Loneliness is the disconnect felt between desired interpersonal relationships and those that one perceives they currently have. While the subjective nature of this experience makes measuring loneliness difficult, understanding loneliness is important for the development of a range of social policies. The availability of longitudinal Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey data

Arrow Energy plans to build a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plant in Gladstone to export coal seam gas (CSG) from its reserves in the Surat and Bowen Basins. This construction project is proposed to occur at the same time as a large number of other projects in Gladstone such as the Yarwun Alumina Refinery Expansion,

The role of unemployment benefits is to insulate people from the severe financial hardship of going to work one day and discovering that they no longer have a job. Few people earning $60,000 per year, raising children and attempting to repay their home loan can afford to remain unemployed for more than a few months

The mining industry is receiving substantial assistance from Australian taxpayers worth more than $4 billion per year in subsidies and concessions from the Federal Government alone. Amazingly, this is at a time when the industry is earning record profits. Significantly, these subsidies and tax concessions do not even include the cost of providing the mining

One of the tools used by the government in pursuit of ‘welfare cheats’ is data-matching. The Data-matching Program cross-checks income and personal details held by one agency against similar data held by other agencies, primarily the Australian Taxation Office. The focus of this program is identifying overpayments amongst existing welfare assistance recipients (the difference between

Although Australia has a long tradition of providing welfare support, in recent times the promotion of available support has been at best selective. In recent years, campaigns to raise awareness have focused on promoting new forms of assistance, often those that are initiatives of the current government. The Education Tax Refund (ETR) is an example

The Australian mining boom has been driven by rapidly rising world commodity prices. Put simply, the world is now willing to pay much higher prices for our coal, iron ore, gold and other resources than they were 10 years ago. For example, gold prices have risen from about 400 $US/ounce in 2004 to about 1600

On the back of record high commodity prices the mining industry in Australia is experiencing an unprecedented period of expansion. The value of our mineral exports has increased to the point where they now make up more than half of the value of all our exports. This increase combined with the huge inflow of capital

In order to receive fair treatment through the legal system, it is often necessary to seek assistance from a lawyer. This can be an expensive exercise, depending on the matter to be resolved and one’s capacity to pay for it. The financial costs of pursuing justice can be so high that a great many people

Santos is planning to mine the coal seam gas reserves of North West New South Wales and, as elsewhere with coal seam gas projects, has encountered substantial local opposition. Action groups such as ‘Save Liverpool Plains’ and ‘Lock The Gate Alliance’ have initiated lobbying and protest action. However, Santos has recently released a report entitled

“When I began the study of economics some forty one years ago, I was struck by the incongruity between the models that I was taught and the world that I had seen growing up” – Nobel Prize Winning Economist Joseph Stiglitz. Economic modelling has, for many people involved in Australian policy debates, become synonymous with

Catalyst Australia welcomes the initiative of the City of Sydney in developing Wellbeing Indicators. We applaud the endeavour, and recognize that the process of developing the Indicators will promote community awareness of factors that contribute to social wellbeing as well as provide information to guide future policy-making by the City of Sydney and potentially the

This paper responds to the invitation by the Brian Howe inquiry set up to examine insecure work and follows the release of the options paper, “The future of work in Australia: Dealing with insecurity and risk.” The consultation document makes it clear that the casualisation of the workforce is a consequence of the increasing flexibility

Poker machines play a major role in redistributing income away from those with the least and towards those with the most. According to the Productivity Commission the social cost of poker machines is approximately $4.7 billion per year. Perversely, those who profit most from this most inequitable of income distribution devices often justify the existing

The scope of the Inquiry is broad. In our submission we have chosen to focus on three areas of policy interest, drawing on our work over the past four years.

The proposal by Waratah Coal to build one of the world’s largest coal mines which will transport its coal through the Great Barrier Reef, in the middle of a mining boom, and at a time when the world is attempting to reduce greenhouse gasses has obviously not been without some controversy. However, despite the obvious

The Gillard Government recently passed legislation which will, for the first time in Australia, see big polluters pay for their greenhouse gas emissions through a price on carbon. While the introduction of a carbon price will not in itself drive a substantial reduction in Australia’s emissions, it does begin to build the necessary policy infrastructure

In recent decades technology has revolutionised the way companies do business and workers do their jobs. From the very top of organisations to the most menial and low-paid roles, the great majority of employees now use information and communication technology to some extent for work. Some spend their entire working lives in front of a screen of some sort.

When sick, the doctor is the first port of call for most Australians. In 2009-10 one in five visits to a GP resulted in extra fees over and above the Medicare scheduled fee. An estimated $557 million extra were paid for these visits. While the government encourages GPs to charge the scheduled fee (known as

It is often said that to retire with dignity in Australia a couple would need a retirement income of around $50,000 per year. In order to help Australians achieve such levels of retirement incomes Australian taxpayers now contribute around $27 billion per year in tax concessions to help boost the retirement savings of so called

There has been much debate recently about the way that wine sold in Australia should be taxed. The proposal by the Henry Tax Review to move from the current ad valorem tax to a volumetric tax, bringing wine in line with other types of alcoholic drinks, has been fiercely challenged by some in the wine

“The future is in our hands, and it will be defined by the way we handle the current minerals boom. Get it wrong, and we falter. Get it right, and we set the nation up for decades to come.” Prime Minister, the Hon. Julia Gillard The Australian economy, like all modern economies, is diverse and

The recent debate about productivity trends in Australia has revolved around the reported decline in labour productivity growth. For example, the new Secretary of the Treasury, Dr Martin Parkinson recently stated: “Australia’s productivity growth, measured in terms of both labour productivity and multifactor productivity, has slowed, and there is little reason to believe it will

In the 2007 federal election both major parties committed to introducing an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). By 2009 both parties agreed on an emissions reduction target of five per cent on 2000 levels by 2020. But since Tony Abbott became leader of the Liberal Party the bipartisan position for a reliance on a market based

The internet today stands at a crossroads. Entry into the online marketplace is in theory open to virtually anyone with sufficient technological know-how and a viable business model. As a result, the World Wide Web is now the very model of diversity, with more information, more products and more opinions accessible more easily than through

Australian women suffer a ‘wage penalty’ when they return to work after having a child, according to new research by the Australia Institute. In the first year back at work, women can expect to earn around four per cent less per hour on average than they would if they had not had a child, the