20 April 2021

Since the year 2000 something has gone wrong in Australia. As it happens, this was two years after the old Industry Commission was renamed the Productivity Commission – which is an interesting coincidence because part of the problem has been that the political class has become too focused on narrow terms like ‘productivity’ and distracted from the broader picture of

16 April 2021

Long after COVID-19 is gone and forgotten, Australians will have an expensive reminder of the disastrous year that was 2020. The legacy of the year of lockdowns will be the more than $1 trillion of Commonwealth debt which Australians, both alive and not yet born, have been saddled with. From midday on 23 March 2020, Australians entered their first lockdown.

13 April 2021

In episode 4 of Tell Us Your Story, Cian speaks to Roger and Lesley Gillespie, the founders of the much-loved Australian franchise Bakers Delight. In 1980, the Gillespies founded their first Bakers Delight in Melbourne and it didn’t take long for them to build up the business across the city. Forty years later, the franchise has over 700 stores across Australia,

1 April 2021

It speaks volumes to the lack of ambition in the federal government that it took a first-term senator on the backbench to identify and speak out about one of the most significant public policy challenges facing Australians. While the government has failed to deliver modest industrial relations reform and is now suffering in the culture war it insists doesn’t exist, Senator Gerard Rennick has his finger on the pulse when it comes to

31 March 2021

  In episode 3 of Tell Us Your Story, Cian talks to Chris Aylward, the non-executive chairman of the ASX-listed APN Property Group. Chris founded APN in 1996, the same year he used his extensive knowledge and experience in real estate and construction to purchase some land and start Kooyong Wines. They discuss what it was like listing a company

24 March 2021

The past 12 months have exposed the deep and dangerous division between the two Australias, one comprised of mainstream Australians and the other comprised of the political and bureaucratic elite. But these divisions have been evident for some time, and mainstream Australians have been denied access to the dignity of work while the political class has abdicated its responsibility to ensure that all

15 March 2021

  In this episode, Cian is joined by Dr Sam Prince – the man behind the legendary food of Zambrero. Sam founded Zambrero in 2005 while studying to become a medical doctor, and he hasn’t looked back since. The chain of Mexican food has over 200 stores across the world. Sam sets out his approach to entrepreneurship and discusses the

6 March 2021

New research released today by free market think tank the Institute of Public Affairs has found that the bottom fifth of income earners saw over half a million jobs disappear because of lockdowns, while the top fifth of income earners saw jobs increase by nearly 200,000. “Low-income earners, private sector workers, and young Australians, have been disproportionately affected while public

2 March 2021

The disconnect between the protected public sector and mainstream Victorians was perfectly encapsulated by the Secretary of the Department of Treasury and Finance, David Martine, last week. Martine, giving evidence to the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee said that the snap five-day lockdown of the entire state of Victoria would likely have a ‘minimal’ impact on Victoria’s public finances.  That forcing

26 February 2021

  Cian kickstarts the Tell Us Your Story series with the uber-successful tech entrepreneur Steve Baxter, who many of you may know as one of the ‘Sharks’ on Channel 10’s Shark Tank. After joining the Army at 15, Steve went on to found one of the first internet service providers in Australia, and has had a string of business successes since. Discover how