Australia has immense natural, financial and scientific wealth, but has failed to turn enough of it into productive industries, skills and long-term national capability.
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Category: Economy
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Australia needs a capability state
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Who restrains power when power refuses restraint? – Message from the Editor
Across this week’s pieces on P&I, the same question keeps appearing: who or what restrains power when the powerful decide restraint is optional? (more…)
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Disjointed journeys in the housing market
Following young people’s pathways into (and out of) home ownership can cast light on their future possible trajectories and be useful for a forward-looking housing policy. (more…)
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Productivity is the symptom. Rentier capitalism is the disease
Australia’s unfinished economic reform goal should be to make Australian capitalism work better by directing capital towards productive enterprise and away from dependence on asset inflation. (more…)
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More economic myths that are holding us back
Markets are often treated as if they naturally maximise public benefit, but they can just as easily reward speculation, weak care, low wages and ecological destruction. (more…)
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From compliance to opportunity in AI: the key is capability
The Australian conversation about AI has settled around risk and regulation. Its economic promise will turn less on the rules Australia writes than on the capability built around the technology. (more…)
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How much wealth is too much?
Extreme wealth is concentrating economic, political and technological power in the hands of a tiny few. Healthy democracies cannot ignore the question of limits. (more…)
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The responsibilities of giving
Helping others begins with respect, recognising what they have already achieved and how to assist them to realise their capabilities. (more…)
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BRICS: the eulogy for western dominance?
The world’s economic centre of gravity is moving from the Atlantic toward Asia. This reflects the rise of China and India and the dynamism of the BRICS. (more…)
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Gen Z is not ageing into the old Australia
Why Australia’s Gen Z is unlike any voting cohort before it and why every institution built for the old Australia is about to find out. (more…)
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The productivity obsession has a measurement problem
The focus on productivity as the key to economic growth ignores the fact that we can’t directly observe productivity. We need better ways to measure improvements in overall living standards.
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A nature-based food revolution
Forget AI. The technological advance that will save the most human lives is being led by two million Indian farmers, who are pioneering advanced natural food production in a revolutionary movement that is spreading almost by the hour. (more…)
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Diversifying the critical minerals supply chain
Reducing dependence on China in the world’s critical mineral supply chain doesn’t require building a separate market. The trading system must find a balance between defence interests and the push for decarbonisation. (more…)
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EV charging needs national coordination
Australia’s EV charger rollout has been fragmented and incomplete. It’s time for it to be brought together as a coordinated network. (more…)
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Labor’s housing tax reforms must be the beginning, not the end
Labor’s capital gains tax and negative gearing reforms are a welcome start. But fixing housing will require broader tax reform, state cooperation and far greater investment in social housing.
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Singapore’s regulatory moment
Diverging regulatory systems are reshaping how global firms have to operate. Singapore’s standards strategy is intended to make regulatory friction work in its favour. (more…)
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How to pay for using our roads
A road user charge should not be used to punish electric vehicle drivers, but to fairly price all motoring by distance, vehicle mass and pollution – with fossil-fuel vehicles still paying for the harm they cause.
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New supply won’t fix housing while investors keep winning
To fix the housing crisis, further reform is needed that shifts taxation away from earnings onto passive assets. (more…)
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Our housing system must accommodate the middle
The current housing crisis is yet to focus properly on those who do not qualify for social housing but cannot compete in the private market. (more…)
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Australia must have an ambitious research policy to underpin economic transformation
In a speech marking the 20th anniversary of the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS), Kim Carr warns that Australia cannot build future prosperity on population growth, property and resource extraction alone – it must invest seriously in the scientific capability that drives innovation. (more…)
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Lessons from Manchester’s revitalisation
The Manchester model, which built skills and infrastructure, focused on the long game and it worked. These are lessons for the UK’s next PM. (more…)
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CGT debate exposes States’ $11b annual asset giveaway
State governments are giving away billions in development rights that create huge private land windfalls, when pricing those rights could fund housing, infrastructure and fairer state taxes.
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Hormuz shock tells us to strengthen agricultural systems
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz revealed agriculture’s vulnerability when fertiliser supply chains are disrupted. We need to build resilience before the next shock.
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The mixed legacy of Alan Greenspan
During his long tenure as Federal Reserve chair, Greenspan did not learn one important lesson: markets require strict regulation. (more…)
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The effect of AI on jobs: a non-mainstream economic view
Many economists argue technical progress does not have to lead to fewer jobs but we should not assume that creating the demand to support new employment opportunities is a given. (more…)
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Housing policy should build homes, not wealth
Housing policy should reflect the kind of society Australia wants to be: one that treats homes as a human right, builds neighbourhoods and social mixing, and stops privileging wealth accumulation over shelter. (more…)
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COP-31: electrifying the global economy a practical priority
Ahead of COP-31 in November this year, Australia has endorsed an ambitious new global electrification target to hasten exit from fossil fuels. (more…)
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Pauline’s poisonous politics – Message from the Editor
A little while after Pauline Hanson graduated from Ipswich City Council politics to take the Queensland seat of Oxley, I ran into her in a Canberra pub. This isn’t as unlikely as it sounds. Journalists and politicians often drink together, or at least in close proximity to each other, and in the late 1990s Canberra had so few drinking holes that collisions were inevitable.
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The questions Hanson was not made to answer
Pauline Hanson’s National Press Club address gave the media a chance to test One Nation’s claims on racism, public broadcasting, nuclear power, AUKUS, defence spending and foreign policy – but too many of the hardest questions went unasked. (more…)
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Inequality in Australia is growing
To address inequality and the social problems it gives rise to, Australia must return to a robust mixed economy with essential services in public control. (more…)