Australia has one of the lowest levels of energy productivity in the developed world. We use more energy to make a dollar’s worth of gross domestic product than the countries we typically compare ourselves to. But while labour productivity, multi-factor productivity and the productivity of our ports elicit interest from our political and business leaders,

MAKE no mistake, if a gas field is approved over the Surf Coast Shire it will industrialise the region. The economics of unconventional gas are pretty simple; once approval for a commercial gas field is granted, the company needs to extract as much gas as possible to maximise its return on investment. That typically means

Politicians love children, or at least they do a pretty good job of pretending to. But while there is political consensus around the niceness of children, no such agreement exists about what children really need. Compare the priorities of Barak Obama and Joe Hockey. In one corner we have the President of the United States,

Usually political staffers are not seen and not heard. This week a striking exception was made when Clive Palmer brought attention to the Prime Minister’s chief of staff’s potential qualification for his paid parental leave scheme, and then called her the “top dog”. Outrage ensued, as it became better known that Credlin – perhaps the

There is a disparity between politicians’ love of symbolism and shareholders’ love of results. Unfortunately for Prime Minister Tony Abbott, that disparity seems set to distance his government even further from the agenda of the mainstream business community in Australia. As if proposing to introduce a new levy on corporate profits and increasing the top

If Joe Hockey was actually determined to broaden the base of the GST he wouldn’t start by including food, he would start by imposing it on private school fees and private health insurance. Not only would he collect billions in revenue, he would raise it primarily from high-income earners. While the poorest Australians spend a

If Paul Keating’s pet shop galahs are still alive I suspect they are talking about tax reform these days. And no doubt all right-thinking galahs know that tax reform and increasing the GST is one and the same thing. The Commonwealth government will collect $363 billion in taxes this year, with state and local governments

The Government says our education system, our health care, our pensions and our social safety net are unsustainable. The big question I have is why? Every prime minister since Whitlam has managed to maintain the principles of universal health care and education. They have managed to maintain help to our elderly and less fortunate. Why

To paraphrase Winston Churchill — never in the field of budget conflict has so much been extracted by so few at the expense of so many. While the rest of us face a horror budget where we are told to keep calm and carry on, the miners are walking away puffing a cigar and doing the

Last night’s federal budget is more of a discussion starter than the final word when it comes to policy change in this term of government. Given the numbers in the Senate, the list of “new commitments” announced by Treasurer Joe Hockey are best interpreted as a wish-list rather than the likely end result.

Treasurer Joe Hockey expects unemployment to rise and business investment to fall. He plans to shed 16,000 public sector jobs into a labour market that Treasury says is softening. Indeed, Treasury states that the proportion of people who are employed or looking for work will continue to fall, “reflecting the expectation that employment growth will

John Howard is the Ronald Reagan of Australian politics. While Reagan is deified by modern Republicans for his fiscal conservatism, in reality he oversaw big increases in government spending. But because he took from the poor to deliver to the rich they love him all the same. 

Economics textbooks have a pretty depressing story to tell aspiring business owners. It can be summarised as, “Don’t bother. You will never make any money and even if you do, your success will attract new competitors who will push your price and profits down.” But don’t worry, no one pays economists for the accuracy of

Despite the skill of individual musicians, orchestras still need a conductor to bring the whole performance together. It is one thing to know how to play the horn, but someone needs to decide when the best time to honk it is. This week the Abbott government sounded like an orchestra without a conductor – there

You only get one chance to make a first impression and, if you are treasurer, you only get one chance to deliver your first budget. Joe Hockey has been talking up his determination to make savage cuts and “end the age of entitlement” for months but, with public support for the Abbott government continuing to

Like buying a house, it’s easy to get a free trade agreement if you don’t care what you get or how much you pay. Since coming to office, Prime Minister Tony Abbott has closed a number of free trade agreements in record time, and it shows.  The so-called free trade agreement with Japan ensures Australia

Productivity is easy to define, hard to measure and impossible to predict. But there is a big difference between how much we talk about something and how much we understand about it. For economists, productivity refers to the amount of output that can be produced per unit of input. Profit, on the other hand, fluctuates

Like his decision to spend $5 billion a year on a new paid parental leave scheme, Tony Abbott didn’t seek cabinet approval to restore knights and dames to Australian society. While Joe Hockey might want to end “the age of entitlement”, the Prime Minister certainly seems to feel pretty entitled to do as he pleases.

Like Qantas, the problem with the Commonwealth’s budget is a lack of revenue. If Qantas were to increase fares by about 3 per cent they would be back in the black, but for the time being at least, Alan Joyce has his eyes set on maintaining market share rather than maximising profits. Similarly, the Commonwealth budget

Tony Abbott recently described the people who take the chainsaws to Tasmania’s native forests as ”the ultimate conservationists”.Seriously. In his speech to the 2014 Forestworks Dinner, the Prime Minister claimed that because the loggers’ future income depends on the availability of trees, they – and not the derided greenies – are the true custodians of

The economy has become a symbol for politicians to exploit rather than a system for them to manage. Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s recent speech about Tasmania highlights that talking about the economy is something politicians like to do, but making good economic decisions has become an optional extra. While Mr Abbott claims that no government

Santos has been salivating at the prospect of selling gas for two to three times the domestic price for years. But as the big pay day draws near, the company has started blaming protesters, who oppose the harm that gas exploration does to farms and forests, for the impending price rises; the same price rises

Despite the Abbott government carrying out their commitment to slash tens of thousands of public-sector jobs and the pride taken in the deterrence effect of the death of an asylum seeker on Manus Island, our deputy prime minister in waiting, Barnaby Joyce, describes $300 million from taxpayers to his constituency as proof that we are

The review of the Renewable Energy Target is the latest move from a Prime Minister whose actions on climate change don’t match his words, writes Matt Grudnoff in this open letter.

The government’s industry policy is a complete mess. They can’t seem to decide if they want to crack down on corporate welfare or spend big on industry development.   The high Australian dollar is going to continue to put manufacturing businesses under stress. Claims for assistance will keep on coming and the government is deeply

Would you support a trade agreement that prevented the Australian Government from requiring genetically modified foods to be clearly labelled? According to a recent survey by The Australia Institute, 73 per cent of South Australians would not. How about a trade agreement that allowed Australian television stations to show fewer Australian-made TV programs? According to

Class war, it seems, can only be declared on those who have the least. When laws are reshaped to pour money into the pockets of those with the most, however, it is more polite to call it tax reform.

The gap between the retirement incomes of men and women will never be solved by information campaigns, decision-making tools or new websites. Women earn around 17% less than men who perform similar work. Women are far more likely than men to take time out of the workforce early in their lives to raise children. Women

If you haven’t heard about the growing campaign for fossil fuel divestment, and what it means for both your retirement funds and for the global economy, it’s time to pay attention – because now even the World Bank is on board. At the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim called for

Tony Abbott tore through Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd (again) but now, according to the polls, Bill Shorten is the most effective Opposition Leader in history. Abbott’s Coalition is the least popular new government on record and they haven’t even passed a horror budget yet. Incumbency used to be seen as a great