Events in my professional life have had me thinking about government rebates. At present the Commonwealth Government and other agencies have stimulus schemes that offer to reimburse expenditure on reducing electriicity use. Homeowners can end up getting a selection of goods at little or, commonly, no cost to themselves.

Homeowners, knowing that the government will reimburse them whatever price they pay are less likely to seek value for money. Should a company inflate its prices in order to “chew up as much of the rebate as possible”? While unethical, it certainly seems financially sensible to do so.

As it presently stands, the rebates give little incentive to the householder to seek good value for money. Companies can inflate their quotes but keep it under the rebate in the hope the customer won’t care. This is particularly problematic when there’s no need to provide evidence that multiple quotes were sought. It’s a transfer of money from the taxpayer to the proprietors of the businesses, and reduces the multiplier effect of stimulus spending.

A better scheme, if the government does choose to provide rebates, is to cost share. For every dollar spent by the customer, the rebate provider should put in a dollar, or some multiple. This gives the customer more incentive to shop around for a good price, as they share the cost of a bad price with the rebate provider. The stimulus money would then have a higher multiplier effect and the economy would be better off.

While in general I support the idea of government intervention in the form of stimulus spending and think reducing electricity use is a good idea (both environmentally and to reduce future need for electricity infrastructure), that spending needs to be spent in such a way as to have as high a multipler effect as possible, both to stimulate the economy as much as possible and to achieve good value for many for the tax payer.

This rant has been triggered by two weeks working for the worst employer I have yet experienced. Organisation and planning were words not in the company dictionary, and the intent to inflate prices and work around rules was explicitly discussed. Things got so bad that staff weren’t being paid, refundable deposits couldn’t be refunded to unsatisfied customers, and everyone was massively stressed.

Anyway, I’m now looking for work again. If there’s someone looking for an administrative worker who likes organisation, planning and ethical conduct, email me!