In 1987 Prime Minister Bob Hawke promised that by 1990 no child would live in poverty. While those words have haunted him ever since, a new analysis by The Australia Institute reveals that his government did more to tackle poverty than all subsequent governments. Under the Hawke government, poverty rates dropped when welfare benefits rose

Last week, CSR closed a Sydney factory and made 150 people redundant. This was not caused by the carbon price, the mining tax or our industrial relations laws. The simple fact is that the high exchange rate that accompanies our mining boom has made many manufacturers uncompetitive. How much income support should they receive? How

The fact that Gina Rinehart inherited billions of dollars apparently means that people earning $150,000 a year are entitled to feel average. The average income for an employed person in Australia is $58,375.20 a year. The median is $50,076. $150,000 a year is a lot of money. It is not average, it is not middle,

It’s very difficult to determine what the right rate of population growth should be, but it’s very easy to determine the wrong one. If there are no spare seats on the trains, no spare beds in the hospitals and no room on the roads then we aren’t ready for the anticipated net migration of 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘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

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,

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

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

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

The mining industry is used to having its voice heard in Australian public debates, so it should come as no surprise that mining billionaires such as Gina Rinehart and Clive Palmer would consider buying up a bigger slice of the Australian media. While the estimated $20m spent by the mining industry on television advertisements opposing

Imagine if you had $30 billion sitting in front of you. And imagine that you had been told to use it to boost the retirement incomes of Australians. Who would you give it to? Would you use some of it to boost the existing age pension? Would you put some of it into the superannuation

To assert total costs of the regular process of updating poker machines as a cost of policy reform is simply absurd. No industry in Australia does a better job of taking from those with the least and giving to those with the most than the poker machine industry. The idea that using some of the

Should wealthy art collectors have to contribute to the cost of public galleries if they choose not to visit them, or should their contribution be refunded to help them extend their own collection? Should city residents have to contribute to the cost of upgrading regional hospitals they will never use, or should their contribution be

Summer is a terrific time to build political mountains out of molehills – policies that are not really meant to be acted on H ands up if you support social exclusion. No? Then by the Federal Government’s logic, that means you must support social inclusion. And if you support social inclusion, you must be appalled

It is impossible for politicians to satisfy the conflicting desire for housing affordability while trying to keep home owners happy. Political priorities are often contradictory in Australia. We support individual freedom and liberty, but we accept that, in the war against terror, we must sometimes be searched or delayed at random. We support individuals taking

It’s often said that the only certain things in life are death and taxes. In reality, of course, if you’re willing to pay lawyers and accountants enough, you might be able to avoid taxes. But no matter how much you spend on doctors, the best you can do is prolong your mortality. And for some,