By Richard Denniss – Chief Economist at The Australia Institute.   [This article originally appeared in the Australian Financial Review on 24 September 2018] Wars are expensive and culture wars are no different. Indeed, the opportunity cost of Australia’s culture war is enormous as it comes at the expense of developing meaningful energy, broadband and tax

Trade unionists are gathering this week at the ACTU’s triennial Congress in Brisbane.  Jim Stanford, Director of the Centre for Future Work, participated in a panel on the Future of Work (an apt title!) at the Congress.

There have been some exaggerated claims about future prospects for coal fired power plants lately — Australia Institute research shows these claims are based on misunderstandings, so lets get clear about coal. Commentators and politicians have recently called for renewed investment in coal-fired power generation, including calls for the government to build a new power station in the

By Richard Denniss, Chief Economist at The Australia Institute. [Read in The Australian Financial Reiew here] Confidence is silent and insecurities are loud. How else could you explain Sky TV commentator Rowan Dean’s need to credit “Western values” for the Thai junior soccer team’s successful rescue? In case you missed Dean’s comments – because, like most

By Richard Denniss, Chief Economist at The Australia Institute [View article in the Canberra Times here] Confidence is silent and insecurities are loud. How else could you explain Sky TV commentator Rowan Dean’s need to credit ‘‘Western values’’ for the Thai junior soccer team’s successful rescue? In case you missed Dean’s comments – because, like

Trade unionists from across Australia are gathering in Brisbane this week for the 2018 Congress of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. And the Centre for Future Work will be there!

By Richie Merzian, Director of The Australia Institute’s Climate & Energy Program.  [Read article in the New Matilda Here] Private and public investment in a safe climate future is growing, despite the best and worst efforts of some of the world’s leading polluters, writes Richie Merzian. On a reclaimed swamp fringing the outskirts of the industrial

Richard Denniss, Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens ask the question: is taxation overvalued as a way of addressing inequality? Full interview on The Minefield. Australians are some of the richest people in the world, living at the richest point in world history — but we feel poorer than ever, even after 27 years of economic growth. So how

By Richard Denniss, Chief Economist at The Australia Institute. [View this article in the Australian Financial Review] Having abandoned the principles of small government, the right of Australian politics are now urging Australia to embrace Donald Trump’s attack on international agreements. Is there any institution these so-called “conservatives” aren’t willing to wreck in pursuit of

You may have read Miranda Devine’s recent Daily Telegraph piece, criticising The Australia Institute’s research and contribution to the company tax debate. Ben Oquist, Executive Director of The Australia Institute responded in a follow-up piece published in the Daily Telegraph on July 6 which we have reproduced below. Above: Executive Director of The Australia Institute, Ben

By Richard Denniss, Chief Economist at The Australia Institute [Read in the Sydney Morning Herald here] Economic rationalism and neoliberalism are dead in Australia. In an unexpected twist, the idea that markets are good and governments are bad was killed by the right wing of Australian politics, who simply couldn’t resist the desire to shovel

By Richard Denniss, Chief Economist at The Australia Institute. [Read this article in the Syndey Morning Herald] One thing that unites the Australian Parliament is that subsidies are a great idea. Whether it’s the Liberals’ enthusiasm for subsidising weapons exports, the Nationals’ love of subsidising coal mines, Labor’s love of subsidising manufacturing or the Greens

The government says their income tax cuts create a fair tax plan that rewards ‘aspiration’ and fights bracket creep. The opposition is telling people that it’s a tax cut for the rich. So what will this income tax cut actually do? The overall impact: First, let’s look at who wins from this tax plan. Overall the

Below you will find all research papers on company tax cuts produced by The Australia Institute to date [updated 25.06.18] The big four banks get an extra $7.4 billion dollars: Australia’s big four banks are some of the most profitable banks in the world and are the big winners here, getting an extra $7.4 billion dollars in the first 10

By Richard Denniss, Chief Economist at The Australia Institute [Read in the Australian Financial Review here] The budget emergency is over. Even though Commonwealth debt has risen from $317 billion to $561 billion. Since Tony Abbott was elected, declaring a fiscal emergency, the Coalition has now flicked the switch to optimism and proposing $200 billion

