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

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

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,

In his televised address, Premier Campbell Newman warned Queenslanders that spending cuts were needed to rein in debt. This follows his announcement that the state cannot afford to pay 20,000 public-sector workers. But how can this be when Queensland is the second most resource-rich state in the middle of the biggest mining boom in Australia’s

The latest tragic loss of lives as asylum seekers literally risk everything to make a better life for their families highlights both the consequences and the absurdity of some of the policy positions adopted by Australian politicians. Politics, like democracy, often has more to do with compromise than with consistency. But building a nation does

As our population continues to grow rapidly, the government is faced with choices is doesn’t like to make. According to the latest census, Canberra’s population has grown by 9.9 per cent (compared to 7.9 per cent nationally) in the past five years – a growth, which among other things, places incredible pressure on the ACT

The business community has spent 20 years pushing tirelessly for labour market flexibility but, now that it has it, some have figured out that it is a double-edged sword. In a flexible labour market, wages for skilled workers in high demand can rise really quickly. Who knew! Last week the Business Council of Australia (BCA)

Why can the Pharmacy Guild get away with a deal with the government which limits competition? Rather than admit that it is a union working to maximise the income of its members, the Pharmacy Guild of Australia prefers to position itself as a ”professional association” concerned more with improving standards and delivering benefits for the

Like a man who buys a cheap house next to a pub and then complains that the noise late at night is depressing his house price, the Minerals Council has come out and complained that Australia is now an expensive place to do mining. The Minerals Council of Australia released a report by Port Jackson

The idea that the Coalition would oppose an increase in the Commonwealth’s debt ceiling makes about as much economic sense as its hostility to a market-based mechanism to address climate change. But, as with most of Tony Abbott’s big calls, it clearly makes good short-term political sense. In an age of slogans it is much

It is the perceived value of a location, not the cost of construction, that determines the market price for housing. It’s amazing how progressive business has become in Australia. The mining industry’s biggest concern seems to be creating jobs for migrants. The banks just want to help small business grow and the property developers of

Nothing gets interest groups more riled up than a proposal to reduce some regulation or, as business groups like to call the federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Act (EPBC act), “green tape”. In the green corner, we have the major environment groups arguing that such reductions signal further retreat by government in the face of

Despite all the hoopla, budgets in Australia are rarely transformative or reforming. Indeed, it’s only the theatre and spectacle of budget night that means most people even notice it. If we started each budget with a blank sheet of paper it is inconceivable that year after year we would fund portfolio areas in virtually identical

The economics of deregulation is supposed to be straightforward: business groups support it, community groups oppose it, and governments “get the balance right”. The recent push to streamline state and federal environmental and planning laws has followed exactly that script. The push to remove so-called “green tape” has the appearance of a philosophical position based

While it is impolite to say so these days, Canberrans don’t pay much tax. While this week’s Commonwealth budget as well as the ACT’s review of the territory’s tax system back up this conclusion, it is unlikely to have much impact on the calls for lower taxes to take the pressure off the cost of

If the mining industry was a political party, it would make the current federal government look like a success story. The miners are internally divided, running entirely contradictory messages and are increasingly unpopular in the published opinion polls. But luckily for the miners, it is far easier to make billions of dollars selling resources you

The standard excuse for why Australians pay far higher prices than Americans for clothes, consumer goods and cars is to highlight the high transport costs associated with the tyranny of distance. So what is their excuse for more expensive music and software downloads? Dearer data costs due to longer cables? You might assume that because

Wouldn’t it be nice to decide how much you were worth? And wouldn’t it be even better to be able to force people to give you the money you think you deserve? Of course it would, but then again, we can’t all behave like the big four banks. In most industries when customers buy less

The government announcement on Tuesday that it accepts all of the recommendations of the Broadbent inquiry into the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) is a high-water mark in the politics of perception. The commitment to spend $10 billion on renewable energy and energy efficiency helps convince the public that the government takes climate change seriously.

Late last week the ACT electricity price regulator released its draft electricity pricing decision for 2012-13. And the political response couldn’t have been more predictable. The Coalition raced to highlight that, out of an estimated $244 increase in annual household electricity bills, almost $190 was attributable to the carbon price. Labor and the Greens downplayed