Category: Economy

  • LAURIE PATTON. Broadband: It’s buggered in the bush

    Last week’s Broadband for the Bush conference held in the rarefied atmosphere of Brisbane’s State Library revealed just how disillusioned people living in rural, regional and remote Australia have become with the state of their telecommunications services. Chief among the concerns expressed by farmers, welfare agencies, government officials and Indigenous leaders was the limitations of their broadband access, or indeed the lack thereof. (more…)

  • IAN McAULEY. A Royal Commission into banking and the private health insurance industry.

    In this election campaign the issue that triggered a double dissolution – restoration of the Australian Building and Construction Commission – has hardly scored a mention.

    That contrasts with the 1974 double dissolution election, called by the Whitlam Government in response to the Coalition’s use of its Senate power to thwart the government’s most important pieces of legislation.

    The establishment of Medibank – the forerunner of Medicare – was the main issue in that election. Labor’s vision was for a publicly-funded single health insurer, while the Coalition fought tooth and nail to defend the privileged position of private health insurance (PHI).

    The struggle continued in subsequent elections. Between 1975 and 1983 the Fraser Government gutted Medibank, but the Hawke Government resurrected it as Medicare, and over the years of the Hawke-Keating Government, as Medicare grew in popularity, membership of PHI steadily fell to around 30 percent of the population. Then in 1986 the newly-elected Howard Government introduced a set of generous subsidies for PHI, resulting in its coverage rising back to a little over 50 per cent of the population. (more…)

  • IAN McAULEY. The difference in the economic policies of the major parties.

    In the din of distractions about political trivia, many in the media have lost sight of, or fail to understand, fundamental differences in the economic policies of the two main parties.

    That is their approach to distribution, or redistribution.

    Although politicians may accuse one another of heartlessness or of ignoring the poor, almost all politicians believe that the benefits of economic activity should be distributed fairly (even though what they see as constituting “fairness” may differ). (more…)

  • FAZAL RIZVI. Migration Ain’t What It Used to Be

    That Asian-Australians are making a substantial contribution to the Australian economy is a fact that can no longer be contested. This contribution is of enormous significance, especially as Australia seeks to become integrated into the regional economy.

    The issues of how this contribution might be mapped and enhanced are examined in a report released by the Australian Council of Learned Academies (ACOLA). The report provides a discussion of the business opportunities that Asian Australians have, as well as the challenges they face. It also provides a discussion of how Australia, and its major institutions, might address these challenges. The report was released by Australia’s Chief Scientist on May 26. (more…)

  • WARWICK ELSCHE. Shorten should play to Labor’s strength.

     

    For more than 60 years, since opinion polling became important in shaping election strategies, there has been for the Australian Labor Party one awkward but stubborn consistency.

    Rightly or wrongly the Australian Electorate, with very isolated and brief exceptions, has always preferred and trusted the non Labor side of politics, the Liberal-National Party Coalition, as managers of the National economy.

    Incredibly, the present Government, which came to power on the strength of a supposed debt and deficit calamity retains that favoured regard on economic issues despite the fact that it has, in just three years added more than 100 billion to the National debt and trebled the deficit – the two things they claimed were threatening Australia’s future. (more…)

  • PETER WHITEFORD. Where is social welfare in the election campaign.

     

    The federal government’s largest single ticket spending item – welfare – has failed to rate a mention in the election campaign.

    It is the $152 billion elephant in the room. It accounts for around 35 per cent of total government spending. And it affects – in one way or another – most Australian adults’ lives. But beyond childcare policy, where is the discussion and debate about the Australian social welfare system in the election campaign? (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE.   Free Trade Agreements. The Abbott and Turnbull Governments were told but wouldn’t listen. They went further and attacked those who expressed concerns.

    The ink was hardly dry on the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement (ChAFTA) before we learned about labour market exploitation under the agreement. (more…)

  • ANDREW LEIGH. Why the government’s company tax cut is a carnival sideshow.

    In the 1890s, Texan cowboy Clark Stanley began marketing a new product at medicine shows.

    A man who could kill rattlesnakes with his bare hands, Stanley promised people that his rattlesnake extract would bring relief from rheumatism, sprains, swelling, back pain and toothache.

    It wasn’t until 1917 that Stanley’s operation was finally shut down, with a court finding that the product not only didn’t provide a cure; it wasn’t even made from snakes. And so the term ‘snake oil’ was born.

    I’ve been thinking about Clark Stanley since budget night, as Coalition leaders have boldly claimed that a cut to company taxes will whiten your teeth, improve your car’s fuel efficiency and make your chooks lay more eggs.

