The Centre for Future Work invites applications for an economist to join our research team in labour market research and policy analysis, working from our offices in Sydney or Canberra.

1/ Giving business a $65 billion dollar tax cut means billions of dollars less for schools, hospitals and other government services. Giving business a $65 billion dollar tax cut means billions of dollars less for government services like schools and hospitals. Treasury modelling even assumes these company tax cuts will be matched by cuts to government

Three years after Campbell Newman suffered the biggest swing in Australian political history, the Liberal National Party (LNP) just lost another 8 per cent of Queensland voters. [This article was first published in the Australian Financial Review – here] Remarkably, senior conservatives are already demanding greater distance between their party and the vast majority of voters

An open letter, published as a full-page advertisement in today’s Australian Financial Review, calls for a higher emission reduction target for the electricity sector – well above the 26% proposed by the government’s National Energy Guarantee (NEG). — See full letter in pdf below — Signatories to the letter comprise high-profile business leaders, CEOs, academics,

Measured by official employment statistics, Australia’s labour market has improved in recent months: full-time employment has grown, and the official unemployment rate has fallen. But dig a little deeper, and the continuing structural weakness of the job market is more apparent. In particular, labour incomes remain unusually stagnant. In this commentary, Centre for Future Work Associate Dr. Anis Chowdhry reflects on the factors explaining slow wage growth — and what’s required to get wages growing.

he Adani coal mine is the most divisive resource project since the proposal to dam Tasmania’s Franklin River in 1983. The debate over whether to subsidise it even more so. But thanks to Annastasia Palaszczuk’s last-minute decision to veto any Commonwealth loan to the project, the voters of Queensland are now being offered a full range of policy positions

The simple the truth is, we have enough cheap easy-to-extract gas in Australia to last 100 years. So we at the Australia Institute have been hard at work debunking the gas lies and econobabble. The simple the truth is, we have enough cheap easy-to-extract gas in Australia to last 100 years. As Australia Institute advisor, Mark Ogge,

Australia has plenty of cheap gas. The problem is private companies are selling it all overseas, writes principal adviser at the Australia Institute Mark Ogge. Hard to believe, isn’t it? But it’s true: in the last decade, tens of thousands of square kilometers of Queensland farmland has been covered in gas fields. The export gas rush in

In the latest episode of podcast, The Lucky Country, Richard Denniss and Ben Oquist break down Tony Abbott’s attack on renewables “This renewable energy target is doing massive damage to our country and that’s why there should be no subsidies for any further renewables now.” — Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott This is Tony Abbott doing what he

When the Climate Institute closed its doors, The Australia Institute was honoured to be selected to carry forward some of the Climate Institute’s work and so our new Climate & Energy Program was born. One of the important initiatives being carried forward under The Australia Institute’s Climate & Energy Program is the Climate of the Nation polling

Is the purpose of being in government primarily to keep the opposition from doing it? The Coalition is now in its fifth year in power, yet it spends more time blaming Labor for the country’s problems than spelling out its own plans to improve Australians’ lives. [This article was first published by The Canberra Times

The Australian gas industry’s best hope is the Turnbull government’s worst nightmare; a big increase in world prices for oil and gas. Santos and Origin executives lost billions of their shareholder’s dollars when they bet $60 billion worth of gas export facilities in Gladstone on a world oil price of around $US100. They lost. The

Australia has plenty of cheap gas. The problem is private companies are selling it all overseas, writes principal adviser at The Australia Institute Mark Ogge. [This article was first published by Crikey – here] Hard to believe, isn’t it? But it’s true: in the last decade, tens of thousands of square kilometers of Queensland farmland has

Given the enormous investment in renewable energy taking place in the US and in Europe, other national governments must be determined to drive up the price of their electricity. [First published by the Australian Financial Review – here] Either that, or everything Malcolm Turnbull has been saying about the need to keep a 50-year-old power station going

While Turnbull is unlikely to do or say anything particularly useful there, his presence will make a big difference. Malcolm Turnbull is representing Australia at a meeting of Pacific Nations in Samoa this week. And while he is unlikely to do or say anything particularly useful there, his presence will make a big difference. Indeed, one

