Critical Line Item with Tom Ravlic

The past 12 months have seen a lot of activity in parliamentary inquiries related to accounting firms and consultants. Senator Barbara Pocock tells Tom Ravlic about the inquiries in which she has participated, and that she thinks a lot more work needs to be done.

Andrew Leigh, the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities, Treasury and Employment, joins Tom Ravlic to talk about how the government tests whether policies work, the tax laws impacting companies that operate cross border, and a bit of a chat about what the respective roles for government are the Reserve Bank of Australia. This podcast is the audio of the Ravlic at Large streamed presentation available on YouTube.

Deloitte Australia's accessibility lead Dani Fraillon is on a mission to try and raise awareness on the importance of creating better workplace environments for disabled people. She is concerned that in 2024 people are still unable to feel comfortable disclosing their disabilities at the office as well as get some form of adjustment that means they can reach their full potential in the workplace.

A reflection on a day Tom Ravlic views as one of three important days of the year.

Deloitte's Vanessa Matthijssen is a member of the Australian Food and Agricultural Industry Taskforce and she has some significant concerns about the current status of the food sector. The taskforce has issued a fairly comprehensive paper that sets out a range of policy ideas but she argues these ideas can only be properly implemented with a higher degree of coordination between the public and private sectors.

Senator Richard Colbeck - a coalition senator from Tasmania - delivered a short, pithy address to the Senate last week in defense of proper legislative process. What would supporters of this social media ban think if a law they disliked was rammed through in the same way as this social media ban they were pleased to see pop out of the other end of the sausage machine last week? Give it some thought.

Many thousands of submissions were made to a parliamentary committee that considered the legislation related to the social media ban for people under the age of 16 with only 107 being uploaded, and quite of few of those opposed the law as proposed. Tom Ravlic looks at some of the ones you might not have heard about and asks whether this is like the Voice Referendum where parts of the community were not successfully carried on a journey.

Tom Ravlic reflects on the social media ban law and what people under 16 will miss out on when the legislation comes into force.