Australia now has the lowest proportion of manufacturing jobs in the OECD, according to a new report by the Centre for Future Work.

The report says the decline isn’t inevitable and can be reversed; several of our global peers are expanding their manufacturing sectors.

As Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull promotes his innovation agenda on the election campaign trail, the report finds the sector that is most innovation-intensive has been allowed to wither.

David Baker talks with ABC News Breakfast about the significant issue of affordability for families needing childcare and how improvements could be made to government assistance funding to childcare that would see families better able to afford childcare services.

Australian farmers have lost $61.5 billion in export income since the mining boom pushed the Australian dollar to historic highs, a new analysis by The Australia Institute reveals.  Still beating around the bush: The continuing impacts of the mining boom on rural exports examines the rural sector’s export income from the beginning of the mining

Australian farmers have lost $61.5 billion in export income since the mining boom pushed the Australian dollar to historic highs. Matt talks to ABC ‘PM’ on why the high exchange rate caused by the mining boom is hurting the rural sector of Australia.

How much do we need to live on? As a society we have a lot of different categories of poor. Both political rhetoric and the implicit assumption in many people’s minds focus on how a person has gotten into that position rather than the state or the need of that person, before we decide how

Richard Denniss talks with Channel 10’s The Project about the price difference for goods bought in Australia compared with many other parts of the world, and why this is causing more and more Australians to shop online.

Should Australians spend more on preventative medicine or should they address the shortages in acute care the system faces today? Were the hundreds of millions of dollars spent buying vaccines for bird flu a waste of money or a modest precaution? In the second instalment of Richard’s ‘Economics and Ethics’ chat with ABC666, he discusses

Which industries do you think are the most politically powerful in Australia? This paper examines the influence of the superannuation, mining, banking and gambling industries and concludes that perhaps the real test of power is the ability to get things done without anybody even noticing.  To download the paper, click here To read Ross Gittins’

Human life is often described as ‘priceless’ yet in practice economists regularly estimate the ‘value of a human life and policy decisions are often made with such valuations in mind. In a wide ranging interview with ABC666, The Australia Institute’s Executive Director Dr Richard Denniss discussed how and why economists attempt to value human life

According to the Western Australian government’s own economic assessment, the Browse LNG precinct proposed for James Price Point is likely to have a significant adverse impact on the state’s budget, will employ few local workers and harm the region’s reputation as a tourist destination, a new analysis by The Australia Institute has found. While there

 The macroeconomic case for slowing down the mining boom This paper considers a feature of the mining boom which has been barely considered in the Australian policy debate to date, namely, how fast should the mining construction boom be allowed to develop? To read the paper, click here To read media coverage of the paper,

Since 1973, the system of legal aid in Australia has provided legal assistance for people who would otherwise not be able to afford access to justice. Unfortunately, for much of the time since then the legal aid system has been underfunded. In a new paper, Justice for all: Giving Australians greater access to the legal

Eighty-one per cent (81%) of Australians believe that the idea of a banking super profits tax should be discussed at next year’s Tax Summit, according to a new opinion poll conducted by The Australia Institute. “The Government, the Opposition and the Greens have all supported the need to rein in the excessive profits of the banks.

The Australia Institute today welcomed the admission by the Australian Bankers Association that our analysis of banks’ funding costs and how they affect interest rates is accurate. An analysis by The Australia Institute of Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) data shows that despite claims from the banks that their funding costs have been rising faster

 Research Fellow and co-author of The case for a universal default superannuation fund, Josh Fear, talks to Life Matters about superannuation fees and how the system could be improved. To listen to the interview, click here.