Saturday 8 September 5pm Canberra premiere screening of the documentary Bimblebox. For details click here. Monday 10 September 5.30pm Sydney Richard Denniss will participate in a panel discussion Austerity and Growth.  For details click here.  Wednesday 19 September 7.15pm  Canberra Politics in the Pub with Australian Greens Senator Richard Di Natale.  For details click here. Thursday

THE big banks are creaming off almost $100,000 in profit from struggling home owners in our major capital cities, data shows. The banks’ profit levels on the average 25-year mortgage more than doubled in the past 12 years as property prices rose. The numbers raise questions about claims from the banks that higher funding costs

The question perplexing many ActewAGL green power customers is a simple one: if my bill says I am responsible for no carbon emissions why did my bill go up when the carbon price came in? Unfortunately, the answer from ActewAGL has been anything but simple. Since my first article about this in The Canberra Times

The court system in Australia is of little use to most Australians who might wish to resolve a commercial or civil dispute. While the courts provide a check on executive government and can, as was the case with the Mabo decision, deliver landmark rights to vulnerable groups, their cost makes first class flights to Europe

Late last week, the details of an interim agreement between the forestry industry and green groups on the future of Tasmania’s native forests was released, showing the distance between the two parties has narrowed considerably. Both sides now support the creation of additional reserves and a permanent native forest timber production area, and want governments

Imagine if a company lost money selling something that it never paid for. Now imagine that company was owned by a state government. In an environment in which state governments and oppositions are either crying poor or crying waste you might imagine that such expensive mismanagement would create a bit of political heat. But the

Canberrans pay more for petrol than residents in other capital cities. In fact, we pay more for petrol than people in nearby regional towns like Albury. While I don’t have too much sympathy for the oil companies, we shouldn’t single them out for too much criticism as the simple truth is that Canberrans pay more

Will WA’s giant gas hub really be good for the economy? Productivity – lazy workers or lazy analysis? Research that matters Perception versus reality in Tassie forestry debate Date announced for national Go Home On Time Day 2012 Events Recent Publications Recent Media Will WA’s giant gas hub really be good for the economy? The

Will WA’s giant gas hub really be good for the economy? Productivity – lazy workers or lazy analysis? Date announced for national Go Home On Time Day 2012 Research that matters Perception versus reality in Tassie forestry debate Events Recent Publications Recent Media Will WA’s giant gas hub really be good for the economy? The

The Australia Institute has commenced a research project looking at how structural changes in the wider economy are affecting regional economies, using forestry in Tasmania and manufacturing in North-West Melbourne as our case studies. While our research paper will not be released for another month or so, the survey conducted for this project has revealed

Super subsidies: a budget spending secret, The Canberra Times, 7 August The rise of the climate sceptics, Crikey, 6 August Hurting the community, The Canberra Times, 4 August Time to untangle the web of renewable energy policies, Crikey, 3 August What we don’t know can hinder us, Australian Financial Review, 25 July Lower cost, lower

Inquiry into the allowance payment system for jobseekers and others, D Richardson, 9 August James Price Point: An economic analysis of the Browse LNG project, M Grudnoff, 9 August All the lonely people: Loneliness in Australia, 2001-2009, D Baker, 29 June Submission on Arrow Energy’s Gladstone LNG Plant proposal, M Grudnoff, 29 May For a

The end of growth: Richard Heinberg The Post Carbon Institute’s Senior Fellow Richard Heinberg will be in Australia in September conducting a speaking tour about peak oil and the economy of the future. Author of ten books, including The End of Growth, Richard will discuss the need to transition away from fossil fuels. His tour

Australia’s productivity is back in the news, this time a survey ranking us second worst of 51 countries for productivity growth. But productivity means lots of things to different people and often the discussion is very confused, not least amongst business people. On a recent visit to Australia the chief executive officer of Royal Dutch

It’s always gratifying when our back catalogue of research is given a new lease on life and in the past fortnight we’ve had reason to be extra pleased. Our research on nanotechnology, legal aid, dog-whistling in politics and the adequacy of unemployment benefits have all had another airing. Nanotechnology – The Australia Institute is supporting

