Scott Morrison’s government loves financial incentives when they’re for CEOs and high-income earners As any parent or child knows, sometimes threats work, and sometimes bribes work. Despite the Morrison government planning to spend $180bn on tax cuts to those earning above $200,000 per year as more incentive to work hard, the Coalition are arguing that

Tax is good. The fact that such a statement will raise eyebrows signals just how feeble Australia’s political debate on revenue has become. Taxes create space in the economy for a thriving and robust public sector. They allow us to educate our children and have a world-class healthcare system. They make a dignified retirement possible

Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s repeated offer to deploy troops to help control people’s movements in Sydney’s lockdown areas has found acceptance – not by Gladys Berejiklian, but by NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller. The commissioner likes a bit of fear in the community, and with a couple of regiments of soldiers in cams, he’ll have it.

Like a struggling middle manager, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been playing the states against each other to distract from his own poor decisions. The interstate fight for vaccines, funding, and even praise from the Prime Minister, now dominates Australia’s response to COVID. But if COVID rarely breached our quarantine, if there was plenty of

The worst day of my life was federal budget day in 2004. I was preparing to go into the lockup when I got the call that would forever split my life into “before” and “after”. My mum had been diagnosed with terminal cancer about six months before, and despite knowing she had a terminal diagnosis

Carbon taxes are coming to Australia whether we like it or not. They are coming despite the triumphant ‘axing of the tax’ in 2014. They are coming despite the updated but equally loud ‘technology not taxes’ sloganeering from the Morrison government in 2021. They are coming despite our government’s refusal to commit to a net-zero

Ministers are spending millions to fight the ruling that they must think about future generations when making planning decisions The environment minister, Sussan Ley, has announced she will spend millions of dollars appealing a federal court judgment that she has a duty of care to protect Australian children from climate harm. She’s not alone in

Canberra resident and economist David Richardson has been attending the Budget ‘lock-up’ for the Australia Institute for 13 years. This year, he was banned. The lock-up is where journalists, the opposition and crossbenchers, business groups, non-government organisations and other experts are given access to the details of the Federal Budget ahead of time. However, they

The more a company invests in safely handling waste the more jobs it will create, the less damage it will do to the natural environment and the less harm it will do to the tourism, agriculture and fisheries industries that are built on the image and the reality of Tasmania’s clean environment. While it is

Not only are the Nordics among the world’s most prosperous nations, they have also dealt with many of the issues that Australia finds so difficult. As Australia starts to peek at a future beyond COVID-19, where should we look for inspiration on how to take our country, community and politics in a better direction? Scott Morrison’s

While Australia sticks to accounting tricks, calls by other countries are growing to impose a carbon price on our export Who would have thought that Scott Morrison would be the one to reintroduce a carbon tax? And who would have thought it possible to design a carbon tax on Australian polluters that delivered revenue to

I’m a fifth-generation farmer. My family have run properties alongside the Darling/Baaka River for almost a century. We have watched as the once mighty river system that runs through the heart of our nation has suffered due to government mismanagement and over-extraction upstream. I’ve always said the red dirt of home runs through my veins,

Eighteen months after Scott Morrison delivered his “negative globalism” diatribe, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade continues to flout the law by refusing an Australia Institute freedom-of-information request that seeks to get the background and reaction from foreign diplomats to the Prime Minister’s now infamous speech. At this rate, the “negative globalism” doctrine will

You can’t be a leader if you follow people down the wrong path, which is why, with a heavy heart, I am returning the alumni award for National Leadership the University of Newcastle bestowed on me in 2017. I cannot understand how the council of a university whose motto is “I look ahead” could appoint

The best way to keep premiums down is to prevent climate change and the disasters it causes No matter how much you pay for your home or car insurance, if your property is damaged by mouse plague, nuclear radiation, war or rising sea levels you are almost certainly on your own. If you’re lucky, your

There are many arguments put forward as to why increasing tax is bad for Australia and its economy. It is also argued that the stage 3 tax cuts due to start in 2024 will be good for the economy. Here are ten reasons why these are wrong.

Australia has a robust democracy, but it has become clear that freedom of the press is under attack. Whether it’s starving the public broadcaster of funding while forking out millions to Foxtel, the further concentration of media ownership in Australia, or the frequency with which journalists, media organisations and whistleblowers are being raided and arrested

The budget shows that the government is not interested in lifting women out of poverty

Last week, Senator Rex Patrick challenged the secrecy of Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s National Cabinet. In the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, parties argued whether the National Cabinet belongs to the Westminster tradition, with its expectations of cabinet confidentiality, solidarity and collective responsibility. The controversy cuts to the core of our system of government. Eventual court decisions

The Human Rights Commission’s call for a pause on the development of Facial Recognition Technology and the placing of guardrails around the development of other AI products could be the kickstart the Australian tech sector desperately needs. While Australia plays perpetual catch-up with the tech superpowers of the US and China, scrounging for government support

It’s easy to feel like achieving change is impossible. After all, the federal government just delivered another $2.6 billion in post-budget handouts to the fossil fuel industry. Despite promises from the Attorney General, Australia still has no federal independent anti-corruption commission. The national vaccine rollout is way behind schedule and the Prime Minister isn’t in

While most of the world offers incentives to people buying EVs, our government hands out subsidies for utes As a rule of thumb, it’s good economics and good politics to tax the things you want less of and subsidise the things you want more of. That is why the Australian government raises so much tax

The only viable long-term solution to our liquid fuel insecurity is to get off fossil fuels. Instead we are giving them taxpayer handouts When I was a kid, every year in early December we would go to the Geelong oil refinery in Corio. The refinery’s fire engine would cruise around, flash its lights and hand

Josh Frydenberg is playing us all for mugs – and I’m not talking about those ridiculous “Back in the Black” coffee cups he had made in 2019. With his third Federal Budget, Frydenberg has delivered on Matthias Corman’s strategy, which he revealed when he let the mask slip in an interview with Sky News on

It is not that the Treasurer did nothing for arts and culture in his budget that is so disappointing. It is that we expected nothing. It has been nearly 50 years since Gough Whitlam put art and creativity at the centre of government decision-making, and over 25 years since Paul Keating’s famous Creative Nation push.

There are ways to make housing cheaper for those locked out of the market, but little political will to let house prices fall Do you want house prices to be higher or lower? I think they should go down, but relax, few people agree with me. Especially people who already own a home or four,

There has never been a worse time to be a centre-right economist. From the IMF to the World Bank, Australia’s RBA, the US Treasury and now our very own Josh Frydenberg have all abandoned talk of budget and government restraint. For 40 years, the anti-debt and deficit rhetoric held much of centre-right economic orthodoxy together. Of course,

Nothing captures prime minister Scott Morrison’s approach to climate change better than his embrace of “clean hydrogen” – a BS marketing term that delivers nothing but obfuscation and helps no one but the fossil fuel industry. Tellingly, this approach isn’t even new: Morrison has simply dusted off an old polluter playbook and changed a few

Last year, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg delivered what was described as a “Bloke’s Budget”, that targeted stimulus spending in male-heavy industries, while neglecting investment in industries that support women’s employment-including healthcare, education and social services – even though women bore the brunt of last year’s recession. But the fact is every budget is biased towards men

I have sat through countless speeches on climate change from world leaders, both working for the government and outside it, and Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s rant at President Joe Biden’s climate summit last night was one of the worst performances I have ever seen. Technical glitches and the dreaded mute button were the least of Morrison’s worries,