When the Prime Minister is forced to spend his own political capital fixing the mistakes of the former head of Origin Energy, is it any wonder the Coalition is ignoring that same man’s policy advice now that he heads up the Business Council of Australia? [This op ed was first published in the Australian Financial Review

Exciting news: Just yesterday, five Nobel Peace Laureates have written to Norwegian Prime Ministerial candidates calling for Norwegian climate leadership and an end to fossil fuel exploration and expansion. The letter reads: “Leadership in this century will be characterized by those who redefine themselves in a clean energy economy and who cease to profit from perpetuating

The citizenship debacle engulfing the Nationals, and in turn the Coalition government, has as much to do with trust and integrity as it does with the constitution. Being consistent is important in business and in government. [This article was first published by the Australian Financial Review – here] After the Greens’ Scott Ludlum and Larissa

Politicians need to break promises. Our parliament and democracy would not function if they did not. [First published by the Australian Financial Review – read here] There is a commonly held view that governments are elected to deliver every single election policy, in every detail as outlined in the lead up to an election. But

TASMANIA’S Integrity Commission must become more transparent if it is to fulfil its purpose of exposing and tackling corruption. [Full article on The Mercury website]

Progressives everywhere are grappling with developing policy proposals to improve the quantity and quality of work in our economy, as part of their broader vision for building more successful and inclusive societies. To this end, the Fabians Society in NSW recently published an interesting booklet of policy proposals, to inject into debate within the Labor Party and other fora. One chapter written by Sarah Kaine (Associate Professor at UTS and a member of the Centre for Future Work’s Advisory Committee) and Jim Stanford (Economist and Director of the Centre) deals head-on with the challenges facing work, and what can be done to make it better; it is reprinted below.

This opinion piece was first published in the Canberra Times on 29 July 2017. The final season of Game of Thrones is back and winter is coming for House Turnbull. The failure of the federal government on energy policy is driving up emissions, driving up energy prices, stalling investment and its harming consumers. And hasn’t

Paradoxically, underemployment and number of hours actually worked are both on the rise in Australia.

Rising inequality is, according to the lefties at the International Monetary Fund, a drag on economic growth. And low wages growth is, according to the lefties at the RBA, a drag on growth. And according to lefties like Theresa May fixing economic equality is “crucial” to the economy. [This article was first published by the

Imagine if petrol prices went up from $1.29/litre to $180/litre for brief parts of the day on a few days of the year. Worse still, imagine drivers had no way of knowing what price they were paying until after they’d filled up. [This article was first published by Crikey here] If that was the case, Australia’s

Rod Campbell attended the COP23 Climate Action Pacific Partnership (CAPP) Talks in Fiji to talk fossil fuels and Australian influence in the Pacific. As much of the world watched the G20 last week, another leaders’ summit was on in Fiji. Fiji will chair the next UN climate conference in November. Pacific leaders gathered in Suva to

37 prominent Australians, including David Harper AM QC, Paul Stein AM QC, Margaret McMurdo AC, George Williams AO, Peter Wellington MP and Nicholas Cowdery AM QC, have already joined with Tony Fitzgerald in calling on parliamentarians to commit to the Fitzgerald Principles: The Fitzgerald Principles — Tony Fitzgerald AC QC is a former Australian judge,

If word processors were invented today they would no doubt be seen through the left-right prism. Like a dying star, the 18th century political binary of left and right produces far more heat as the end of its life approaches. Is a wind turbine really “left wing”? Is a grid scale battery “progressive”? [The article

The RBA governor Philip Lowe recently encouraged Australian workers to stop being so scared of technological change and foreign competition and start demanding higher wages. But if the governor wants to really understand why so many Australians have been willing to settle for so little for so long perhaps he should ask the Treasurer to appoint the ACTU

Dear Friends of The Australia Institute — As you may know from their announcement back in March, the Climate Institute will be closing its doors on 30 June. First and foremost, we wanted to share our congratulations to the Climate Institute for everything they have achieved over their last 12 years. But we also wanted