26 February 2021

Australia’s political class must exchange their obsession with climate mandates for an obsession with Australian jobs by ditching the Paris Agreement and refusing to adopt a job-killing net zero emissions target. The debate over Australia’s emissions target has fired up in recent weeks. But while there’s plenty of bumper sticker politicking, as Senator James McGrath said on 17 February, there

24 February 2021

Every 16 days China emits more carbon than Australia does in an entire year, according to new research released today by free market think tank the Institute of Public Affairs. This means the annual effect on global emissions from Australia mandating a net zero emissions target would be cancelled out by China in just over two weeks. “The complete de-industrialisation

18 February 2021

Interest payments on Commonwealth debt could become the third-largest spending item in just 10 years, behind only health and income support for seniors, according to new research from free market think tank the Institute of Public Affairs. The interest payment on debt could consume 7.5% of the Commonwealth Budget and cost $64.1 billion by 2030-31. “High and growing levels of

10 February 2021

Coal miners, farmers, and steel and iron workers hold the majority of the 653,600 jobs which could be destroyed by the adoption of a net zero emissions target in Australia, according to new research released today by free market think tank the Institute of Public Affairs. “Net zero emissions means net zero jobs,” said Daniel Wild, Director of Research at

29 January 2021

If Labor’s reshuffle will be enough to correct the party’s woeful policy agenda and reconnect with mainstream Australians remains to be seen.  The most significant change is the removal of Mark Butler from the climate change and energy portfolio, a position he has maintained through two election defeats, the most recent of which was supposedly the ‘climate election’.  In the

25 January 2021

Key findings : The quality of the Australian way of life is collapsing.  The Australian Way of Life Scoreboard, which measures the quality of the Australian way of life, has declined by 28.5% since 2000.  23 of 25 measures relevant to the Australian way of life have declined since 2000.  This decline can be found across every area of Australian life,

28 December 2020

One might think animal spirits had gripped the Australian economy as a flurry of better-than-expected economic figures hit the newsstands before Christmas. But Australians cannot let the political and bureaucratic class off scot-free for the devastation they have caused in 2020, or for their unwillingness to engage in serious reform which will underpin our future prosperity. The Australian Bureau of

9 December 2020

Research released today by the Institute of Public Affairs outlines how a dramatic re-shaping to the structure of Australia’s economy has largely benefited big corporates and the financial sector, at the expense of family-run and small businesses. The analysis, which is based on data from the Australia Bureau of Statistics, found that the share of national income accruing to family-run

25 November 2020

Yesterday’s Victorian budget was on-form for the Andrews’ government: it mishandled the COVID-19 pandemic and now it is mishandling the economic recovery from the deepest recession in 100 years. And the contempt for democratic norms the Victorian government has shown throughout the coronavirus crisis has made its way into the budget.  It was the Andrews’ government’s incompetence in managing hotel quarantine, along with an inadequate contact tracing system, which

13 November 2020

“The Morrison Government should be congratulated for ensuring that public servants have a stake in the performance of the broader economy. Throughout the lockdown-induced recession, public servants have been completely insulated from negative economic impacts while private sector workers lost jobs and wages at an astonishing rate,” said Cian Hussey, Research Fellow at free market think tank the Institute of