4 May 2018 Dear Auditor-General, Supply measure projects  We refer to the proposed amendment to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. That amendment is based on 36 ‘supply measure’ projects. Supply measures aim to achieve the same environmental outcome as under the original Basin Plan, but using less water. The Commonwealth has committed $1.6 billion to implement these supply measures. The

The Australia Institute has written to the Australian Auditor General and to the South Australian Royal Commission on the proposed amendment to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. The amendment is scheduled to be voted in the Senate this coming Tuesday, 8 May 2018. “The proposed amendment is based on 36 projects worth $1.6 billion dollars,” said

The Auditor-General has received correspondence from Senators Patrick, Griff, Hanson-Young and Bernardi, Ms Rebekha Sharkie MP and the Hon. Tony Burke MP dated 24 April 2018, requesting that the Auditor-General conduct an investigation to examine the purchases of water for environmental flows in the Murray-Darling Basin. This request is under consideration and the response will

The Senate is about to vote on an amendment to the Murray Darling Plan that would increase water use by irrigation. The amendment is likely to be unlawful, claimed water savings are unlikely to exist and threaten the value of water licences. The amendment should be disallowed. Research released by The Australia Institute today shows

A new national poll has asked 1,557 Australians what they think large companies are likely to do with a company tax cut.  A majority (61%) of respondents think that increasing worker’s pay would be the very bottom of the list of priorities for large companies receiving a tax cut. 63% think increasing executive pay, and

Polling of the electorate of Solomon released today by the Australia Institute shows a majority support keeping the NT fracking moratorium in place. Results: 53% total support for keeping in place the fracking moratorium, to 38% opposed. 58% do not trust the NT and the gas companies to implement and enforce all recommendations from the

Polling released today by The Australia Institute shows strong support for reviewing the environmental approval for the Adani mine in the Prime Minister’s seat, as well as the seat of Brisbane. On the evening of 5th March ReachTEL surveyed 676 voters in Wentworth and a 747 voters in the electorate of Brisbane, with a series

Federal Ministers and officials have helped Adani in attempts to secure funding from foreign governments – not once, but twice in 18 months. New documents from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), requested under FOI by the Australia Institute, show in 2017 Adani asked for a “letter of support” to be sent to

To Premier Will Hodgman and Opposition Leader Rebecca White, Public trust in government is at an all-time low around Australia. We are working together to improve accountability and trust in public administration at a state and federal level. After the long-standing allegations about the role of the gambling industry in the fall of the Tasmanian

New research released today by the Australia Institute shows that the perception of corruption in Australia will continue to rise while allegations of corruption are either not investigated or are investigated entirely behind closed doors. The report coincides with the release of the latest Transparency International Global Corruption Index which reveals Australia has again slid

Adani “may have been negligent” when it failed to disclose its CEO’s links to four earlier environmental offences, according to documents released under Freedom of Information.  [FOI brief in PDF below] Adani’s CEO in Australia, Mr Janakaraj, was an ‘executive officer’ of a Zambian mining company when it was charged with polluting a river and

Legal advice obtained by The Australia Institute from law firm Arnold Bloch Leibler (ABL), reveals the government’s foreign donations bill may have a ‘very adverse’ impact on Australian businesses. One element of the laws would require the many businesses that engage in a modest level of expenditure expressing views on issues of public importance to

The National Integrity Committee, hosted by The Australia Institute, today welcomed the announcement by Opposition Leader Bill Shorten that a Labor government will legislate to establish a federal corruption watchdog. The committee welcomed Labor’s adoption of key elements of its Design Principles for a National Integrity Commission, including the ability to hold public hearings. Committee

New research from The Australia Institute shows that the number of constituents represented by each Federal MP has tripled since Federation and only 13% of Australians have ever spoken to their representative. [Full report – see PDF below] The report also shows that the increase in parliamentarians has not kept pace with Australia’s population, with

With a seemingly never-ending string of negative narratives about how poorly our politics is performing, we are now overdue for some more structured thinking about what needs to be done. The “anti-politics” sentiment now risks hardening into something more dramatic as the electorate turns away, not just from the current crop of politicians – but potentially from

Transparency and accountability of politicians and the public service may be one of the sleeper issues of the upcoming state election.  A recent poll of 781 voters in Bass undertaken by ReachTEL on the night of January 16th for The Australia Institute found that 85% of respondents wanted more powers and resources available to Tasmania’s

The pressure on Federal politicians to establish a national corruption watchdog has reached fever pitch as the extraordinary public support in polls and open letters combines with a push from legal experts and anti-corruption campaigners. Today television advertisements will commence running across the country outlining the need for a national corruption watchdog – with teeth.

The Hon Stephen Charles AO QC, former judge and adviser to Baillieu government on IBAC design, has today launched a briefing paper with The Australia Institute outlining the flaws in the operation of Victoria’s corruption watchdog. The paper finds that: IBAC has significant flaws that mean it is not a suitable model, in its current

New research released today by the Australia Institute estimates the effects of rising perception of corruption in Australia since 2012 could have reduced Australia’s GDP by $72.3 billion, or 4%. [Full report – see PDF below] “Since 2012 Australia has slid from 7th to 13th on Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI), with index score

ReachTEL polling released today by The Australia Institute, asked voters in three blue-ribbon Liberal electorates about cutting the company tax rate. The poll comes as proponents of the cuts site the progress of deeply unpopular Republican tax plans as a reason for Australia to follow suit. The GOP tax plan has been widely repudiated by

A new report, released today by The Australia Institute, questions using averages to represent flows in the Barwon-Darling and challenges the NSW Water Minister’s claims about how much water is going into maintain river health. Two massive flood years, 1950 and 1956 account for 21% of all of the water flows since 1944. These two

The National Integrity Committee welcomes comments from Prime Minister on the establishment of a national anti-corruption body. Polling released today shows overwhelming and increasing support for a federal ICAC: 88% now support a federal ICAC, increasing from 80% in March 2017 and 65% in March 2016 More than four in five (85%) said a federal

Three years after Campbell Newman suffered the biggest swing in Australian political history, the Liberal National Party (LNP) just lost another 8 per cent of Queensland voters. [This article was first published in the Australian Financial Review – here] Remarkably, senior conservatives are already demanding greater distance between their party and the vast majority of voters

The Australia Institute’s National Integrity Committee of corruption fighters and retired judges is in Canberra today to launch a blueprint of design principles which will be used to advise policy makers on the best model for a federal anti-corruption watchdog. Former NSW ICAC Commissioner David Ipp AO QC, former President of the Queensland Court of

A new ReachTEL poll of over 2,181 Queenslanders, commissioned by The Australia Institute, has found strong support for Queensland parties choosing to veto a federal subsidised loan for the Adani coal project. To accompany the polling (full results in PDF below), The Australia Institute has also released new research on the economic case for the

he Adani coal mine is the most divisive resource project since the proposal to dam Tasmania’s Franklin River in 1983. The debate over whether to subsidise it even more so. But thanks to Annastasia Palaszczuk’s last-minute decision to veto any Commonwealth loan to the project, the voters of Queensland are now being offered a full range of policy positions

An FOI request from The Australia Institute has revealed the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has “several hundreds of pages” of documents relating to Ministers and officials making formal representations to foreign financiers to back the Adani project.  “With ‘several hundreds of pages’ of relevant documents across multiple parts of the Department of Foreign