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October 2022
Safeguarding fossil fuels: Submission
The Safeguard Mechanism has to date safeguarded polluters. Extensive reforms are required to ban new gas and coal entrants, limit the use of carbon credits and develop an alternative fixed price payment to be directed by the Commonwealth to build climate solutions.
September 2022
Polling Research: Boothby
uComms conducted a survey of 901 residents in the federal seat of Boothby on behalf of The Australia Institute during the evening of 7 September 2022 using self-completed automated voice polling methodologies. Key Results: A majority of voters in the seat of Boothby (53.5%) believe that Australia has some responsibility for the pollution from Australian
August 2022
Submission: Climate Change & Consequential Amendments Bills 2022
The Australia Institute welcomes the opportunity to comment on the Climate Change Bill 2022 and Consequential Amendments Bill 2022 (hereafter ‘the Bills’). The Bills are a valuable framework to ensure transparency and accountability of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets, including by ensuring the provision of evidence-based advice from the Climate Change Authority to inform
Submission on Treasury Laws Amendment (Electric Car Discount) Bill 2022 [Provisions]
The Australia Institute made a submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Economics Inquiry into the Treasury Laws Amendment (Electric Car Discount) Bill 2022 [Provisions]. The Bill is a welcome first step to reducing transport emissions in Australia, but much more needs to be done.
Fuelling efficiency
Australia has become an outlier in the global light vehicle market, with a comparatively inefficient and anachronistic vehicle fleet. In 2018, the average carbon dioxide (CO2) intensity for new passenger vehicles in Australia was 169.8gCO2/km compared to 129.9gCO2/km in the United States, 120.4gCO2/km in Europe and 114.6gCO2/km in Japan.
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference
As tensions in the Pacific and war in Europe continue to escalate, Australia could play an important global role in reducing the spread and threat of nuclear weapons at an important upcoming conference in New York, according to a new research report. The Australian Government has been urged to adopt 4 key policy goals to
July 2022
4.3 billion tonnes of emissions is not OK
The Australia Institute welcomes the opportunity to appeal Report 1727 North West Shelf Project Extension Proposal. The role of the Western Australian Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) is to prevent, control and abate pollution and environmental harm. In recommending the approval of a 50-year extension of Australia’s most polluting fossil fuel project, the North West Shelf
June 2022
Renewables & rural Australia
The technological shift away from coal to renewable energy for electricity generation is also a spatial shift. We are moving electricity generators to new dedicated Renewable Energy Zones (REZ) in parts of rural Australia that have not hosted energy utilities at this scale before. This report presents the first significant analysis of the spatial aspect
Foreign investment in Australia
Despite the importance placed on foreign investment, and public sensitivity to it, little data is available on the level of foreign ownership of Australian companies. What data is available often confuses legal and beneficial ownership or is based on limited sample size. The research report comes amid growing calls for a windfall profits tax on
May 2022
Next stop: Zero emissions buses by 2030
Shifting from private passenger vehicle use to zero emissions public transport will help curb Australia’s rising transport emissions. When considering other factors, such as population growth – particularly in urban areas – and the significant non-CO2 pollutant emissions associated with traditional diesel buses, it is clear that electrification of buses should be a central pillar
Polling – What is ‘clean hydrogen’?
The government defines ‘clean hydrogen’ as “hydrogen produced using renewable energy or using fossil fuels with substantial carbon capture and storage.”
Brown Coal, Greenwash
Despite being labelled as ‘clean energy’, none of the emissions HESC has produced in its pilot phase have been buried through Carbon Capture and Storage.
APPEA members who pay no income tax
Five of Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association’s (APPEA) most prominent member companies have paid no income tax for at least the past seven years despite combined income from their Australian operations of $138 billion. A sixth company, Santos, paid just $6 million on $28.9 billion of income, and paid no income tax from 2015
COP29 in Australia
Australia has never hosted a United Nations climate conference (COP) and the recent proposal from the Labor Party to bid for the 2024 COP in partnership with the Pacific could shift Australia’s reputation from climate laggard to regional leader. This shift should be accompanied by substantive changes to Australia’s climate policy, including on Australia’s climate
An Environmental Fig Leaf
Emissions have increased under Australia’s only climate policy, the Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF).
