While the public are rightly outraged at the callous tone of the Treasurers ‘get a good job’ remarks in response to housing affordability, economists should be equally disturbed about the bizarre logic behind the government’s approach to the issue. Joe Hockey seems to be increasingly confused about what housing affordability is. Hockey and Abbott believe

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

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

The newly released report from the Victorian government’s Gas Taskforce is not surprising, given a recent article by its chair, writes Matt Grudnoff.

Just as those in the world of Harry Potter refused to utter Lord Voldemort’s name for fear of their lives, the gas industry appears equally frightened of using the words ‘coal seam gas’ for fear it might hurt its profits. But just as calling Voldemort ‘He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’ didn’t make him disappear, calling coal seam gas (CSG)

Winston Churchill once said, “never let a good crisis go to waste”. The gas industry clearly agrees with him. It has taken a problem of its own making and turned it into a reason why Australians should ignore all their concerns about coal seam gas and let the industry drill wherever it likes. And if

We all agree that gas prices are going to rise. The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA) would have you believe that the restrictions on coal seam gas (CSG) in NSW are the cause of the coming price hikes. Ironically, it’s not the lack of CSG that is driving up the price but the

Federal government budgets are always strange affairs. They are billed as fact-based, hardnosed economics, when in fact they are far more about political theatre and posturing. While the budget is supposed to reveal the economic credentials of a government, most economists are left shaking their heads. Take the debate around the surplus. Both the Government

Regardless of the result of the next election, the ALP will hold an inquiry into what went wrong. How on earth, they will ask, could a government presiding over low unemployment, low inflation, low levels of public debt and a triple A credit rating be seen as poor economic managers at a time when the

Coal seam gas protesters shouldn’t be blamed for rising gas prices in Australia – for that, the gas industry can thank only itself. The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA) is blaming opposition to coal seam gas for the coming rise in gas prices. APPEA’s argument is that there is a shortage of gas

The rapid expansion in the mining industry over the past decade has done more harm than good to Geelong’s economy. Mining has created virtually no jobs in Geelong and has induced a high exchange rate that is crippling Geelong’s manufacturing industry with more than 1 in 8 manufacturing jobs lost over the past six years.

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 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

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

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

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 list of friends for Tony Abbott’s Direct Action Plan continues to shrink. The Australian Industry Greenhouse Network (AIGN) which co-ordinates, among others, the mining and manufacturing industry’s response to climate change issues has rejected the Opposition’s plan saying it would cost far more than the Coalition has claimed. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott responded by

A rather small convoy of constitutional confusion today rolled into Canberra calling for a double-dissolution election. The impending carbon price, the ban on live exports and the imminent threat of one world government were all cited by participants as motivating their demands. But no matter how sincere their confused calls for a double-dissolution election, they

Last week Tony Abbott branded the Government’s target to reduce emissions by five per cent by 2020 as ‘crazy’, but the crazy thing is that the Coalition has the same target. Was this just Mr Abbott getting over excited in his attacks on the Government? A slip of the tongue similar to when he told

With the release of the Gillard Government’s plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions we can finally compare the government’s carbon price with the Coalition’s Direct Action Plan. Two different policies with the same goal, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by five per cent on 2000 levels by 2020. While large amounts have been written about