. Just one of the departments ScoMo is expected to cut, the Department of Communications and the Arts, costs taxpayers $11.3 billion.

By disbanding departments and allocating their tasks to other departments, the government can do away with high paid departmental heads, some of whom make as much as $850,000.

Every bureaucrat is a net negative to the Australia economy. By employing pencil pushers, the government is robbing the economy of potentially productive people and forcing hard-working Australian to pay individuals who make their lives harder.

Cutting red tape can act as a fiscal stimulus for the economy. Compliance costs money. When business resources, both labour and capital, are freed from the task complying with a cocktail of regulations, entrepreneurs can divert those resources to the actual business.

When businesses do well they hire more workers, workers who when paid can consume more products helping other businesses do well.

Emilie Dye is policy director with the Australian Taxpayers Alliance.

Illustration: BBC Television.

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