What does the new long-term energy forecast from Bloomberg New Energy mean for Australia? Dan Cass take a look. The new long-term energy forecast by Bloomberg New Energy roasts all those gloomy predictions made by former deputy PM Barnaby Joyce. The headline says it all, ‘Renewables can make Australia a cheap energy superpower again’. BNEF’s detailed forecasts for Australia

Read the full report: 2018 tax cuts by electorate. Table of electorates Rank Electorate Percentage  of average Party 1 Wentworth 192% LIB 2 North Sydney 180% LIB 3 Warringah 172% LIB 4 Sydney 167% ALP 5 Melbourne Ports 160% ALP 6 Higgins 159% LIB 7 Bradfield 158% LIB 8 Kooyong 156% LIB 9 Grayndler 154% ALP

Less than half of employed Australians now hold a “standard” job: that is, a permanent full-time paid job with leave entitlements. That’s the startling finding of a new report on the growing insecurity of work published by the Centre for Future Work.

By Richard Denniss, Chief Economist at The Australia Institute [This article orininally appeared in the AFR] If Malcolm Turnbull were serious about the cutting the company tax rate he would simply push for a carbon tax to fund it. If the Greens didn’t support him, Labor almost certainly would. In one fell swoop he’d deliver the tax

Most Australians know in their guts that it’s pretty hard to find a traditional permanent job these days.  And now the statistics confirm it: less than half of employed Australians have one of those “standard” jobs.  And more than half experience one or more dimensions of insecurity: including part-time, irregular, casual, contractor, and marginally self-employed jobs.

Based on the way they talk about the proposed income tax cuts, the average Turnbull government MP struggles with the definition of average. To be fair, averages can be a bit confusing. For example, the average Australian has less than two legs (as the number of people with one leg far exceeds the number of people

The Australian Council of Trade Unions has released a major policy paper outlining an ambitious, multi-faceted program to address the chronic shortage of work, and the steady erosion of job quality, in Australia. The full paper, Jobs You Can Count On, is available on the ACTU’s website.  It contains specific proposals to stimulate much stronger job-creation, reduce unemployment and underemployment, improve job quality (including through repairs to Australia’s industrial relations system), and ensure that all communities (including traditionally marginalised populations like indigenous peoples, women, youth, and people with disability) have full access to the decent work opportunities that the plan would generate.

Bracket creep is as maligned as it is misunderstood. Indeed, it can even be a good thing. But while most people probably know that bracket creep refers to people getting tipped into higher marginal tax rates as their wages rise, few seem to realise that there is good bracket creep and bad bracket creep. But before I explain

Everyone is saying Tasmania is a becoming a clean energy powerhouse, so how do we make sure ordinary Tasmanians get a piece of the action?

4 May 2018 Dear Auditor-General, Supply measure projects  We refer to the proposed amendment to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. That amendment is based on 36 ‘supply measure’ projects. Supply measures aim to achieve the same environmental outcome as under the original Basin Plan, but using less water. The Commonwealth has committed $1.6 billion to implement these supply measures. The

The answer to the meaning of life is, as we know thanks to Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, “42”. What is less well known is that the answer to what Australia’s tax policy should be is also a single, specific and essentially arbitrary numerical figure. [This article was first published in the Australian Financial Review –

The Auditor-General has received correspondence from Senators Patrick, Griff, Hanson-Young and Bernardi, Ms Rebekha Sharkie MP and the Hon. Tony Burke MP dated 24 April 2018, requesting that the Auditor-General conduct an investigation to examine the purchases of water for environmental flows in the Murray-Darling Basin. This request is under consideration and the response will

The company tax cuts represents a choice. $65 billion dollars to business means billions less investment in community services, nation-building infrastructure, R&D or jobs training. What we know is that the Government has had to put this legislation on hold when they could not find enough support to pass the legislation in the Senate. The

Peter Dutton’s best argument for Australia to lower its annual immigration intake is one word: Sydney. Australia’s largest city has been made crowded, slow, expensive and unproductive by decades of unplanned immigration. [This article was first published in the Australian Financial Review – here] Anyone planning an event knows that it makes a lot more

First published in The Examiner, 15 April 2018 By 2050, everyone everywhere will have the right to thrive. (Yep, utopia). All communities are changing all the time.  The future of our Tasmanian community is not like a book that has already been written, each chapter is emergent & authorship is our collective responsibility. The narrative