Conservative politicians usually work hard to ensure they are seen as “tough on law and order”. Respect for the law is obviously essential in a democracy and there is usually no shortage of politicians lining up to call for more police and tougher sentences to discourage or punish those who transgress. But this enthusiasm for

Traditional retailers are happy to pay a premium for high visibility locations and the same is true online. In the online marketplace, high visibility means featuring prominently in search engine results. Google is by far the most used search engine in the world with more than 85 per cent of global search engine revenue. It’s

‘Mums and dads’ seem to be replacing ‘working families’ as the focus of political concern in Australia. The biggest problem with last week’s hoax media release about Whitehaven Coal, many argued, was its impact on ”mum and dad investors”. The language of mum and dad investors is as widely used as it is meaningless. Gina

The native forest and forest product industries contribute a miniscule amount to the Australian economy (in the order of 0.15% to 0.20% of GDP). Despite this, it has dominated the minds and energies of many politicians and environmental policy makers for decades. Among other things, it helped spark the emergence of the environmental movement in

The Climate Change Authority’s final report on the renewable energy target, which was released yesterday, contains a number of controversial conclusions and recommendations. A standout amongst these is the recommendation that the federal government explore whether making native forest wood waste eligible to participate in the large-scale RET (LRET) would increase the rate of harvesting

Our two-speed economy has a two-tiered tax system, with capital-intensive mining companies paying among the lowest rates of corporate tax and the labour-intensive service sector paying among the highest. All companies face the same nominal 30 per cent tax on income but the existence of accelerated depreciation and other tax concessions deliver disproportionately for the

Economic growth is a very strange thing. In 1949 when our gross domestic product was about a tenth of what it is today, Australia set out to build 145 kilometres of tunnels, 16 major dams and nine power stations as part of the Snowy Hydro scheme. But 60 years later, when GDP is $1.3 trillion

The NSW Minerals Council is out spruiking the benefits of the mining industry in the Hunter region in a new economic study. Using the same old tricks to inflate their numbers and ignoring any economic downside they manage to spin the result into a rosy picture that reaches the epic proportions of claiming that the

The newly-inked Tasmanian Forest Agreement has been hailed by many as a historic breakthrough that provides Tasmania with an opportunity to end the divisive “forest wars” and remake the state’s ailing economy. In truth, it is a case study in how not to make policy. By handing over the responsibility for resolving the dispute to

Conservative politicians used to bemoan the way Australia’s youth mindlessly imported American culture, but you don’t hear so much of that these days. Maybe it’s because many conservative politicians have become so comfortable importing their political talking points from their US counterparts. Like Republicans in the US, many in the Coalition seem alarmed about debt,

Imagine if we could increase the number of car parking spots in the Canberra CBD by 20 per cent. Now imagine we could do so at no cost to government, business or individuals and with no disruption. Would you support it? I imagine you would. So, what’s the catch? The catch is that most street-side

According to Rene Hidding, Tasmania’s Liberal spokesman for forestry, it is “insulting” to Tasmanians to inform them about the tiny contribution the forestry and logging industries make to that state’s employment. Presumably he thinks it would be better to deceive the people? For all of the analysis about what the collapse of the state’s forest

Job ads and corporate websites are often littered with claims that particular companies are “employers of choice” or committed to the wellbeing of staff. But according to a recent survey by the Australia Institute, around one third of the workforce reports experiencing stress and anxiety as a result of their work. About 2.2 million workers

John Howard’s description of work/life balance as a ”barbecue stopper” was more accurate than he realised. Not only does it continue to stop conversation among the ”working families” of such interest to political strategists, but the length and unpredictability of working hours makes it increasingly difficult for friends and families to make plans and keep

Neoclassical economics has a clear definition of a competitive market, but it has been so debased by Australian politicians and business leaders that it now borders on meaningless. According to mainstream textbooks, a competitive market is one in which there are lots of buyers and sellers, none of whom have any market power. Buyers are

They’re not widely publicised, but co-operatives and mutuals give customers a different option to the major banks. You might not like the fact that the big banks dominate 90 per cent of the mortgage lending market or that the finance industry makes a fortune investing your compulsory super in other big companies that buy up

The faith of Australian policymakers and business leaders in communist China to keep delivering record growth is touching. Just as they assume the sun will rise tomorrow, so too do they believe those responsible for setting China’s exchange rate, making five-year plans and running their vast state-owned enterprises will keep doing a great job. When

Alan Jones tried to link the backlash against his insult of Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s late father to the issue of free speech but, in reality, it is the free market that is causing him grief. The problem for the dinosaur of radio is that national brands such as Woolworths and Mercedes-Benz increasingly want their

It’s always a bit sad watching someone torn between what they said they wanted and what they really wanted. Choosing can be hard at the best of times, but having an audience can make it excruciating, so spare a thought for the good folk of the Business Tax Working Group. Corporate Australia has told us

The Canberra Liberals are hoping to win the upcoming election on a promise of lower rates. If you vote Liberal, the ads blare, your rates will be lower. But what is not clear is whether they plan to collect less tax overall. The ads are strangely silent on this issue but the simple fact is

Listening to the mining industry complaining about the high exchange rate is like listening to a three-year-old complaining about the noise of their own tantrum. It simply adds insult to injury. The surge in world demand for our resources and the flood of foreign money into Australia to buy or build mining assets has been

The Nationals are worried about Chinese farm ownership yet it’s European mine ownership that’s harmed farmers Australians, it seems, don’t like selling off the farm. And the National Party really doesn’t seem to like selling them to the Chinese. But while the Nationals have a long, if not always proud, history in Australia it is

There are two fiscal elephants in the Gillard government’s cabinet room. The first and better known elephant is the fact that the government’s wafer-thin surplus has been crushed under the weight of a slowdown in revenue forecasts and a speed-up in new spending announcements. The second elephant is that the cost of so-called “self-funded” retirement

It’s obscene for someone with inherited wealth, whose business is subsidised by government, to criticise low-paid workers. Two numbers pretty much sum up all that is wrong with political debate in Australia: Gina Rinehart earns the annual full-time minimum wage every 53 seconds and, at the peak of the mining boom, the industry contributed only

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