For most people, the simple answer to Peter Dutton’s repeated question — are you better off today than you were three years ago? — is “no, I’m not”. (more…)
Ross Gittins
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Debt and deficit: Labor’s budget naysayers ignore the cold hard facts
The independent economist and former Treasury officer Chris Richardson, the leader of Treasury-in-Exile and thus chief apostle of fiscal rectitude, does the country a favour with his eternal campaigning to keep budget deficits and public debt levels low. (more…)
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The government is timid, uninspired and uninspiring. This budget fits it perfectly
If you’re having trouble working up much interest in the budget, don’t feel bad. It’s not you, it’s the government. So much fuss is made about the annual federal budget that we expect it to be full of major announcements. Well, not this one, and not from a government that never wants to rock the boat. (more…)
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It’s official – supermarkets are overcharging. Quick, change the subject
Why does a government release a highly critical report on the conduct of Woolworths and Coles on the Friday before a budget that will lead straight into an election campaign? Short answer: not for any worthy reason. (more…)
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The outlook for house insurance is much worse than we’re being told
The big news on house insurance this week was the response of the insurance industry’s peak body to a parliamentary committee’s extensive criticisms of its treatment of people claiming on their policies after the massive floods of 2022. (more…)
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Much argy-bargy on the way to next week’s off-again, on-again budget
According to the business press, Anthony Albanese was desperately hoping for an early election so he could avoid next week’s budget and the drubbing he’ll get when Treasurer Jim Chalmers is forced to reveal projections of a decade of budget deficits. (more…)
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Maybe the inflation surge didn’t happen the way we’ve been told
According to Reserve Bank deputy governor Andrew Hauser last week, we’ve entered a world characterised not just by volatility, complexity and uncertainty, but also by “ambiguity” – a world where “you don’t know the model”, meaning that “judgment and instinct are as important as formal analysis”. (more…)
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The real truth on productivity: The bosses aren’t trying hard enough
At last, some sense on the causes of our poor productivity performance. For ages, we’ve been told it’s the government’s fault — maybe even the voters’ fault — for failing to make economic reforms. But last week the econocrats finally set the record straight: the problem is, our businesses have stopped doing the things that make us more productive. (more…)
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To make Medicare healthy again, our leaders must treat these worrying symptoms
I don’t know if you noticed, but the federal election campaign began on Sunday. The date of the election has yet to be announced – it may be mid-April or mid-May – but hostilities have begun. And they began with an issue that’s been big in election campaigns for 50 years: Medicare. (more…)
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We may be short of leaders, but we’re not short on false prophets
With this year’s federal budget supposedly brought forward to 25 March, the seasonal peak in business bulldust has come early. Last week, Canberra kicked off an annual ritual little noticed in real-world Australia, the call for “pre-budget” submissions on what the government should do in its budget. (more…)
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The nation is finally coming to grips with home affordability
Right now, the prospect of much improvement in being able to afford a home of your own isn’t bright. We don’t look like solving the problem any time soon. But I’ve been watching and writing about the steady worsening in housing affordability for the best part of 50 years, and I’m more optimistic today than I’ve ever been. (more…)
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Want more economics students? Drop the obsession with maths
The Reserve Bank is worried. The number of students wanting to study economics has been falling over the years, and it’s worried this will lead to a fall in the electorate’s economic literacy, which could end up worsening government policy. (more…)
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Voters blame one man for rising energy bills while companies get away with gouging
If, as seems likely, Anthony Albanese and his government lose seats at next year’s federal election, one thing we can be certain of is that the nation’s economists and econocrats won’t be admitting to their not insignificant contribution to Labor’s setback. (more…)
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We’ve entered the era of gutless government
Sorry to tell you that I’m finishing this year most unimpressed by Anthony Albanese and his government. I’m still reeling from his last two weeks of parliament, pushing through 45 bills just to show how much he’d achieved and give himself the option of calling an election early next year should he see a break in the clouds. (more…)
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How to avoid being conned by lobby groups using you to pressure the government
The obvious question arising from big business’ onslaught against Anthony Albanese and his government is: do Australia’s voters know which sides their bread is buttered on? Sorry, boss, I think they usually do. (more…)
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Authors who write with insight and experience
I read the daily Pearls and Irritations email without fail. (more…)
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Maybe only a recession will fix macroeconomic management
In the economy, as in life, it helps a lot if you learn from your mistakes. Or, if you’re in public life, from the mistakes of your predecessors. (more…)
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Students count cost of epic fail
Successive federal governments have propelled a ‘backdoor privatisation’ of Australian universities. It’s shameful. (more…)
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If you care about future generations, you should support ‘nature positive’
The most pressing problem we face is climate change. It’s even more important than – dare I say it – getting inflation down to 2 per cent by last Friday. But we mustn’t forget that climate change is just the most glaring symptom of the ultimate threat to human existence: our continuing destruction of the natural environment. (more…)
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Reserve Bank has squeezed us like a lemon, but it’s still not happy
Let me be the last to tell you the economy has almost ground to a halt and is teetering on the edge of recession. This has happened by design, not accident. But it doesn’t seem to be working properly. So, what happens now? Until we think of something better, more of the same. (more…)
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This budget will make us better off now, worse off later
It’s said you can tell a government’s true priorities from what it does in its budget. If so, the top priority of Anthony Albanese’s government is not to have any priorities. (more…)
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Labor deploys ‘security’ to protect bad policy from proper scrutiny
Politicians are increasingly using the word to justify bad policy initiatives and fend off criticism of their decisions. (more…)
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Rent-seekers put their hands out as budget looms
Last week we got a reminder that, among its many functions, the federal budget is the repository of all the successful rent-seeking by the nation’s many business and other special interest groups. Unfortunately, it added to the evidence that the Albanese government knows what it should do to manage the economy better, but lacks the courage do more than a little. (more…)
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Greedy businesses deserve part of blame for cost of living crisis
The nation’s economists and economist-run authorities such as the Reserve Bank have not covered themselves in glory in the present inflationary episode. They’ve shown a lack of intellectual rigour, an unwillingness to re-examine their long-held views, and a lack of compassion for the many ordinary families who, in the Reserve’s zeal to fix inflation the blunt way, have been squeezed till their pips squeak. (more…)
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Podcast: Time for radical tax reform on climate change, housing affordability
In the first of Pearls and Irritations’ new podcast series, Peter Martin interviews Ross Gittins on 50 years at the Sydney Morning Herald and the radical tax reform necessary to address climate change and Australia’s housing affordability crisis. (more…)
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It’s on PM to make tax cuts fair
Anthony Albanese risks being the man who did what Scott Morrison couldn’t – easing the tax burden of the rich. (more…)
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Australia has so far resisted American populism and dysfunction. This is why
Trumpian populism has not yet taken hold here. Why? Perhaps because this country’s not quite as unequal as others. (more…)
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Paying tax is good and, for better government, we should pay more
On Friday, a former top econocrat did something no serving econocrat is allowed to do, and no politician is game to do: he set out the case for us to pay higher, not lower, taxes. (more…)
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Nine ‘planetary boundaries’ set the limits of global economic freedom
One of the most important developments in economics is something in which economists had no hand: the identification of the environmental limits which humans, busily producing and consuming, cross at their peril. (more…)
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Business should serve, not enslave
It is time for government to get the suits back under control and manage the economy for the benefit of us all. (more…)