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

The Earth is flat, climate change is a conspiracy and the only way to collect more money for the states is to collect more money via the GST. How did the nonsensical belief that the GST is the one and only source of commonwealth revenue that can be transferred to the states come to be

The iron ore price is well above its long-term average. Indeed, at $US50 per tonne it is well above the $US36 price that Wayne Swan inherited in 2007. Blaming the iron ore price for Western Australia’s budgetary woes is like blaming the sinking of the Titanic on the iceberg. Yes, it’s a factor and yes,

Imagine this. You’re a State Government minister. Your department and the most powerful industry it regulates are under fire for failing to comply with your government’s own guidelines. Courts, the media and community groups keep complaining that the industry breaks the guidelines and your department lets them get away with it. Even the consultants you

According to the International Monetary Fund, the Howard/Costello government was the most profligate in Australia for the last 50 years. Indeed, while the mining boom was gathering pace they cut taxes so far and so fast that they forced the Reserve Bank of Australia to rapidly increase interest rates. While countries like Norway took the benefits of resource price

Last year Hockey was talking about cutting welfare payments but now, finally, he’s taking about taking on the vested interests in the superannuation industry to bring concessions under control. This time last year Joe Hockey sat on a silk chair telling Spectator Magazine subscribers about the need to cut welfare payments for the poor. Last

Politicians get their fair share of blame for the parlous state of policy making in Australia but they are not the only culprits. The bigger problem is that policy doesn’t get made the way people think it does. It doesn’t get made the way the way academics think it does, it doesn’t get made the

The Australia Institute wrote to all NSW political parties on March 11, asking for them to outline their policies on regulating lobbying, and to what extent they had adopted the ICAC recommendations. Letter from The Australia Institute to NSW Parties Response from the NSW Liberal Party  Response from the NSW Labor Party Response from NSW

The Australia Institute wrote to all NSW political parties on March 11, asking for them to outline their policies on regulating lobbying, and to what extent they had adopted the ICAC recommendations. Attached is the response recieved from Hon John Kaye MP’s office. 

The Australia Institute wrote to all NSW political parties on March 11, asking for them to outline their policies on regulating lobbying, and to what extent they had adopted the ICAC recommendations. Attached is the response recieved from Hon Luke Foley MP’s office. 

The Australia Institute wrote to all NSW political parties on March 11, asking for them to outline their policies on regulating lobbying, and to what extent they had adopted the ICAC recommendations. Attached is the response recieved from Premier Mike Baird’s office. 

The attached is a copy of the letter sent to NSW Parties regarding their accountability, tranparancy and lobbying policies.

First published in the Australian Financial Review, 24th March 2015 Politics The senate is often describe as obstructionist and causing chaos but it is there for good reasons and governments have to learn to deal with it. Imagine if there was no senate to block Gough Whitlam’s reform agenda. Malcolm Fraser would have had no

While it is not polite to admit it, the plan to reduce the tax paid by wealthy Australians is one of the main reasons that Treasury predicts we will have so much trouble paying for health and aged care in the future. This is all spelt out in the IGR, albeit in the appendices. Last

Originally Published in the Australian Financial Review on Tuesday 10th March.  Thanks to Peter Costello a retired superannuant drawing down $1 million per year, tax free, doesn’t even have to pay the 2 per cent Medicare levy. That is just one of the inequitable and unaffordable time bombs that the last Liberal treasurer planted for

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 biggest fiscal problem Australia faces is that we are not borrowing enough to meet our short term circumstances or long term objectives. Australia’s population will nearly double by 2075. We are currently growing by around 400,000 people – the population of Canberra – every year. If we were are serious about quality of life,

A fundamental contradiction lies at the heart of the Abbott Government. Its assumptions about our national security and its assumptions about economic management are in stark contrast. Something has to give. Our foreign and defence policies are explicitly based on the assumption that the US will retain superpower status in the coming decades. But Joe

It’s amazing how controversial decisions just happen to be made in the days before Christmas. It’s almost as if decision makers didn’t want anyone to notice. So we thought we’d wait until February, once everyone is good and ready, to bring you December’s big New South Wales coal stories. We won another court case!!! Newcastle

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

Governments serve their citizens best when they engage them through informed debate. Scare tactics are not an acceptable alternative. We need to talk about crises. Whipping up a good crisis has become the foundation on which every case for every reform is now built. Budget black hole! Budget emergency! We will wind up like Greece!

Whether Tony Abbott limps on as PM or Malcolm Turnbull swoops in to lead the coalition, it is clear that big changes in policy are on the cards, and the area that is ripe for the biggest change is climate policy. There’s no easier way for the coalition to both signal that they have learned

The Newman government was handing an Indian billionaire billions of dollars of taxpayer money for literally – literally – no reason. During the recent state election, both the LNP and Labor in Queensland broadly supported the Carmichael coal project by Indian mining giant Adani. The key difference was whether they were expecting the taxpayer to

Once upon a time if a project couldn’t make a profit without government support conservative politicians would have called it a bad investment. Not these days. Take, for example, the Queensland government’s plan to spend $2 billion on coal transport infrastructure trying to make marginal mines in the Galilee basin financially viable. Even after enormous

The Australia Institute sent letters on January 8th 2015 (copy of letter to LNP) to Queensland’s main political parties. Responses were requested by January 19th, 2015. Responses received: Queensland Labor Party – ALP response – PDF Queensland Greens – Greens response – PDF Bob Katter’s Australia Party: Response to The Australia Institute Letter to Katter’s Australian

Happy New Year! We hope you enjoyed (or are still enjoying) time off over the summer. 2014, the hottest year on record, sure had its fair share of awful, so here’s to a better 2015. The Australia Institute is heading into the new year stronger than ever, thanks to a big effort in 2014, and

The World’s Second Biggest Coal Exporter Votes Accountability and Transparency Enters the Debate Is it a Gas, Gas, Gas? TAI in the media The World’s Second Biggest Coal Exporter Votes If Queensland was an independent nation, it would be the world’s second biggest coal exporter. That makes the State Election this Saturday a global concern,

2014: we changed minds Our year in numbers TAI in the media Coming in early 2015: safeguarding QLD against corruption Give the gift of ideas this Christmas  2014: we changed minds By any measure, it’s been a big year for The Australia Institute. As the government sought to make sweeping changes, we worked with politicians

The demise of the Australian car industry does not mark the end of taxpayer assistance in Australia, it marks only the end of highly visible assistance. The free marketeers didn’t win, they only defeated the easy targets. The real rorters not only still grow fat on the public purse, they lead the cheer squad for