February 2023

We Agree with the IMF & Rishi Sunak

by Ebony Bennett

If the Albanese Government were looking for some political cover to remove the chokehold of the $254 billion Stage 3 income tax cuts on the Budget, it could do worse than look to the International Monetary Fund’s latest advice. As millions of Australians struggle to make ends meet due to cost of living increases, the

January 2023

Nothing to see here

by Richard Denniss in The Monthly

If a pandemic killed 15,000 people and nobody seemed to notice, was it really a pandemic? In Australia last year, COVID-19 killed more people than lung cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, car accidents and drowning combined. And in addition to the 15,000 deaths directly attributed to COVID, the Australian Bureau of Statistics tells us that

December 2022

November 2022

Multi-Employer Bargaining Necessary for Fixing Wages Crisis

by Fiona Macdonald in The Conversation

Proposed reforms to Commonwealth industrial relations laws would create more opportunities for collective bargaining to occur on a multi-employer basis, rather than being limited solely to individual workplaces or enterprises. Business groups have attacked this proposal as a dramatic change that would supposedly spark widespread work stoppages and industrial chaos.

Would further interest rate rises do more harm than good?

by Greg Jericho in The Guardian

In the past 7 months, the Reserve Bank has increased the cash rate by 275 basis points. That is as fast as any time since the RBA became independent. Given the pace of inflation growth, the rises are not wholly without cause, but as policy director, Greg Jericho notes in his Guardian Australia column the main drivers of inflation are now easing, and wages are yet to take off. In that case, should the RBA continue to raise rates given it will only slow the economy further?

October 2022

Liz Truss’ spectacular tax backflip gives Albanese a chance to do the sam

UK Prime Minister Liz Truss’ remarkable decision to scrap her own tax cuts offers an incredible opportunity for the Albanese government. After weeks of outrage from voters, her own backbench and even the financial markets that once trumpeted the benefits of tax cuts, common sense and economic sense combined to deliver a timely, if humiliating, backflip. Here

The pandemic is yet another wake-up call that all of Australia’s workers must have sick leave

by Matt Grudnoff in The Guardian

The ending of mandatory Covid isolation periods has also ended disaster payments for workers who don’t have access to sick leave. It’s time we faced up to the fact that the industrial relations rules have been creating the wrong kinds of work. That’s the bad news. The good news is we can change them if we want

September 2022

The UK shows how bad the Stage 3 tax cuts will be

by Greg Jericho in The Guardian

This week the UK government introduced massive high-income tax cuts – cuts that are not even as bad as the Stage 3 tax cuts here in Australia. And the reaction by the market was brutal. Investors saw the tax cuts for what they were – a redistribution of national income from the poorest to the wealthiest, that provided no economic growth. As a result the value of the UK Pound plunged.

The PBO reveals just how much the Stage 3 tax cuts favour the wealthy

by Greg Jericho in The Guardian

The Stage 3 tax cuts, which will essentially create a flat income tax system, have always been clearly biased towards high-income earners. For those earning over $200,000, the tax cuts represent a 4.5% cut compared to just 0.6% for someone on the median income of $60,000. But this week, the Parliamentary Budget Office has released costings that detail just how skewed the allocation of money is to the richest in our society.

August 2022

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mail@australiainstitute.org.au

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