Recent publications
ETS should be scrapped, not delayed
"While a delay is welcome, the ETS should be scrapped entirely," said John Roskam of the Institute of Public Affairs, a free market think tank. Kevin Rudd announced today that the government's ETS - effectively a tax on energy - is to be postponed...
Should Australian Taxpayers Lodge Annual Tax-Returns?
One of the issues canvassed in the Australia's Future Tax System Consultation paper is potential simplification of tax administration. But simplification of the tax system itself must preceded simplification of tax administration. The direct costs...
Editorial, March 2009
Is this the biggest financial crisis since 1987? Since the 1970s? Since the Second World War? Since the Great Depression? Since the word ‘finance' was coined? Who knows - my economist can beat up your economist. Like those American political...
So where is our GasBuddy? Can't mates be buddies too?
There is a ruthless efficiency about Kevin Rudd. The man who bewailed Brutopia's coming is as ruthless as his own caricatured ‘neo-liberals' and market forces. Even more ironically, market metaphors best describe the Prime Minister's...
Bailout Bonanza!
IPA Review | March 2009 Periods of economic turmoil have a habit of exposing weaknesses in policy, whether it is through inexperience, a lack of understanding, or a combination of these. Only a short twelve months ago, a newly elected Rudd...
Remarks to the Senate Inquiry into the Nation Building and Jobs Plan
The Senate should reject the fiscal stimulus package in its current format. The package contains a lot of spending and little actual stimulus. The proposed spending is poor quality expenditure of Federal funding. Discretionary fiscal policy has a...
The 'mining boom' myth
Mining isn't the be-all and end-all of the Australian economy. If the ‘mining boom ends', as widely predicted by politicians and other interventionists, life will go on. Apparently, Australia is even luckier than we generally think. We have...
Hitler's grotesque economics
Sinclair Davidson reviews The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy by Adam Tooze(Allen Lane, 2007, 799 pages). In the acclaimed television series Band of Brothers the Webster character abuses a column of German...
The adverse effects of government actions against cartels
Government intervention against cartels is seldom effective and sometimes counterproductive. Competitive firms may conspire to push up prices and profits, but this is difficult to achieve for a lengthy period of time. Firms have...
Business Bearing the Burden
The size and Impact of State Government Business taxes.