Economy
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Central Banking’s Green Mission (Project Syndicate Dec. 8, 2020)
Since the 2008 global financial crisis, central banks have shown time and again that they have the power to maintain the economic status quo. Now, they must use that power to support a timely green transition…. Continue reading »
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Saturday’s good reading and listening for the weekend
What people in other forums are saying about public policy… Continue reading »
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The Usual Suspects: oil and gas majors star in Australian tax heist (MWM Dec 17, 2020)
Angus Taylor’s rescue package for the oil industry is a testament to the ability of large corporations to game governments. The latest Tax Office transparency data shows that oil and gas juggernauts are, again, Australia’s biggest tax cheats, yet are demanding and getting more public subsidies to prop up their oil refineries. Michael West reports on the… Continue reading »
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The medium-term budget outlook and its policy implications. Part 2
Yesterday Part 1 considered the medium-term outlook for the budget deficit and government debt. Today Part 2 discusses the Parliamentary Budget Office projections of revenue and expenditures, how realistic they are, and why policies will need to change if we are to return to sustained economic growth and fiscal strength…. Continue reading »
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Deck stacked for dud super funds (AFR Dec 15, 2020)
Retirement rip-off The Your Super, Your Future package is designed by financial sector lobbyists to handcuff industry funds and give for-profit retail funds an easier run…. Continue reading »
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The medium-term budget outlook and its policy implications. Part 1
Instead of being “back in the black” this financial year, the budget outlook is for deficits continuing for the foreseeable future. The critical issue for policy is how should the budget deficit be wound back, how far and how quickly…. Continue reading »
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Bad Gig: industrial relations “reform” bill delivers flexibility … for employers
When one-third of casuals work full-time hours, almost 60% have been with their employer for more than a year, and more than half cannot choose the days they work, is the “flexibility” of a casual job really for the benefit of employees? … Continue reading »
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After two decades, the national electricity market is on its way out, and that’s alright (Dec 10, 2020)
It has been more than 20 years in the making, but there is now a new order in Australia’s grandest (and most problematic) example of cooperative federalism: the National Electricity Market…. Continue reading »
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Home ownership and super are far more entwined than you might think
When the government’s retirement incomes review of which I was a part examined superannuation, the age pension and voluntary savings, home ownership had a surprisingly important role…. Continue reading »
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Saturday’s good reading and listening for the weekend
What people in other forums are saying about public policy… Continue reading »
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From here on our recovery will need more than fiscal policy, it’ll need redistribution
From the 1980s right through to the global financial crisis, the standard response in Australia and elsewhere to too weak or too strong an economy has been monetary policy — the manipulation of interest rates by a central bank, in our case the Reserve Bank…. Continue reading »
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Can macroeconomic policy ensure the inflation target?
If Australian wages do not increase sufficiently in line with economic capacity, it risks a shortfall in aggregate demand that will make the achievement of an inflation target very difficult, or even impossible…. Continue reading »
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Jeff Borland. New finding: boosting JobSeeker wouldn’t keep Australians away from paid work
Incentives, the Freakonomics author Steven Levitt once quipped, are the “cornerstone of modern life”. To this I would add: only if the incentive is big enough…. Continue reading »
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Saturday’s good reading and listening for the weekend
What people in other forums are saying about public policy… Continue reading »
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The escalating risk to Australia’s vehicle fleet. Australia applies the brakes again and again.
Gas-guzzlers in Europe are quickly becoming a thing of the past – so guess where they’re headed instead…. Continue reading »
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Saturday’s good reading and listening for the weekend
What people in other forums are saying about public policy… Continue reading »
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Opening up Australia to international travel – All froth and no bubble!
Since April, a variety of coronavirus travel bubbles involving Australia have been mooted. But will any of them take off?… Continue reading »
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NBN update. Let’s not compound a history of poor policymaking by people who claim to be good economic managers
In years to come Malcolm Turnbull will be remembered as the communications minister who, under instruction from then prime minister Tony Abbott, ‘demolished’ Labor’s 21st Century National Broadband Network. But another prominent politician had earlier inflicted enduring damage to any nascent aim of becoming an innovation nation and set us back as a player in… Continue reading »
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Joel Fitzgibbon and renewable energy in the Hunter.(Renew Economy Nov 17, 2020)
The New South Wales has made a new commitment to transform the now coal-dependent Hunter Region as a hub of new renewable energy and storage projects as part of its broad and ground-breaking plans to transition the state’s grid from coal to renewables. Joel Fitzgibbon is clinging to the past…. Continue reading »
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The rise of megaprojects
The era of megaprojects has well and truly arrived. But megaprojects run the risk of megaproblems…. Continue reading »
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Saturday’s good reading and listening for the weekend
What people in other forums are saying about public policy… Continue reading »
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JobMaker is nowhere near bold enough. Here are four ways to expand it (The Conversation Nov 10, 2020)
The government has targeted its JobMaker Hiring Credit too narrowly…. Continue reading »
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Uneasy lies the head: Crown casinos is falling
Shakespeare recognised centuries ago that ‘uneasy lies the head that wears a crown’. Certainly, the individual and collective heads of the members of the board of Crown Resorts Ltd should be very very uneasy. Their Crown is falling, almost fallen…. Continue reading »
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Saturday’s good reading and listening for the weekend
What people in other forums are saying about public policy… Continue reading »
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The future of work is coming but it might not be what you think (The Mandarin 9 Oct, 2020)
Visions of the future of work, utopian and dystopian dot our popular culture. Thinkers behind these visions have often taken a Fukuyama-like plunge foreshadowing, if not the end of work, at least a radical re-working of the role work plays in our lives…. Continue reading »
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Is Trump the worst economic manager in almost a century?
As he has done with the property business built up by his father, Trump has squandered the economic inheritance from Obama by poor management…. Continue reading »
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Interest rates: why a further cut is not a good idea
Interest rates are already at record lows. Any further cut will not help the economy but will add to the inequality of wealth in this country…. Continue reading »
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Company director is the one job where pay and performance don’t matter (ABC Oct 27, 2020)
For generations, it has been the nation’s most exclusive club. Entry is strictly invitation only. And while acceptance is difficult, once you’re in, you’re in for the long haul…. Continue reading »
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Productivity – maybe one good aspect of the Morrison-Frydenberg budget
Low interest rates and breaks for new investment will not encourage business expansion – there’s too much uncertainty – but they may lift our productivity…. Continue reading »
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A special investigation: Naval, builder of Australian submarines, at centre of numerous global corruption scandals
The arms company at the centre of a deadly criminal saga and numerous global corruption scandals, Naval Group, was selected by the Australian government to build our new fleet of submarines – a deal heralded as ‘one of the world’s most lucrative defence contracts‘. How did this happen?… Continue reading »
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