The Claim “Counterproductive workplace regulation, in particular high minimum wages and industry-specific award rates, [is an] impediment to youth job creation in Australia.” – Dr Patrick Carvalho, Centre for Independent Studies The Evidence Minimum wages are often accused of reducing demand for young jobseekers. The evidence is less compelling. The call for lower minimum wages

  The claim Senator Sean Edwards claimed that an expansion of the nuclear fuel cycle in South Australia could provide low or even no cost electricity, create a generation of high-paying jobs and do so without any subsidies from government. His plan is to take spent fuel from older nuclear power plants from around the world,

The claim Mr Hockey said; Over the last couple of months we have had some very pleasing economic information. Importantly, since the beginning of this year nearly 163,000 new jobs have been created, an average of 23,000 new jobs per month—23,000 new jobs per month. When Labor left office they were averaging 3,600 jobs per

The claim: Concetta Fierravanti-Wells: This [marriage equality] is not a conscience matter. It’s not a life or death matter. Conscience votes in our party room are reserved for life or death matters. And in – Jonathan Green: Not for matters of deep conviction? Concetta Fierravanti-Wells: Well, the point is it’s not a life or death

The claim “Any changes to the GST are a matter for the states.” Tony Abbott The evidence Subsection 38-47 of the A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999 (GST Act) grants the Health Minister the power to determine that “A supply is GST‑free if it is a supply of goods of a kind

Claim: Negative gearing keeps rent prices low. Treasurer Joe Hockey recently defended the practice of negative gearing investment properties. “If you change negative gearing then there are significant flow-on consequences from people that rent homes and that needs to be properly considered,” he said. “There is a very strong argument that if you were to

Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce has said that without coal “we go broke”. Would Australia, or any particular state encounter serious fiscal difficulty if coal production and consumption was reduced? New South Wales and Queensland are Australia’s main coal producing states, producing 257 and 294 million tonnes respectively in 2013-14. Victoria the next largest is far

The new Social Services Minister Scott Morrison is concerned about retirees who are cash poor but asset rich. Labor Deputy Leader Tanya Plibersek raised similar concerns, saying: ‘You can’t eat your family home, you can’t pay your electricity bill with it.’ But an existing government scheme allows retirees to do just that. The Pension Loans

The day after the Prime Minister defeated the spill motion against him he was asked about his policy on renewable energy. In the Prime Minister’s response he said And they want to keep the Renewable Energy Target not at 20% but at more like 27% which means much higher power prices for the people of

Following new climate targets from the US, China and the EU, and the beginning of the UN climate talks in Lima, the World Coal Association (WCA) is bracing for continuing criticism over its high-emissions energy source. The WCA argues: Technologies such as high efficiency, low emissions (HELE) coal plants and carbon capture, use and storage

Australia’s $105 billion Future Fund has agreed to divest from tobacco, in recognition of the damage it causes to human health. However, the fund continues to invest public money in fossil fuels. When asked about this in a Senate inquiry on 20 November, Peter Costello, Chair of the Future Fund, said: The answer that the

Laws around clearing of native vegetation in New South Wales (NSW) are currently being reviewed. In October the Australia Institute released a report looking at agriculture in NSW and the impact of changes to native vegetation clearing regulations. The research has been criticised (here and here), particularly for not making reference to a claim by

Today’s editorial in The Australian (24 October) claims: No sector has the right to be artificially insulated from uncertainty.…[the renewable energy sector has] always known that the RET has been opposed by Coalition and Labor MPs concerned to preserve jobs. The push for a cut in the Renewable Energy Target (RET) amongst Coalition MPs is

Peter Reith writing in the Australian Financial Review today claimed that: The coal industry alone provides about 200,000 jobs and brings in billions of dollars to our economy to underscore living standards. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics coal mining employs 37,800 people. Mr Reith’s claim is more than five times this number. This

The Treasurer Joe Hockey has described as “absolutely ridiculous” the idea that Australia is the highest greenhouse gas emitter in the OECD per capita. Amongst OECD countries, Australia is the highest emitter of greenhouse gases per capita.

