In recent years, Tasmania has seen economic growth and development. However, the benefits have not been evenly distributed. Hobart has received the lion’s share with less going to the regions. This report focuses on the West & North West region of the state, an area that mostly overlaps with the electorate of Braddon. This electorate

The Australia Institute surveyed 1,417 Australians between 5th and 7th of December 2017 about cutting company tax for large companies.

In October the Senate of Australia launched an important new inquiry into the Future of Work and the Future of Workers.  The terms of reference for the inquiry include: “The future earnings, job security, employment status and working patterns of Australians; The different impact of that change on Australians, particularly on regional Australians, depending on

The Fair Work Commission’s ruling to pre-emptively block industrial action (including restrictions on overtime and a one-day work stoppage) by Sydney-area train workers has brought renewed attention to the legal and administrative barriers which limit collective action by Australian workers.  The Sydney trains experience is a high-profile example of a much larger trend.  Across the

The cost to households of the electricity they use has been a sensitive political issue in Australia for at least the past six or seven years, and seems certain to remain so. That was certainly the case in 2010-11 when the then Labor government was negotiating passage of its package of carbon pricing/emissions trading legislation,

‘Blue carbon’ refers to the carbon storage potential of coastal ecosystems such as mangroves, tidal marshes and seagrass beds. These ecosystems can sequester carbon at higher rates than many terrestrial ecosystems and also play an important role in biodiversity conservation, protecting coastlines and coastal economies. Australia founded the International Partnership for Blue Carbon at the 2015 Paris climate

Key Results The Australia Institute surveyed 1,417 Australians about presents, waste and repairs. Gifts Three quarters of respondents (75%) like to buy Christmas gifts However, 42% would prefer others not to buy them gifts, compared with 47% who disagreed with this idea. Around a third (31%) said they expect to get gifts they won’t use

The workers’ compensation system in NSW has been dramatically scaled back and restructured since the current state government came to office in 2011.  Real benefit payouts have been cut by 30 percent, with the resulting “savings” passed on to employers in lower premiums (down 40 percent over the past decade).  Yet injured workers continue to

2017 marks the ninth annual Go Home On Time Day (GHOTD), an initiative of the Centre for Future Work at the Australia Institute aimed at highlighting the incidence of overwork among Australians, including excessive overtime (often unpaid). To investigate the prevalence of overwork and unpaid overtime, we commissioned a survey of over 1400 Australians on the incidence

This paper reviews the implications of the latest Trump tax plan for Australia; in particular that part of the plan that involves changes to the company tax arrangements. The present plan would bring the tax rate down to 20 per cent at the national level. With state taxes, that means that the total American rate

Stopping the NAIF loan to Adani and redirecting it to other industries makes good sense economically, environmentally and politically. The Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF) is a federal agency that provides concessional finance. Adani has applied for close to $1 billion in concessional finance from NAIF for its coal mine and rail project in Queensland.

The Australian government appears to be actively soliciting financing from foreign governments and investors towards Adani’s coal mine and rail line, projects it plans to subsidise.

Salmon farming is a hot topic in Tasmania. The industry is responsible for over 2% of Gross State Product and over 1% of employment, including considerable full-time employment. This economic contribution is due to substantial growth. The industry tripled in size over the past decade, and plans to double again in the 20 years to 2030. The industry

The Minerals Council of Australia featured in 1,594 Australian news stories in the last year mentioning coal. This was three times more than iron ore, far more than any other mineral. Yet only 16 of the MCA’s 45 members mine coal at all. Just 3 are entirely focused on thermal coal. The biggest members, BHP

The Australia Institute made this submission to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee’s inquiry into consumer protection in the banking, insurance and financial sector. Our main concern in this submission is to look at the deeper issues and ask what are the forces that drive ‘bad behaviour’ in the finance and insurance sectors. We start with

With the Tasmanian Joint Select Committee on Future Gaming Markets considering the future of poker machines in Tasmania, community pressure is growing for poker machines to be banned from hotels and clubs, limiting them to casinos and the Spirit of Tasmania vessels. Concern that this proposal would reduce government revenue is misplaced. Recent modelling by

Budget-cutting political leaders regularly target the jobs and incomes of public sector workers as the first and most politically convenient target of their austerity measures. But their crusade to balance the books by downsizing headcounts, intensifying work, and freezing the pay of the workers who deliver essential public services can backfire. In this new report,

The record-slow pace of wage growth in Australia’s economy is not just making it difficult for families to balance their budgets, it also threatens severe long-run damage to Australia’s superannuation retirement system.  That’s the finding of new research from the Centre for Future Work at the Australia Institute.

The Australia Institute Tasmania and Unions Tasmania launched the inaugural Tasmanian Jobs Survey in June of this year. We invited Tasmanians to complete a survey about their employment status, their union membership (if any), their household budget and disposable income and how work affects their life. The survey began May 1st 2017 and ran until

The McArthur River zinc-lead mine in the Northern Territory imposes significant environmental costs on the local community. Claims that it could produce government revenue of over $1.5 billion are based on flawed economic modelling that estimates tax revenues over a 1,000 year period.

This week the ABS released new GDP data, covering the June quarter, which confirm the continuing structural shift away labour toward capital in the distribution of income. We have prepared a short briefing note, contrasting the strong growth in corporate profits over the past year with the stagnation of labour incomes.  Workers simply do not

Political donations in Australia are difficult to monitor as many go unreported. Only donations over $13,000 are disclosed to the Australian Electoral Commission. The majority of donations are likely to be under this disclosure threshold or hidden through other means, such as through associated entities or party fundraising events. Despite these shortcomings, the disclosures that

Australia’s mining industry is 86% foreign owned and has spent over $541 million in the last ten years on lobbying Australian governments through its peak lobby groups, which are dominated by foreign interests. Spending on lobbying by individual mining companies is not public information, but would bring this number up significantly. This report finds that:

What we do and don’t know about mines, closures and rehabilitation in Victoria. Little data is available to the public on the clean-up from the mining boom. State government agencies often lack basic information on how many mines are in operation, with still less published on closures and abandonments.

Our Centre has conducted considerable research into the impacts of the Fair Work Commission’s decision to substantially reduce penalty rates for Sunday and holiday for workers under the terms of the Modern Awards covering four sectors of the economy: fast food, retail, hospitality, and pharmacy. Penalties for Sunday work will be reduced by up to half; penalties will also be reduced for working on public holidays.

The Australia Institute made a brief submission to the Treasury discussion paper on Tax deductible gift recipient reform opportunities. The Australia Institute is a Canberra-based think tank, registered as a charity with the ACNC. We conduct research on a wide range of economic, policy and political issues. We commented on Consultation question 12: Stakeholders’ views

The Australia Institute made a submission to the discussion paper on Future reform – an integrated care at home program to support older Australians. The discussion paper includes no consideration of shared living programs. This is a serious oversight given the paper’s emphasis on reform and innovation in care-at-home services. The main shared living programs