Peter Costello is the longest-serving Treasurer of Australia (1996–2007).

He led the most complex overhaul of Australia's tax system in the postwar era: introducing the Goods and Services Tax (GST) — a value-added consumption tax — while abolishing a range of indirect taxes (notably wholesale sales tax) and cutting income-tax rates.

I wanted to learn from Peter what it actually takes to achieve a reform at that scale — and why we haven’t managed anything like it since.

In this conversation, we discuss:
GST implementation war stories;
lessons on how to get big things done in government;
why major reform became so much harder after 2000;
why Peter would sometimes hide revenue estimates even from the prime minister; and
the baby bonus (introduced in 2004), which led to an uptick in Australia's total fertility rate — making Australia one of the only western countries to increase (albeit temporarily) its TFR since the demographic transition began.

 

Episode sponsor:
Vanta: helps businesses automate security and compliance needs. For a limited time, get one thousand dollars off Vanta at vanta.com/joe. Use the discount code "JOE".

Peter Costello is the longest-serving Treasurer of Australia (1996&ndash;2007).
He led the most complex overhaul of Australia's tax system in the postwar era: introducing the Goods and Services Tax (GST) &mdash; a value-added consumption tax &mdash; while abolishing a range of indirect taxes (notably wholesale sales tax) and cutting income-tax rates.
I wanted to learn from Peter what it actually takes to achieve a reform at that scale &mdash; and why we haven&rsquo;t managed anything like it since.
In this conversation, we discuss:
<ul>
<li>GST implementation war stories;</li>
<li>lessons on how to get big things done in government;</li>
<li>why major reform became so much harder after 2000;</li>
<li>why Peter would sometimes hide revenue estimates even from the prime minister; and</li>
<li>the baby bonus (introduced in 2004), which led to an uptick in Australia's total fertility rate &mdash; making Australia one of the only western countries to increase (albeit temporarily) its TFR since the demographic transition began.</li>
</ul>
&nbsp;
Episode sponsor:
<ul>
<li>Vanta: helps businesses automate security and compliance needs. For a limited time, get one thousand dollars off Vanta at&nbsp;<a href="http://vanta.com/joe?ref=josephnoelwalker.com">vanta.com/joe</a>. Use the discount code "JOE".</li>
</ul>

Joe Walker hosts refreshingly in-depth conversations with founders, scientists, scholars, economists, and public intellectuals.

Joe Walker hosts refreshingly in-depth conversations with founders, scientists, scholars, economists, and public intellectuals.

The Joe Walker Podcast

The JSP is a weekly exploration of questions that are both important and overlooked. Joe Walker, a former political speechwriter helping to build a Y Combinator-backed startup, hosts refreshingly in-depth conversations. Topics cover capitalism, science, business, culture and politics. Guests include Nobel laureates, former prime ministers, authors, entrepreneurs, investors and thought-leaders. Australia's best long-form podcast. A space for curious contrarians.

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