What Peace Really Means

We’ve been taught to think of peace as the opposite of war, a matter for foreign affairs, the military, or the United Nations. But that narrow definition has kept peacebuilding trapped at the edge of government, rather than woven into its core.

If the Ministry for Peace is to mean something real, it must help Australia understand peace as more than disarmament or diplomacy. Peace is the active presence of right human relations. It’s the daily experience of dignity, justice, and belonging. And it’s built not just in treaties, but in homes, hospitals, classrooms, and community halls.

That’s why peace must be made visible in how we structure the economy, especially when it comes to care.

Right now, millions of Australians provide unpaid or underpaid care to children, elders, people with disability, and their communities. Their work sustains society, yet it is financially penalised, invisibilised in GDP, and structurally undervalued.

A truly peaceful nation would not allow the people doing its most essential relational work to be exhausted, isolated, or impoverished. It would recognise this labour as infrastructure, peace infrastructure, and fund it accordingly.

The Ministry for Peace Australia is calling for a National Care Economy Framework: a whole-of-government strategy to revalue care, reduce inequality, and expand real human freedom. This is not a welfare proposal. It is a peacebuilding platform.

 

The Forgotten Backbone: Australia’s Unpaid Care Workforce

Every day in Australia, care happens quietly. It happens when a parent teaches a toddler how to manage their emotions. When a daughter prepares medication for her ageing father. When a neighbour checks in on a new mum. When a retired teacher volunteers at a local reading group. None of it appears in quarterly economic reports. All of it is essential.

In dollar terms, the value of unpaid care in Australia is over $650 billion a year, more than the entire formal health, education, and retail sectors combined. In human terms, it’s even greater: it’s how we survive, grow, and stay connected.

Yet those who provide this care, especially stay-at-home parents, unpaid carers, and volunteers, face economic and social penalties. They earn no superannuation, receive little or no recognition, and are often dismissed as “non-participants” in the economy.

This isn’t just bad policy. It’s a form of structural disrespect.

If we’re serious about peace, as a culture, not just a condition, we must confront this contradiction. Because here’s the deeper truth: a society that devalues care degrades peace. It breeds burnout, inequality, and resentment. It breaks intergenerational trust.

Right human relations require more than lip service to the value of families and communities. They require systems that honour the work of care, regardless of whether it’s paid or taxed.

This also means respecting the freedom not to work for pay, if that choice serves the individual and the community. Peace respects autonomy. Forcing parents or carers into employment under economic pressure is a form of quiet violence, against wellbeing, family rhythm, and personal integrity.

A peaceful society gives people genuine choice: to parent full-time without sacrificing retirement security, to care for elders without falling into poverty, to contribute to community life without invisibility.

It’s time we stopped treating care as charity or sacrifice. It is a public good, as vital as roads or broadband. And like any good infrastructure, it needs investment.

That’s what the National Care Economy Framework will deliver.

 

The Proposal: A National Care Economy Framework

If we’re to build a peaceful nation, we need to build it from the inside out, starting with the people who care for others. The National Care Economy Framework is a concrete, systemic proposal to do exactly that.

Rather than treating care as a private burden or a soft add-on, this framework would embed care into the heart of policy. It recognises that economic systems are not value-neutral, they shape what we reward, what we overlook, and ultimately, what kind of society we become.

Below are six interlocking initiatives that would form the backbone of the framework. Together, they elevate care as a strategic priority, expand personal freedom, and foster the relational wellbeing essential to peace.

1. Tax Splitting or Family-Based Taxation

This policy would allow couples to be taxed on their combined income, recognising the economic impact of one partner stepping back from paid work to care for children or others. This approach, used in countries like France and Germany, offers real choice, removing the penalty for caregiving and acknowledging it as a legitimate contribution.

Peace principle: No one should be punished for choosing to nurture others.