    Yet just as Stanley didn’t want people to read his recipe, so too I’m not sure the Coalition wanted Australians to delve into the Treasury report that underpins their big business tax cut.

    Titled ‘Analysis of the Long Term Effects of a Company Tax Cut’, the Treasury analysis makes clear how a company tax cut is supposed to help households. You’ll have to bear with me, because this one’s longer than a scrub python.

    Since Australia has dividend imputation, domestic shareholders don’t benefit much. As the Grattan Institute’s John Daley has pointed out, local shareholders only gain if profits are reinvested rather than paid out. However, our firms tend to have pretty high payout ratios, so this turns out to be a modest impact in practice.

    So in the first instance, most of the gains go overseas. There will even be some cases in which US-based multinationals repatriate their profits, paying the difference between their higher rate and our lower one.

    In such cases, an Australian company tax cut simply flows into the coffers of the US Treasury – meaning that some of the reduced revenue from an Australian company tax cut would be available to be spent by the successors to President Clinton or President Trump.

    Having enjoyed the first-round benefits of a company tax cut, the Treasury report then argues that foreign shareholders will respond to higher after-tax profits on their Australian investments. The theory goes that overseas shareholders then invest less in other countries, and more in Australia. More investment means greater demand for land and labour. So in the long run, land prices and wages are supposed to rise.

    As Keynes famously put it, we are all dead in the long run – so it’s worth asking how long we’re talking about. And the answer, typically, is 7 to 10 years. Since Malcolm Turnbull’s tax cut only reduces the tax rate on big business to 25% on 1 July 2026, this means that the Coalition is promising to raise wages somewhere between 2033 and 2035. At that point, Turnbull would be in his late-70s, and well on the way to becoming the longest-serving Prime Minister since Robert Menzies.

    And how big will the gains be? It depends how you pay for the company tax cut. The Treasury report suggests that tax cuts could be funded by a nationwide land tax, higher personal income taxes, or lower government spending. Since that the federal government last levied land taxes in 1952, that option can be safely set aside as hypothetical.

    So that leaves a company tax cut funded by less spending or higher income taxes. According to Treasury, if a big business tax cut from 30% to 25% is funded by lower spending, the boost to households is 0.7%.

    But for every ladder in the Treasury report, there’s a snake. In this case, the modelling is based on the idea that none of us get any direct benefits from roads, schools and hospitals.

    As the authors note:

    ‘It is important to recall that the modelling of government spending is assumed not to affect directly the welfare of households. While this is a common modelling assumption it ignores the fact that government spending provides goods and services that would otherwise not be provided by the market sector; households derive direct utility from government spending; and infrastructure spending can improve market sector productivity.

    This suggests the results reported in this section overstate the benefits of this funding alternative.’

    In other words, Treasury knows that the benefit to households of a company tax cut funded by less government spending will be smaller than 0.7% – they just can’t say how much smaller.

    One more reason not to rely too strongly on the idea that we can get a big boost out of a company tax cut funded by lower government spending. Since the Abbott-Turnbull government won office, spending as a share of the economy has gone up, not down.

    So that leaves as the most likely option a company tax cut for big business that’s funded by higher personal income taxes. According to the Treasury report, the benefit to households is 0.1%.

    How big is a gain in household incomes of 0.1%? To test this, I pulled up data back to the early-1970s, to see how household income (specifically, real net national disposable income per person) has grown. It turns out that over this period, household income has risen by an average of 0.1% each month. So Treasury’s most likely scenario is that a company tax cut delivers an extra month of household income growth.

    To see how risible this is, you need to recognise how poorly the economy has been performing for middle-income households since 2013. Living standards are down 4%. Wage growth is at a 30-year low. The home ownership rate is at a 60-year low. Inequality is at a 75-year high, with the top 1% having doubled their share of income in the past generation.

    In an environment like that, you might expect that supporting average households would be a national priority. And yet Malcolm Turnbull’s first budget contained precious little for middle Australia. One of its most expensive measures was a tax cut for those earning over $180,000. Ninety-four percent of that tax cut will go to the top 1%.

    While the top 1% get their tax cut the day before the election, the benefits of Turnbull’s company tax cut will trickle down very slowly… if at all.

    For all the hype, Treasury’s own modelling suggests that the Coalition’s company tax cut will deliver one more month’s growth – in the 2030s. Even the great snake oil salesman Clark Stanley couldn’t sell that as a recipe for ‘jobs and growth’.

    Andrew Leigh is the Shadow Assistant Treasurer.

