The Australia Institute has welcomed the decision from the South Australian Labor and Greens parties to oppose the Marshall Government’s proposed Electric Vehicle Tax. “The Australia Institute welcomes the decision of the South Australian Labor Party and the South Australian Greens to oppose the electric vehicle tax,” said Noah Schultz-Byard, SA Director at The Australia

Read full text version of the Open Letter to Google below, along with response from a Google spokesperson. Open letter text as published on 20 August 2020 in The Sydney Morning Herald, in full: An Open Letter to Google — As a nation we welcomed you into our lives and have made you our home base

The Australia InstituteFollowApr 12  In a blink and you’ll miss it move on the eve of the Federal Election, Environment Minister Melissa Price rubber stamped the groundwater management plans for Adani’s coal mine and rail project. Adani still requires further approvals before it can proceed, but the timing of this decision is a major concern: on the cusp

You don’t announce anything you’re proud of at 5pm on Friday and you certainly don’t rush legislation you’re proud of through Parliament in the shadow of the Budget on the eve of a Federal Election. The Australia InstituteFollowApr 4  In the final sitting day before the election Senators passed a bill to greatly increase the

Just as ‘low tar’ cigarettes were aimed at keeping people smoking, WA’s big gas export companies want to lock Australia into using Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) for decades to come. The Australia InstituteFollowMar 21  Image source: AAP by Mark Ogge, Principal Advisor at The Australia Institute. Remember when the tobacco industry was pushing low tar cigarettes as a

David Richardson, Senior Research Fellow The Parliamentary Budgetary Office (2019) has just published a report on net debt but is really a plea for wider use of ‘net financial worth’ as a better indicator than net debt of what it calls ‘fiscal sustainability’. They say ‘net debt is widely regarded as a key budget indicator

The Australia Institute’s Dan J Cass explains why ‘demand response’ is proving so popular with energy market operators, Australian consumers and some of our country’s biggest businesses. Weather records have been smashed as Australia continues to swelter through one of its hottest summers on record As the heatwaves hit Australia this summer, we should be watching

Instead of reloading the gun to do it again, perhaps this is a good time to reconsider whether company tax cuts made any sense at all The Australia InstituteFollowJan 25   The ABS released its detailed biennial survey of employment arrangements this week and, buried deep in the dozens of statistical tables, there was a very surprising breakdown. It

Hundreds and thousands of native fish have been killed in the Murray Darling Basin. Drought is the catalyst, but mismanagement and policy failure of implementing the Murray Darling Basin Plan is the cause. The Australia InstituteFollowJan 23   ABC report on the mismanagement of the Murray Darling Basin Since allegations of large-scale water theft were first aired on Four

Over the summer, we have been busy recording what Tasmanians think about a whole range of issues. Tassie is cool and tourism is hot – with our state having the largest rise in visitor numbers this quarter. Whilst some in the South and East are worried about over crowding and under funding of infrastructure, the

Australia’s manufacturing sector has been experiencing an important and welcome rebound during the last two years. The turnaround has been documented and analysed in previous Centre for Future Work research (including studies published in 2017 and 2018 as part of the National Manufacturing Summit, co-sponsored by the Centre). Ironically, the manufacturing recovery could be short-circuited

As the year draws to a close, the Australia Institute team has compiled a list of essential reads of 2018 The Australia InstituteFollowDec 20, 2018  No Friend But the Mountains by Behrouz Boochani Where have I come from? From the land of rivers, the land of waterfalls, the land of ancient chants, the land of mountains… In

The Australia InstituteFollowDec 13, 2018   BREAKING: the government has announced it will establish a Commonwealth Integrity Commission to investigate corrupt conduct at the federal level. Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Attorney General Christian Porter this morning held a press conference where they made the announcement to set up a new federal anti-corruption watchdog. Australia Institute

THE WAGES CRISIS IN AUSTRALIA: WHAT IT IS AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT Edited by Andrew Stewart, Jim Stanford, and Tess Hardy (University of Adelaide Press) Australian wage growth has decelerated in recent years to the slowest sustained pace since the 1930s. Nominal wages have grown very slowly since 2012; average real wages (after