 2. Superannuation Credits for Unpaid Carers

Caregivers who spend years outside the paid workforce often enter retirement with little or no superannuation. This initiative would provide annual government contributions to carers’ super funds, whether they’re raising children, caring for an ageing parent, or supporting a loved one with disability.

Peace principle: Dignity in old age should not depend on whether care was paid.

3. Home Education Allowance

Families who choose to educate their children at home do so at personal cost and often without support. A modest allowance, means-tested and tied to educational plans, would reduce financial strain, support educational outcomes, and affirm parental agency.

Peace principle: Families deserve support to educate in the way that best fits their children.

4. Formal Recognition of Civic Contribution

Volunteers, community organisers, and informal caregivers hold communities together, yet their contributions are invisible to most institutions. A national system to track, recognise, and formally value community hours would help build trust, reduce marginalisation, and allow care contributions to count, for job applications, training credits, or public housing eligibility.

Peace principle: Recognition is a form of respect. Care counts, even when unpaid.

5. Expanded Funding for Playgroups and Toy Libraries

Connection in early childhood builds the emotional and cognitive foundations for peace. Community-led playgroups and toy libraries provide vital support for parents and children alike, especially in regional areas. Funding these as local peace infrastructure would strengthen resilience where it’s needed most.

Peace principle: Peace begins in childhood. Connection is prevention.

6. Care Equity Metrics in National Budgets

Finally, what we measure signals what we value. Embedding care indicators into national budgets, such as unpaid care time, social cohesion, and community trust, would ensure care remains visible at the highest levels of governance.

Peace principle: What we measure, we protect.

 

The Cost of Peace, and Its Value

Implementing this framework would cost around $10 billion per year. That sounds large in isolation, but let’s place it in context.

💰 Estimated Breakdown:

Initiative	Estimated Annual Cost
Tax splitting/family taxation reform	$5–7 billion
Superannuation credits for unpaid carers	$1.5–3 billion
Home education allowance	$100–200 million
Playgroups and toy libraries	$100–300 million
Volunteer/community contribution system	$50–100 million
Total	~$10 billion/year

Australia’s total federal budget is over $630 billion. This proposal represents just 1.6% of total expenditure, less than one-third of the cost of Stage 3 tax cuts and less than half the annual cost of superannuation tax concessions.

This is not a luxury. It’s a recalibration. The current system already pays a price for neglecting care, in burnout, workforce dropout, mental health crises, educational inequality, and aged care system strain.

By investing in care, we reduce the demand for crisis services. We restore time, trust, and relational capacity. We seed the conditions for long-term peace.

 

How It Could Be Funded: A Menu, Not a Wall

If peace begins with care, funding it shouldn’t feel like a burden. It should feel like a national reset of priorities.

The good news is that a $10 billion per year Care Economy Framework is entirely affordable for Australia, if we stop treating the economy as a scoreboard and start using it as a tool.

Below is a flexible mix of options, none requiring across-the-board tax hikes. Governments could choose any combination based on political appetite and timing.

1. Tighter Regulation of Super Concessions

Australia’s wealthiest households benefit disproportionately from tax concessions on superannuation balances. A proposed 2025 reform applying a higher tax on super balances above $3 million is expected to raise $2 billion annually. Scaling or expanding this reform could fund super credits for unpaid carers.

2. Reform Negative Gearing and Capital Gains Tax Discounts

Property investment incentives currently cost the budget over $4 billion annually, much of it flowing to high-income households. Adjusting or phasing out these concessions, especially for second or third properties, could redirect $2–3 billion/year toward community-based care infrastructure.

 3. Resource Rent Reform

Australia’s natural resources generate immense corporate profit, particularly in LNG, lithium, and iron ore. A modest recalibration of royalty frameworks or resource rent taxes could yield $1–2 billion/year, especially during boom periods.

