Economy

26 October 2016

Enterprise bargaining requires negotiation from both sides. The government’s policy provides the flexibility for this to occur on the employer side. This is in stark contrast to the public sector unions’ bargaining policy, which, as the IPA understands, has objected to every single proposed APS agreement – including those agreements which have ultimately resulted in approval from employees. The IPA’s

21 October 2016

Lindsay Bassani, a former Education Department bureaucrat and football coach, was sentenced to home detention after stealing almost $10,000 from the South Australian Aboriginal Sports Training Academy. Despite being allowed to avoid prison, he is now complaining about his electronic tracking bracelet because of the stigma of being seen with it. The fact that Mr Bassani is complaining is a

12 October 2016

Australia’s cultural, social and political history is entwined with Britain’s. We share a language, the Westminster democratic system, the common law and a respect for diversity, individualism and freedom. Australia’s modern incarnation was defined by British colonisation. As former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott put it last week, during a discussion of Anglo-Australian trade relations at the UK Conservative Party

1 October 2016

While the Turnbull Government recently introduced legislation to the Parliament to prohibit EBA clauses that restrict an emergency management body’s ability to manage volunteers, this change does not go far enough. Instead, the Fair Work Act must be amended so that only matters pertaining to the employer-employee relationship are permitted in EBAs. This would not restrict the ability of unions

22 September 2016

While the deal struck last week between the government and opposition to get $6.3 billion of savings over four years through the Parliament is welcome, it is still just treating the symptoms rather than tackling the disease. In fact it is the expectation that Canberra must be involved in tackling every problem and managing every program, with the assumption that

17 September 2016

It is no foregone conclusion that simply giving government more power and money will fix income inequality. Adam Smith once wryly said “there is a great deal of ruin in a nation”, and many would argue this statement is aptly represented in the reemergence of an anti‑immigration, anti‑trade populism mainly on the right, but also from the far left, in

9 September 2016

On Wednesday the Turnbull government released draft legislation to bring some of its superannuation promises into law. These changes are not the whole policy – we are told that some of the most contentious parts will be legislated in the future. But in many ways this legislation is even more significant than the policy of how superannuation should be taxed.

1 September 2016

Why we need to cut superannuation taxes on Middle Australia. The purpose of the retirement income system should be to enable Australians to maintain in retirement the living standards they achieve during their working lives. While our system largely achieves that goal for low and high-income earners, middle-income Australia is poorly served. High effective tax rates on superannuation are a

22 August 2016

Despite recent concerns raised by the head of Australia’s competition watchdog, privatisation remains a viable reform option. Even though it has been firmly established as a modern economic reform mainstay, the notion of privatisation remains a controversial one among the public at large. There are vested interests that will disparate privatisation as a matter of course, regardless of its successes,

3 August 2016

To secure Queensland’s mining future, cutting onerous red tape must be a key reform priority. Given the outlook for economic development in China, India and other developing countries, mining is likely to remain a Queensland mainstay in the years and decades to come. Although renewable energies have a place in future world energy supply, the fact is millionsin the world