Over the last 30 years or so the Australian economy has been subject to wide-ranging reforms. These reforms include reducing high protective tariffs on imported goods and removing some non-tariff barriers, floating the Australian dollar, deregulating the financial services sector, deregulating the labour market, increasing efficiency between the federal and state branches of government, privatizing government-owned industries, and reforming the tax system. The social security system has also been subject to considerable reform – some periods saw retrenchment of social security support, while others saw increased targeting and generosity to the poor, or retrenchment for some groups and improvement for favoured categories.