Archived publication for August 2010
Recent publications
The Impact and Cost of Health Sector Regulation
Every Australian deserves the opportunity to access high quality health care services. Those services should improve quality of life while remaining affordable. Increasingly however, Australia's health system is bowing under the weight of a...
The post-hope Prime Minister
President Obama and former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd both catapulted to power principally by harnessing the politics of hope. But, as recent events have shown, in politics, hope can turn to hopeless pretty quickly. Politicians who try to tap into...
Inside the hermit kingdom
Sometimes it's the simplest things that cause the most brilliant epiphanies. Think Newton and the apple. Despite a lifetime of propaganda and indoctrination, for many North Koreans their view of the world can change almost overnight. For one...
Does more equal really mean all better?
The criticisms of market capitalism have changed over the past two centuries. The writings of Marx and Engels in the nineteenth century emphasised that the private ownership of the means of production benefited the bourgeoisie at the expense of...
Kevin Rudd's darkest days
Kevin Rudd spent a fair amount of his intellectual capacity drubbing Friedrich von Hayek. Two major speeches given to the Centre for Independent Studies put the boot into Hayek who had also featured prominently in Ruddite essays deploring free...
Volume 62 Number 3
Tony Barry on the post-hope Prime Minister, Gary Johns on trade union graduates, Richard Allsop on the magic pudding of reckless spending, Brad Laver on the Facebook furphy, Louise Staley on cupcake consumerism, Tim Wilson and Liz Griffiths on how...
Economists as social engineers
In this paper, I make the argument that modern "mainstream" economic thought is inclined towards government intervention and social engineering. To the extent that economic analysis is seen simply as a tool it is likely that economists will...
Regulation and Urban Property Prices
Submission to the Productivity Commission's Review of Performance Benchmarking of Australian Business Regulation: Planning, Zoning and Development Assessments
Green Excuses: Collusion to promote protectionism?
The trade of forestry products on international markets is becoming increasingly controversial. For years environmental groups have been claiming that there is mass deforestation and illegal logging occurring in the developing world to create...