It is anti-poverty week from 12 to 18 October. In Australian there is a system of welfare support for people whose circumstances may otherwise see them living in poverty. Australians who find themselves out of work can apply for the Newstart Allowance and the Age Pension provides support to people beyond working age. Despite the

This week an editorial in the Australian Financial Review criticised a decision by the Australian National University to end its investments in some fossil fuel companies and urged the university to “focus on finding genuine solutions, such as reducing the cost of carbon capture and storage (CCS).” Coincidently, a CCS project in Canada began operations

On 1 October the Prime Minister argued “it seems fair and reasonable that university graduates should bear a slightly larger proportion of the costs of their benefit”. He said “the taxpayer will still support every student’s university education to the tune of about 50 per cent.” The 50 per cent figure is supposed to indicate

The government is currently conducting a “Review of retirement income stream regulation”. The discussion paper discusses “regulatory barriers currently restricting the availability of relevant and appropriate income stream products in the Australian market.” The paper doesn’t discuss the unfair regulations imposed on the government’s own income stream products, offered through Centrelink. Centrelink payments are usually

The Sydney Morning Herald said on Wednesday that “hunger for Australian coal helped power the nation through the global financial crisis.” Mining was not the economic lifeline for Australia during the global financial crisis (GFC) it’s commonly believed to be. In fact, mining employment fell further than total employment during the GFC. The figure below

A recent report from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) claims that “Australia will likely experience a severe labour shortage by 2030” – the country will have a shortage of  2.3 million workers. BCG says that to avoid this shortage, the labour force will have to be increased through such measures as raising the retirement age

The Renewable Energy Target (RET) is generally considered as having a target that will mean 20 per cent of electricity is generated from renewable sources by 2020. The Warburton RET review modelled five options for changing the RET and recommended two. The first is what is known as “grandfathering” the RET. This is a process

Senator Day claimed on Sky News that: “evidence from around the world is that if you want more revenue, and I’m not suggesting we give them any more revenue, but if they want more revenue, they should lower taxes and not increase them.” [15 August 2014] Day has previously cited examples to support this theory from Sweden,

Treasurer Joe Hockey has said “the poorest people either don’t have cars or actually don’t drive very far in many cases.” The Treasure also said that the fuel excise is a “progressive tax”. The Treasurer defended his statement saying “I can only get the facts out there and explain the facts, how people interpret them

Earlier this week, data released by Treasury under a Freedom of Information request, were published in the media that showed Treasury predictions the Abbott Government’s budget measures were likely to hit lower income households harder than higher income households. In response, Treasurer Joe Hockey said “higher income households pay half their income in tax”. Check

Employment in renewable energy is difficult to determine. Figures are persistently disputed as being inflated or underestimated, depending on which stakeholder is asked. For example, when Liberal MP Mark Coulton defended the controversial Cobbora Coal Mine near Dunedoo against calls from Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon to abandon the project in favour of renewable investment, he

Recent reports from the ABC and in the Australian, including a map of selected mines have outlined heavy job losses in Australia’s coal sector, specifically claiming that ten to twelve thousand jobs have been lost in the last two years. Labour force data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) does not support this claim.

When you buy a car or a house, no-one really believes the salesman or the real estate agent when they tell you you’re getting a great deal. You know you need to do your own research and shop around. How about financial advice? Most people assume that financial advisors act in their best interest, and

The Government intends to change the indexation of the Age Pension from September 2017. If their legislation passes through the Senate, the pension will be indexed to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), (the same as Newstart). At the moment the pension is indexed to the higher of the CPI, the Pensioner and Beneficiary Living Cost

The Prime Minister continues to claim that “The RET is very significantly driving up power prices,”. He has made this claim in the past and linked the Renewable Energy Target (RET) to energy costs going up. Despite an existing regulated review process, based on this claim the Prime Minister established an additional review of the