Grow your own: the potential value and impacts of residential and community gardening will be launched today at 10.30am by Gardening Australia’s Costa Georgiadis at the Wayside Chapel in Sydney. The Australia Institute paper, by Poppy Wise, reveals two out of three households support more locally produced food via community gardens, school gardens, and in

Investments in coal, oil, and gas increase financial risk without increasing returns, according to the new report Climate proofing your investments: Moving funds out of fossil fuels published by The Australia Institute. To meet the internationally-agreed two degree global warming limit, fossil fuel businesses must leave in the ground two-thirds of the reserves currently on

Australians hold serious concerns about a secretive trade deal which risks a blow-out in the cost of medicines, less Australian television content and relaxed labelling of genetically modified foods, according to a new report being released by The Australia Institute today. The report titled “A democracy deficit?” shows that only 11 per cent of people

Most Australians aren’t aware of a trade deal which could risk environmental laws, increase the cost of medicines and enable corporations to sue Australian governments, according to a new survey by The Australia Institute. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is currently under negotiation and establishes a free trade area including Australia, the United States of America,

National Party constituents will be hardest hit by the federal Coalition’s plans to repeal the low income superannuation contribution, according to new analysis by The Australia Institute. The Australia Institute examined 2011 census data to estimate the number of workers earning $37,000 or less who will to be affected by the cut. The findings show

Health and climate impacts suggest unconventional gas is not the best option for Australia’s energy future, according to research released today. The research paper Is fracking good for your health? is co-published by The Australia Institute and The Social Justice Initiative. It examines existing research to analyse the impacts of unconventional gas – coal seam gas (CSG),

Today is the fifth annual Go Home on Time Day, an initiative of The Australia Institute and beyondblue which aims to promote work-life balance and mentally healthy workplaces. Executive Director of The Australia Institute Dr Richard Denniss said it was exciting that more than 350 businesses and organisations have registered to participate and will be

Today’s Climate Change Authority report suggests that the government’s direct action plan is flawed, as found in research by The Australia Institute. In 2011, The Australia Institute was the first to publish findings that the Coalition’s direct action plan is likely to cost $11 billion per year and is unlikely to find sufficient greenhouse gas

The federal Coalition is hampering the exploration and development of an untapped clean, green and reliable energy source by repealing the Minerals Resource Rent Tax, according to The Australia Institute. The Bill proposing to scrap the mining tax also eliminates the geothermal energy exploration deduction recently introduced under the Labor government. The deduction helps make

Taking a lunch break has become a thing of the past for millions of Aussie bosses and their employees, a new survey has revealed. The survey, conducted by The Australia Institute and beyondblue for this year’s national Go Home on Time Day initiative, found that 3.8 million people routinely don’t take a lunch break, with

Go Home on Time Day – 20 November 2013 – is an annual initiative of The Australia Institute and beyondblue aimed at promoting mentally healthy workplaces and the importance of work/life balance.  beyondblue CEO Kate Carnell AO said something is very wrong in Australia’s workplaces because people are working longer and longer hours, but productivity

Mark and then sync all your calendars – Wednesday 20 November is this year’s national Go Home on Time Day (www.gohomeontimeday.org.au).  Go Home on Time Day is an annual initiative of The Australia Institute, in partnership with beyondblue. The Day is a light-hearted way to start a serious conversation about work-life balance.  Businesses of all

The Coalition’s newly announced trade policy leaves the federal government vulnerable to legal action from international companies, according to The Australia Institute.  Hours before voters head to the polls, the opposition has announced it would use investor-state dispute settlement clauses in free trade agreements. The move would give foreign companies the right to take action

Thousands of private sector jobs will be lost and Canberra could go into recession if the Coalition follows through on its promise to cut 12,000 public service jobs in the capital, according to a new analysis by The Australia Institute. It remains unclear whether the Coalition plans to make all of the job cuts in

The Opposition’s pledge to create jobs in Tasmania could be undermined by its plan to reduce the size of the public service, a new analysis by The Australia Institute reveals. The analysis shows Tasmania could lose more than 200 jobs under the Opposition’s planned public service job cuts. The Australia Institute used historic separation rates

The Queensland government’s approval of Clive Palmer’s latest coal mine and rail project shows a blatant disregard for the thousands of jobs that will be lost as a result, according to The Australia Institute. Waratah Coal’s own economic impact statement shows the China First mine will see 3,000 people losing their jobs, primarily across Queensland.

The financial disadvantage Australian women will face in retirement has nothing to do with whether they have a family, according to new research by The Australia Institute. The paper What’s choice got to do with it? found that women retire with substantially less savings than men, even if they don’t have children or care for

New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland could lose well over a thousand jobs each under the Coalition’s planned public service job cuts, according to new research from The Australia Institute. The Institute has launched an analysis of the economic impacts of the Coalition’s proposed public service job cuts, and is today releasing some initial findings.

The federal government is pouring an extra half a billion dollars into taxpayer-funded subsidies to the mining industry, research by The Australia Institute has found. The Institute’s new paper Pouring more fuel on the fire reveals the booming sector has been propped up even further over the past year and now receives $4.5 billion from

Tonight’s Federal Budget would more than likely have returned a surplus, if the raft of income tax cuts introduced by the Howard/Costello Government had not been pushed through, a new analysis by The Australia Institute reveals. The Institute used NATSEM modelling to calculate the full extent of the structural changes that those tax cuts have

Australia spends more on subsidies to the booming mining industry than it would cost to increase the Newstart Allowance by $50 per week, a new analysis by The Australia Institute reveals. The analysis shows that Australia has the least generous unemployment benefit in the developed world, falling behind countries such as Germany, Spain, America and

Electricity privatisation has failed to deliver cheaper power to consumers and has not improved the sector’s efficiency, a new analysis by The Australia Institute has found. The analysis shows that since Victoria privatised power in the 1990s, electricity prices have outpaced inflation, increasing by 170 per cent compared with an increase of 60 per cent

The Australia Institute today called for the release of Treasury modelling on the relative cost of the age pension and tax concessions for superannuation over the coming decade. Speaking today at the National Press Club Executive Director Dr Richard Denniss said that until the Treasury releases this modelling neither the government nor the opposition can

Today’s announcement by Treasurer Wayne Swan will not fundamentally alter the incredible inequity that lies at the heart of the tax treatment of superannuation, according to The Australia Institute. The Institute’s Executive Director, Dr Richard Denniss, said not only did the government fail to go after the top one per cent of income earners, his

More than one in three families experience difficulties affording childcare despite increased government assistance over the past decade, a new study by The Australia Institute has found. While the government’s two recent announcements have sought to address availability of childcare through more flexible hours and quality through better wages for childcare workers, the Institute’s analysis

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

Twenty years of government inaction could lead to curable illnesses like tonsillitis again becoming a massive threat to human health, as the rise of anti-microbial resistant bacteria (aka “the superbug”) threatens to take us back to our pre-antibiotic era, a new paper by The Australia Institute reveals. Culture of Resistance: Australia’s response to the inappropriate

A new analysis by The Australia Institute, a public policy think tank, reveals that over the past decade tourism to Far North Queensland has slumped on the back of the mining boom driving up the Australian dollar. The Institute’s Public Engagement Officer Mark Ogge said the analysis shows that over the past ten years global

While Australia’s ‘big four’ banks claim to be fiercely competitive a new analysis by The Australia Institute shows that in fact over 53 per cent of each bank is owned by the same small number of institutional shareholders. The rise and rise of the big banks by Senior Research Fellow David Richardson examines the top