The Western Australian Government together with Woodside is proposing to build the Browse LNG precinct on James Price Point in the Kimberley region of WA. Recently you may have heard a lot about the environmental consequences of doing so – the area is a known whale migration path – but there has been very little

The Australia Institute is supporting a complaint made to ACCC by Friends of the Earth (FOE) regarding claims made by Antaria Limited that the zinc oxide sunscreen ingredient it manufactures – ZinClear IM™ is ‘non-nano’. FOE have subsequently made another complaint about Ross Cosmetics which claims that products used to manufacture sunscreens for third parties

The budget papers mask some public spending by classifying it as ‘tax expenditures’ The amount the federal government spends on superannuation subsidies is forecast to hit $45 billion in 2015-16. Yes: $45 billion! That’s well over 10 per cent of the government’s total projected outlays and bigger than the amount spent on the age pension.

It is rare to read about the dangers of fluoride in the opinion pages of Australia’s mainstream newspapers, even though a small group of “fluoride sceptics” are convinced of the dangers to our health. It is also rare to hear about the Rothschild banking conspiracy on radio, even though a committed group of people around

No rational person would work in the community sector. Not according to neoclassical economists at least. Rational individuals, we are told, are motivated by their own self-interest. So why would anyone ever volunteer to help people they don’t know? And why would an organisation structure itself as a ”not-for-profit” when economists typically assume that profit

Australian climate policy has been defined by its volatility. Grand plans have been hatched, only to wither in the face of opposition. Where policy measures have come to fruition, most have had a short lifespan. On the surface, the one major exception to this is the renewable energy target or RET, which was created by

This edition of The Australia Institute’s newsletter features: Debt is not the villain Dr Richard Denniss Childcare’s market model in dire need of reform Eva Cox It’s hard to escape the big four banks David Richardson Illicit drugs: Changing the current prohibitionist paradigm Prof Bob Douglas A promise delayed, is a promise denied Bridget Griffiths

The federal government spent $374 billion last year providing services to its citizens, but it’s amazing what the government doesn’t know about those citizens. It is only every five years that we accurately measure the population through the census, and it’s only every six years that we get an accurate indication of what households spend

There aren’t many people who, after 12 months of incident-free driving, focus on the money they wasted insuring their car against an accident that never happened. Similarly, on returning safely from an overseas holiday, there aren’t many travellers who wish they had got better ”value for money” from their travel insurance policy. Insurance is one

You would think that, with the introduction of a carbon price, the gap between the cost of coal-fired electricity and the cost of renewable energy would close, but, at least if you are an ActewAGL customer, you would be wrong. Surprisingly, despite not facing a carbon bill for the production of green power, the price

Over the past 12 months, the political debate over whether the carbon price is a tax or an emissions trading scheme has been as brutal as it has been boring. Rather than explain the details of what is, in fact, a hybrid scheme, the government, opposition and media have instead busied themselves in the politics

‘KPIs’ have little relevance in managing our health system. There is an old saying that for every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, neat and wrong. The modern delusion that the creation of simple “key performance indicators” can solve complex problems like the management of the health system, the performance of our

If you felt lonely sometime in the past decade you were not alone. Loneliness – the disconnect we feel when our desire for interpersonal relationships is not met by those we perceive we currently have – was experienced by three out of ten Australians between 2001 and 2009. Although the subjective nature of this experience

The Rio+20 gathering in Brazil last week was little more than a self-indulgent festival of environmental inaction. The idea of holding a summit to mark the 20 years since the world leaders last pledged to save the planet is like holding a lavish anniversary party to celebrate a failed marriage.

2012 marks 20 years since the policy of mandatory detention of asylum seekers was introduced by the Keating Government. Today, more than 4000 asylum seekers are being held in immigration detention, 460 of those are children. A recent parliamentary inquiry report into immigration detention, has called for sweeping changes, including recommendations on detention time limits,