April 2022
Over a Barrel
Australia is precariously dependent on imported fuel. Demand-side solutions, particularly electrifying transport, should be adopted to improve Australia’s fuel security and increase energy independence.
Waratah Coal v Youth Verdict court case
The Australia Institute’s Research Director Rod Campbell was an expert witness in the precedent-setting case against Clive Palmer’s Waratah Coal Project in the Galilee Basin. The case was brought by Indigenous-led Queensland group Youth Verdict, who were represented by the Environmental Defenders’ Office (EDO).
Hot air won’t stop global warming
The Australian Government has identified carbon trading as a means to “work together to bring down emissions” across the Indo-Pacific region and to “help countries meet and report against their NDCs” through the use of carbon markets. It is unclear how Australia’s plans for fossil fuel expansion and pursuit of cheap abatement overseas will bring down emissions or help countries meet their climate targets.
March 2022
Review of Tasmania’s Living Marine Resource Management Act 1995
Tasmania hosts some of the highest marine diversity and endemism on Earth, world’s best practice expertise in marine science and governance, and punches above its weight in economic contributions, thanks to our ocean.
Glendell Continued Operations Project
The economic assessments of the Glendell proposal overstate its benefits and understate its costs. Applying current carbon prices to only its direct emissions gives a net present value of between negative $460 and negative $570 million. This excludes consideration of the potential heritage and biodiversity impacts.
Fossil fuel subsidies in Australia (2021-22)
In 2021-22, Australian Federal and state governments provided a total of $11.6 billion worth of spending and tax breaks to assist fossil fuel industries. This is a 12% increase on last year’s figure and 56 times the budget of the National Recovery and Resilience Agency. Over the longer term, $55.3 billion is committed to subsidising gas and oil extraction, coal-fired power, coal railways, ports, carbon capture and storage, and other measures.
Come clean
Freedom of Information documents show that when designing the ERF CCS method, the Clean Energy Regulator consulted almost exclusively with fossil fuel companies and big emitters, while actively excluding independent researchers.
Cruisin’ for an exclusion
Government efforts to increase the supply of carbon credits in Australia suggest that proposed administrative changes to the Carbon Farming Initiative Regulations may be used as an opportunity to allow excluded projects to participate in the Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF).
Allowing carbon credit projects on land that has been recently or illegally cleared would both incentivise land clearing and undermine the purpose of the ERF in reducing emissions.
Carbon cowboys and cattle ranches
The proposed REDD+ project in Oro Province of PNG covers an area twice the size of London and is expected to generate a huge 800 million carbon credits over its lifetime.
However, the available evidence fails to provide any assurance that this project has integrity, raising broader concerns about the types of carbon credits that Australia, other countries, and the private sector may use to meet their emission reduction commitments.
February 2022
Submission: Cost recovery framework for the Northern Territory onshore petroleum industry
The Australia Institute made a submission to the consultation process regarding Recommendation 14.1 of the NT Fracking Inquiry, “That prior to the granting of any further production approvals, the Government designs and implements a full cost-recovery system for the regulation of any onshore shale gas industry.”
Narrabri Underground Mine Stage 3 Extension
The Department of Planning and Environment recommends approval of the project based on economic benefits, but finds these benefits reduce “significantly” if greenhouse emissions are properly accounted for. The Department did not quantify the significant reduction. Applying a carbon price of between $24.50/t and $73/t reduces the value of the project to zero. Such carbon
Submission to the Capacity mechanism project initiation paper
The Australia Institute has been involved throughout the Energy Security Board’s (ESB) project to create a Post 2025 design for the National Electricity Market (NEM). In this submission we address the ESB’s proposal to design a capacity market mechanism as a way of managing energy reliability as coal power stations retire. The problem the ESB