Key results The Australia Institute surveyed a representative sample of 1,041 Queensland residents about whether they support 12 policies introduced by the Queensland Labor Government. The results show that: • Each of the 12 policies is supported by most Queenslanders. • The net effect of each of the 12 policies is to make Queenslanders more

Traffic fines in Australia hit low-income earners disproportionally hard. One potential solution to this problem is traffic fines that are proportional to the income of the offender. This discussion paper outlines one way of applying this model – drawn from Finland –to Australia, including a breakdown for states.

Red imported fire ants are one of the world’s most invasive pest species and attempts to eradicate them from South East Queensland are currently under-resourced.

The economic assessment of the Lake Vermont project heavily understates its costs and overstates its benefits. At the USA Environmental Protection Agency’s central social cost of carbon estimate, the cost of the direct emissions alone is $4.1 billion, greater than the estimated royalty revenue – $1.1 billion.

The Australia Institute made a submission on the revised Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for Whitehaven Coal’s Winchester South proposal. Our submission focused on the economic assessment within the EIS, conducted by Deloitte Access Economics.

The Australia Institute made a submission to the Queensland Coordinator-General’s consultation on terms of reference for the Valeria Coal Project environmental impact statement. The economic assessment of the project should include coal market scenarios that reflect climate action required to meet the Paris Agreement. Methods used by coal industry economists to downplay the costs of carbon emissions should be explicitly ruled out.

Received wisdom suggests that one-term governments are rare in Australia. New governments benefit from incumbency, the “sophomore surge” and perhaps a reluctance among voters to change directions twice in a short period of time. The Napthine Government entered the 2014 Victorian election the underdog, argued election analyst Antony Green, “a unusual situation for a first

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).

The Australia Institute made a submission on the Winchester South coal mine environmental impact statement. Winchester South is a marginal project.  The economic assessment, astonishingly, does not consider the impact of climate action on the coal market. Optimism bias and management incentives explain why mining approval is being sought despite the weak financial or economic

The current level of floodplain harvesting is inconsistent with legislation. Reducing the practice to lawful levels could be done with minimal economic impact due to the export-oriented and capital-intensive nature of cotton production. Even in cotton producing regions, cotton accounts for less than 5% of jobs. Despite a reputation for high profits, major cotton producers

The Australia Institute surveyed a nationally representative sample of 1,000 Australians in May 2021 about their social and emotional states since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of these questions were first asked in 2011 and again in April 2020. By providing these polling results, The Australia Institute hopes to assist the committee in

The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) report on strategic water purchases found that the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources’ processes were poor, could not ensure value for money or that conflicts of interest were eliminated. Despite these findings, the audit did not ask if the public actually got value for money and real environmental

The Australia Institute welcomes the opportunity to make a submission to the Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media.

New research from The Australia Institute has shown that a significant majority of Queensland voters want to see truth in political advertising laws introduced at a state level, following the 2020 state election. The Australia Institute surveyed 1,447 Queenslanders between 3 and 7 November 2020. Only people who voted in the 2020 state election were

Submission made to the Energy Security Board’s proposed framework for the planning of renewable energy zones (REZ) within state jurisdictions in the National Electricity Market (NEM). This form part an ongoing research project titled Rural Communities and Renewable Energy: A Socio-economic Study in NSW, conducted by thte University of Sydney Environment Institute, Australian National University and the

In times of crisis, governments have a responsibility to their citizens to maintain and expand their role in the economy – for both economic and social reasons. This responsibility has never been clearer than during the current COVID-19 pandemic, and its associated economic downturn. Australians are counting on their governments to protect them from the pandemic, support them through the resulting recession, and play a leading role in rebuilding a stronger, healthy society in the aftermath of this unprecedented catastrophe.

The Australia Institute modelled the impacts that removing the coronavirus supplement would have on the number of people in poverty. The national results and an explanation of the modelling are available in Poverty in the age of coronavirus. State specific figures can be found in the following reports: Poverty in the age of coronavirus –

Recently released documents show that the vendors in an $80 million water sale had repeatedly offered far lower prices to the Commonwealth but these offers were rejected as ‘not value for money’. The documents mention a company linked to Energy Minister Angus Taylor seven years after it says it ended work with the vendors. The

The Australian National Audit Office is investigating so-called strategic water purchases in the Murray Darling Basin. These purchases were counter to government policy on reducing consumptive use, have not brought balance to the Commonwealth’s water portfolio, were not value for money and did not meet guidelines on transparency, accountability and ethical procurement. The Australia Institute

The Australia Institute made a submission to the Independent Assessment of Social and Economic Conditions in the Murray-Darling Basin. The socio-economic conditions of the Murray Darling Basin share many characteristics with other areas of regional Australia – lower incomes and difficult access to important services. These should be addressed as well as the mismanagement of

The Australia Institute supports the Murray-Darling Basin Commission of Inquiry Bill 2019. This submission considers the implementation of the Basin Plan from a financial auditing perspective.

The Australia Institute made a submission on the Galilee Gas Pipeline proposed by Jemena. The Pipeline Project should be considered a controlled action under the EPBC Act as it would impact on matters of national environmental significance.

As Queensland’s Government and Opposition compete to sweeten deals for the coal industry, open-cut coal mines in Queensland already get up to 17% of their coal for free compared with similar mines in NSW. At average export prices over the past decade, the benefit to Adani’s mine would have been $223 million and $1.3bn to