This edition of the Institute’s newsletter looks at the mining super profits tax, a charter of human rights, Australians missing out on government assistance, the war in Afghanistan, free trade agreements and the PBS, the Institute’s Measuring what Matters project, and peak oil.

A group of leading Australian academic, policy and business economists has issued a statement supporting the replacement of royalties on mineral outputs by a resource rent tax.

The Minerals Council of Australia’s advertising campaign against the Resource Super Profits Tax (RSPT) highlights its $80 billion tax payments over the last decade. Eighty billion dollars in the abstract does not really mean much. It has to be related to the mining industry’s profits and compared with other industries. Using the national accounts as

Between the lines is the Institute’s selective analysis of the policies and politics affecting the wellbeing of Australians. This edition looks at the Budget with regard to climate-change policy, child care and superannuation.

Between the lines is the Institute’s selective analysis of the policies and politics affecting the wellbeing of Australians. This edition looks at a carbon tax; reforming the financial services industry and measuring what matters.

Another mining boom will be a mixed blessing for Australia unless the government heeds the lessons from the previous boom and sets up a resources fund, according to The Australia Institute.

Back before the CPRS took the wind out of the community it was common sense to believe that early action was cheaper than delayed action. And back before anyone had heard of ’emission intensive trade exposed industries’ it was patriotic to believe that Australia should lead the world, not lag it. If we are to

This edition of the Institute’s newsletter looks at bank profits, loyalty cards, the government’s My School website, barriers to women’s employment, population policy and the role of carers.

Between the lines is the Institute’s selective analysis of the policies and politics affecting the wellbeing of Australians. This edition looks at insulation: the wrong kind of price signal; Telstra profits at the expense of low-income earners; and, banks and financial literacy programs.

The Greens and government should at least be able to agree that some carbon price is better than none, writes Richard Denniss.

According to the spin doctors, governments should never let a crisis go to waste. And of course the best crises are the ones you invent yourself. Done well, they ensure others spend a lot of time worrying about the wrong things. Of course the latest intergenerational report, like its predecessors, is full of doom and

AH, Copenhagen. Never before have so many gathered for so long to achieve so little. In the past year, the government has consistently linked the need to pass the CPRS with the need to get a binding agreement at Copenhagen. Rather than focusing on the real dangers of climate change and the benefits of early

This edition of the Institute’s newsletter looks at the CPRS, indigenous affairs, food waste, the Disability Discrimination Act, homelessness, congestion charging, superannuation, unpaid overtime and national Go Home On Time Day, and emerging issues for Australia’s youth.

Between the lines is the Institute’s selective analysis of the policies and politics affecting the wellbeing of Australians. This edition looks at the Cooper Review into superannuation; the ‘quarantining’ of income support; the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme; bank profits and food waste.

The scientific consensus is that climate change is an urgent problem; the economic evidence says that the costs of tackling climate change are trivially small compared to the costs of inaction; and polling shows that the vast majority of the Australian public wants to see real action. So why has the CPRS stalled and why

Emission reduction targets are so weak as to be useless, Richard Denniss argues.

The CPRS is perhaps the most poorly understood piece of legislation to dominate Australia’s public debate in modern times. While there have been acres of press about whether climate change exists or not, and acres more about how clever the Rudd Government has been in splitting the Coalition, there has been much less analysis of

Last week many people were questioning why the Victorian Premier was so keen to secure additional compensation for the impact of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) on his state’s biggest polluters. Luckily for him, however, he has not been forced to answer a more interesting question: Why isn’t he demanding that the Commonwealth Government

Between the Lines is the Institute’s selective analysis of the policies and politics affecting the wellbeing of Australians. This edition considers: the strange argument for carbon price compensation; buying power stations vs compensating them; an uncharitable act; and, bank profits.

The CPRS is increasingly looking like the answer to a question that nobody asked, namely, what would be the best way to introduce a complex and expensive national scheme that sounds like a solution to climate change without really changing anything? But as the Senate vote gets closer the first question that the Climate Change

The science says that we need to reduce emissions by around 40 per cent by 2020 if we want even a fifty per cent chance of avoiding dangerous climate change. The Government has ignored that advice both in setting the targets for their so called Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) and in developing Australia’s negotiating

The Senate debate about the CPRS is getting close, and with views as diverse as those of Steve Fielding and Bob Brown it’s likely to be a cracker. Unfortunately, while there might be plenty of heat in the debate, whether the CPRS gets up or not will make no difference to global temperatures.

Economists can and do get it wrong. The lead up to the subprime mortgage crisis being an obvious case in point. While some economists and regulators were convinced all was well, many people were alarmed at a system that enabled people to buy expensive houses with loans that were beyond their means of repaying. It

Picture this country five years from now, once an emissions trading scheme is fully operational. How will your life be different? Will higher energy prices radically change your approach to work, travel, shopping and leisure?

1. Electricity and pricing signals ”¦ 2. ”¦ How is our behaviour affected? 3. The Australian home: a sacred site for tax policy? 4. The slippery slope of the war on terror

Richard Denniss examines the work of the Institute over his first year as the new executive director; Brian Walters looks at anomalies in the common law with regard to public and private interests; David Richardson dissects the benefits of the mining boom; Georgia Miller explains some of the problems inherent in the nanotechnology revolution.

The Rudd Government is at odds with a majority of Australians in prioritising the needs of business in its climate-change policy, according to a new paper by The Australia Institute.

Denticare: making a mountain out of a molar. Dissent is a dirty word. A fair-weather friend: Australia’s relationship with a climate-changed Pacific. Extract from author Ben McNeil’s speech at the launch of ‘The Clean Industrial Revolution’.

Australia is at risk of failing its Pacific neighbours on climate change if the Rudd Government doesn’t move beyond rhetoric to concrete action on mitigation, adaptation and, ultimately, migration, according to a new report by The Australia Institute. The report, ‘A fair-weather friend? Australia’s relationship with a climate-changed Pacific’, finds that despite Labor’s strong commitments

The announcement today that Robert Hill will head the Australian Carbon Trust is a triumph of politics over policy. It speaks more about the government’s desire to wedge the opposition than to actually address the flaw in the CPRS, which will make it impossible for ordinary people to reduce Australia’s carbon emissions. Under the CPRS,