4. Targeted “Social Equity Levy” on High Incomes

A small tiered levy (e.g. 0.2–0.3%) on incomes over $180,000 could raise $1.5 billion annually, similar in design to the Medicare Levy but ringfenced for care-related initiatives. Unlike broad tax hikes, this keeps the burden focused on those with greater means.

5. Strategic Offsets from Formal Services

Investing in unpaid care reduces pressure on formal systems. For example:

• Delaying aged care admissions saves $60,000+ per person/year.
• Supporting home education and parenting lowers demand on stretched mental health, early education, and social work systems.

Even a 5% reduction in demand across these sectors could unlock $1.5–2 billion in downstream savings.

6. Public-Philanthropic Co-Investment

Playgroups, toy libraries, and civic contribution tracking could be co-funded with philanthropy, local councils, or social enterprises. A blended finance model could support scalable pilots while embedding community ownership. Estimated government share: $100–200 million/year.

Total Possible Funding Pool:
$10–12 billion/year, using flexible, ethically-aligned sources

This is not a cost without return. It’s a strategic reinvestment in relational resilience, with measurable dividends in mental health, productivity, gender equity, and national wellbeing.

 

Why This Belongs to a Ministry for Peace

Critics might ask: why would a Ministry for Peace concern itself with tax codes and superannuation policy?

Because peace, properly understood, is not just a matter of avoiding violence. It is the active cultivation of just, harmonious, and sustainable human relations.

That means:

• Recognising when economic systems create structural injustice, even without intent.
• Intervening to prevent the slow erosion of social trust, family cohesion, and civic spirit.
• Asking not just “Is this policy efficient?” but “Is it peaceful?”

This framework is not about handouts or hand-wringing. It is about placing care where it belongs, at the centre of a peaceful society.

🔹 A Ministry for Peace has a cross-cutting mandate:

• In Health, it asks how relational wellbeing can prevent crisis care.
• In Treasury, it brings visibility to unpaid labour and time use.
• In Education, it affirms multiple valid paths for learning and parenting.
• In Employment, it values dignity beyond productivity.
• In Infrastructure, it sees connection and care as civic assets.

This is how a Ministry for Peace moves from the margins to the centre, not by duplicating other departments, but by reshaping how they think.

Peace is not a sector. It is a lens.

The National Care Economy Framework offers Australia the chance to build a peace economy from the ground up. To stop punishing care and start protecting it. To give people not just the right to work, but the right to care, to be cared for, and to choose freely between the two.

In doing so, we don’t just make a more humane nation. We make a stronger one.

 

A Nation That Cares, Lasts

Peace doesn’t begin in foreign ministries or military standoffs. It begins in the everyday spaces where people live, care, grieve, and grow. It begins with how we value one another, and especially how we value those whose labour is relational, unpaid, and invisible to the formal economy.

For too long, Australia has praised care in theory while penalising it in practice. We tell parents they’re doing “the most important job,” then punish them through tax, superannuation, and social security systems. We say community matters, but let volunteers and informal carers burn out in silence. We run economic models that assume all contribution must be monetised, or else it doesn’t count.

This is not peaceful. It is short-sighted, and ultimately, unsustainable.

The National Care Economy Framework is a peaceful intervention, not just into policy, but into national values. It asks:

• What if caregiving were treated as civic infrastructure?
• What if dignity were measured in more than productivity?
• What if peace were built not by isolating threats, but by supporting what holds us together?

This framework doesn’t impose a single way of living. It expands freedom. It gives people the real choice to care, without being punished for it. And in doing so, it strengthens everything else: early childhood development, ageing in place, community resilience, gender equity, social trust.

These aren’t abstract ideals. They are conditions for peace.

A Ministry for Peace must lead not just in conflict resolution, but in preventative care for the nation’s social fabric. That means embedding care, recognition, and relational wellbeing into our systems of taxation, infrastructure, and national accounting.

Because a nation that values care is a nation that values life. And a nation that values life, truly and structurally, is one that lasts.

Let that be the peace we remember. And the peace we build.