Why would the IMF put dealing with inequality at the centre of their economic agenda? Professor Joseph Stiglitz explains in his National Press Club Address. The Australia InstituteFollowNov 16, 2018 Professor Joseph Stiglitz. (photo: Sasha Maslov) 1 // Progressive economics make more equal societies. “Why would an institution like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) put dealing with inequality

On average, that’s one gas & coal plant breakdown every 2.6 days. The Australia InstituteFollowOct 23, 2018   Above: Yallourn W Power Station, image used under Creative Commons license. The Australia Institute’s Gas & Coal Watch has been tracking gas and coal power plant breakdowns and gas and coal power plants have broken down 114 times this calendar

The Australia InstituteFollowOct 19, 2018  The Pacific Islands will potentially suffer the worst impacts of climate change Richie Merzian is The Australia Institute’s Climate & Energy Program Director — @RichieMerzian When the lights are on and the cameras are rolling, most government Ministers know that they must at least pretend to believe in and care about the impacts of

When it comes to meeting the Paris Target, new analysis from The Australia Institute shows the Government is way off the mark and off-message The Australia InstituteFollowOct 11, 2018  A new report from The Australia Institute debunks the government’s claims that Australia will meet the Paris target ‘in a canter’, demonstrating total emissions have been

The Government released it’s Quarterly Greenhouse Gas Inventory last Friday, but don’t be shocked if you missed it. The Government released its Quarterly Greenhouse Gas Inventory late last Friday afternoon, before a long weekend and the football finals, at the same time as the interim report into the banking royal commission and it was a month late. A more

The crisis currently engulfing the ABC demonstrates clearly that the process for ABC Board appointments, including the appointment of the Chair, is in urgent need of reform in order to depoliticise future appointments and protect the ABC’s independence. “Revelations that many directors of the ABC’s eight-member board were directly appointed by the minister rather than

The Australia Institute, Total Environment Centre, and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre have submitted a rule change request to AEMC, with support from Energy Consumers Australia. One of the largely unknown features of our national electricity system is that anyone is entitled to submit a request to reform the market rules. The Australia Institute has

Bad for the environment, bad for irrigators’ rights, not helpful for the farmers it is supposed to help — in a competitive field, this is truly one of the worst water policy ideas of recent times. Much of Australia is experiencing drought, so why don’t we give farmers water that would just be ‘wasted’ on the environment? That’s the

PDF of Open Letter can be downloaded in full here. Full text of open letter and list of signatories below. Dear Premier and Ministers of the Government of Western Australia — Unconventional oil and gas development in Western Australia should not go ahead under any circumstances. The consequences of global warming are already extremely serious;

On average, that’s one gas & coal plant breakdown every 2.4 days. Above: Yallourn W Power Station, image used under Creative Commons license. The Australia Institute’s Gas & Coal Watch has been tracking gas and coal power plant breakdowns, and as of 2 September 2018, has recorded 100 such breakdowns this calendar year. So we crunched the

Dr Richard Denniss, Chief Economist of The Australia Institute, joins JOY radio to discuss: What happens if… we rebuild the economy? “I think we’re at a really interesting point in Australian politics,” says Dr Richard Denniss, Chief Economist of the Australia Institute. Deniss has joined JOY radio’s Dan Roberts & Jan Di Pietro to talk about the economy. He highlights,

New analysis by The Australia Institute shows that based on Medibank Private’s annual report, the company tax cut would be a $554.9 million gift over the first decade of the cut to just this one company. Return to Revenue Watch $ million Profit 2017-18 628.3 Company tax 2017-18 183.2 Benefit from company tax cut based

New analysis by The Australia Institute shows that based on Coca-Cola Amatil’s annual report, the company tax cut would be a $201.7 million gift over the first decade of the cut to just this one company. Return to Revenue Watch $ million Profit 2017-18 232.1 Company tax 2017-18 66.6 Benefit from company tax cut based