Ken Henry is right to be a bit worked up – he has a solid reform plan ready to go for an emboldened Labor | Tom McIlroy

Ken Henry, the former boss of the Treasury, slipped this week during his speech at the National Press Club.

Speaking in his capacity as president of the Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation, Henry was questioned about his historical examination of the country’s tax system, handed over to the government of Rudd in 2010.

Its official title was the future examination of the Australia’s tax system. Famous, the work was seated on the report and most of its 140 recommendations to bring the tax system to the 21st century, with a tax on super profits of 40% the only major element taken by the government. He triggered a huge lobbying backlash and was quickly consumed by the bitter civil war of work.

But, with the tax reform on the agenda before the productivity table next month, the report of more than 1,070 pages returned to the titles.

“Each recommendation from the journal Henry remains valid,” said the reform activist, giving a boost to the crowded club, before catching up. “In fact, this is the first time that I have called him criticism Henry. You must have excited me.”

Henry said that some of the ideas could benefit from “paying off”, but said the follow -up of measures he had recommended was then largely ready to go for any government ready to match his excitement to improve the system.

Henry was right to be a little elaborate. He has a large part of the answers to the greatest challenges that the Labor government is faced with this quarter.

Since he submitted his tax report to the treasurer of the time, Wayne Swan, Henry made criticism in the Royal Banking Commission. He was forced to resign as president of the National Australia Bank after the commission report said that he and the then managing director of then had learned the lessons of failures to the bank, including $ 100 million in customers without any service.

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Years later, Henry is fed up with the delay in revising the broken environmental laws of Australia. Known for his plea for endangered species – in particular the Wombat with a hairy nose in the north – he used his speech to approve the revision of Graeme Samuel on the Environmental Protection Act and the Conservation of Biodiversity (EPBC).

The stake is the foundation of all life on earth, warned Henry, pointing threats to food systems, pure air and water and vulnerable animal and plant species.

“We have turned nature against us,” said Henry. “Our destruction of the natural environment is now an existential threat to everything we appreciate.”

He said that work should consider the inclusion of a climate trigger in his imminent overhaul of the positive package of nature, requiring approvals for major projects for at least any effect on global warming. He suggested that work should argue in favor of a new carbon tax, exasperated that politics has ever been abandoned by the coalition of Tony Abbott and describing it as “the best carbon policy in the world”.

Henry’s frank words were less useful to the government of toxic flowering of the flowering of toxic algae wreaking havoc with waters off South Australia, an ecological disaster fueled by the warming of the ocean. For Henry, the massive destruction of marine life which rises on the beaches of Adelaide does not represent an early signal of the things to come. He said it was a “late warning” on the threat to the oceans of human actions on earth.

The federal workforce undergoes increasing pressure to act, in the midst of the concerns of the beaches will have to be closed during the summer and the permanent damage caused to marine life. A kind of federal intervention probably seems in the coming days, potentially the main levels of the government.

Henry Cast changes EPBC changes as essential to stimulate productivity. The creation of a federal environmental protection agency was delayed before the elections on fears of a counter coupling in Australia-Western resources, the Albanians moving to make an agreement with the Greens and pushing the problem in the new term.

The public caliber for speech was a strong indication of the importance of reforms. Among those who served the Lancashire Hotpot, there was the former deputy for the Reserve Bank, Guy Debelle, now a member of the board of directors of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. A few seats, David Parker, the president of the clean energy regulator, and a main member of the staff of the Minister of the Environment Murray Watt. A table of nearby parliamentarians included the independent David Pocock, the Greens Sarah Hanson-Young and Labor deputies Alicia Payne and Karen Grogan, president of the Senate of the Environment Committee.

Henry will have a headquarters at the table at the top of the Jim Chalmers’ cabinet in August, as well as in an unofficial overview of the talks that should be organized by the deputy of Wentworth, Alleg Spender, next week. This meeting follows the work of independence on tax reform in the last parliament.

Henry noted that Australian workers lost up to $ 500,000 in lost profits in the last quarter of a century due to poor quality policies and productivity. He put the samples of road users from electric vehicles and moves to reduce the cost of fracture credits to shareholders as ideas to help finance a reduction in the corporate tax rate.

It is not yet clear how ready to repair obsolete environmental laws or modify the tax system. The answer could be somewhere between politically prudent Albanians and the most ambitious Chalmers. Treasurers and Prime Ministers can have different objectives, but effective matching is a prerequisite for a lasting change.

Albanese and Watt seem impatient to involve cases in the overhaul of the environmental plan, by ensuring a large purchase for changes and forcing opposition to the fringes. This approach could guide future work while Albanese seeks to marginalize Sussan Ley and the coalition to finally deliver the Labor government which he spent decades to imagine.

Friday, speaking of the G20 finance ministers in South Africa, Chalmers approved Henry’s message and said he considered a good environmental law reform as part of the Australian productivity challenge.

It is good that the government, the deputies of the Parliament, the bureaucracy and the decision -makers of the community are ready to listen to enlightened voices like Henry.

Even if he is reluctant to use his own name in the brand, he has a solid reform plan ready to go for Albanians, just in the period when his inheritance is manufactured or broken.