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economy
economy December 5, 2025
Anthony Albanese’s official honeymoon ends this weekend, but his honeymoon with the electorate is continuing, according to the latest opinion polls, boosted by his opponents’ disarray and the government’s significant wins since the May election...
economy October 17, 2025
Chalmers retreats on super reforms
Soon after Labor’s thumping election win, Jim Chalmers was assuring doubters he would not be “changing policies we took to the election”. Within three months, however, that determination was undercut by Anthony Albanese quietly telling the treasurer...
economy October 11, 2025
How super strengthens Australian democracy
Before I was a politician, I was a day labourer. For many of my older co-workers, after four decades on a building site, the pension was hardly something to look forward to. The superannuation savings workers have today came about because unions...
economy August 30, 2025
The cunning design of Labor’s housing policy
Got $75,000 and never owned a home? The Albanese government is here to underwrite your $1.5 million Sydney property purchase through its newly relaxed and expanded Home Guarantee Scheme. First-home buyers elsewhere have lower thresholds: $50,000 to...
economy June 28, 2025
The treasurer’s recent speech to the National Press Club seems to have caught many in the conservative media off guard. So much for the constant chant about a dangerous, mad, left-wing government. On the contrary, Jim Chalmers has outlined a reform...
environment June 14, 2025
We need HECS-style loans for farmers
The recent series of floods and droughts in different parts of Australia has again raised the question of how best to deliver government assistance to those farmers and small businesses directly affected. Given the huge political capital the...
economy May 31, 2025
Now the election is finally over and the parties and candidates have settled down to their new realities, national priorities must be afforded their proper place. The election campaign focused too much on short-term offerings for voters – there was...
defence May 3, 2025
The debt trap of defence spending
One of the great disappointments of our election campaign has been the failure to focus more explicitly and substantively on the adequacy of our defence. The best we got was a repeated acknowledgement of the challenges in the prospective global...
economy April 19, 2025
What can the RBA do about Trump?
As United States President Donald Trump’s tariffs unleash chaos and turmoil across global markets, financial authorities around the world are forced into the unenviable role of working out how to protect their economies.At such an unpredictable...
environment April 12, 2025
The no-brainer energy solution
There is a lot of good in Australian climate policy, and some bad. The good news is that energy is on the political agenda this election cycle and finally we are seeing a race to the top. Electrification as a strategy is front and centre. Solar,...
economy April 11, 2025
As the major parties compete for the title of best economic manager, they are still ignoring the elephant in the room. Their future spending commitments, and voters’ expectations for further support, are not adequately funded by the prospective tax...