    This piece originally ran in Business Insider Australia.

     

  • JOHN AUSTEN and LUKE FRASER. Urbane transport policy. Part 3 of 3

     

    This article is the third in a series about transport. The first two dealt with topics raised by the Prime Minister; mass transit, 30-minute cities etc and noted some challenges for the Commonwealth.[i]

    Urbane Transport policy. Part 1 of 3

     Urbane transport policy. Part 2 of 3

    The articles draw on public information – the basis for the community trust necessary for effective democracy. Unfortunately, some information has reduced trust. Restoring that trust begins with the top tier of Australian government – the Commonwealth – and depends on how a future Government approaches land transport. (more…)

  • MUNGO MacCALLUM. A jaded slogan: economic plan for jobs and growth.

    Malcolm Turnbull’s supporters have been praising him for keeping on his message, which at least has the virtue of simplicity: my government has a national economic plan for jobs and growth.

    Beauty is truth, truth beauty, and this is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know, as John Keats more elegantly put it. (more…)

  • CHRIS BONNOR and BERNIE SHEPHERD. Will we really get Gonski?

    So the election is in full swing and the word ‘Gonski’ is once more up there in lights. You have to feel a bit sorry for David Gonski. His achievements are indeed stellar but his name has become a proxy for just one: a major review into schools.

    Actually it has become a proxy for school funding – and even more narrowly, a proxy for school dollars going this way or that. After Bill Shorten announced extra school funding, electorate by electorate, we now know how many Gonskis will flow and who gets them. Under Labor it seems everyone will get a Gonski. (more…)

  • Michael Keating[i]. From Deficit to a Balanced Budget

    The issue of budget repair has not been addressed adequately in the current election campaign. See below an earlier article by Michael Keating on various revenue and expenditure items that need to be considered.  John Menadue

    A Report by the CEDA Balanced Budget Commission

    The Committee for Economic Development of Australia, which has a long history of independent public policy engagement, this week released an important report discussing the options for restoring the Australian Government Budget to balance. (more…)

  • Is this the vocational education and training system we need?

    Hearing or reading about vocational education and training (VET) today, we expect it to be another story of rorts and wrongdoings. And it is an horrific story, a story of for-profit private providers accessing public funding and not delivering the education and training students expected. It is a story of a number of private providers using brokers to search out vulnerable and naïve prospective students, and signing them up to a lifetime’s debt with promises of free courses and iPads. How did we get to such a position in such a short time? (more…)

  • DAVID PEETZ. The penalty rates time-bomb is ticking.

    A looming decision on weekend penalty rates presents problems for both major parties in the lead-up to Australia’s federal election. The Fair Work Commission seems likely to hand down its decision in the controversial case soon after the federal election.

    Nobody knows what the commission’s decision on penalty rates in the retail and hospitality industries will be. There seem to be more tea-leaf readers predicting it will cut Sunday penalty rates to match Saturday rates than who think it will make no changes.

    If so, employer organisations would be happy, but many retail employees will be worse off. Pressure would grow for cuts to penalty rates elsewhere.

    The commission president’s request for submissions on whether some employees should be given a right to refuse to work on Sundays, perhaps as a trade-off, has added to the confidence of the former group of tea-leaf readers. (more…)

  • JOHN DWYER. Restructuring the governance of health care in Australia. Part 1

    Part One. Structural reforms for better health outcomes from a redesigned more cost-effective health care system.

    The most important pre-election health care initiative has received very little publicity. Labor has committed to establishing a “Healthcare Reform Commission” if elected. While not likely to generate much discussion in one’s local pub it represents an acceptance by a major political party that we do need to explore structural changes to the way we deliver health to achieve better outcomes and fiscal sustainability. What follows is an evidence based scenario for the evolution of major structural reforms, many of which are currently being pursued internationally. (more…)

  • JOHN DWYER. Restructuring the governance of health care in Australia. Part 2

    Part Two.  Structural reforms for better health outcomes from a redesigned more cost-effective health care system. 

    There is broad agreement that in the near future our General Practitioners and their teams will earn the majority of their income from capitation payments that will require, for the first time in our Primary Care system, the documentation of health outcomes. Many doctors are concerned about this direction and argue that they may have neither the time nor the necessary kills to fulfil such requirements. International experience informs us that these doubts can be reversed with the creation of Primary Health Care Organisations to assist with these and many other issues.  (more…)

  • FAZAL RIZVI. The benefits to Australia of our Asian diasporas which now constitute over 17% of our population.

    That Asian-Australians are making a substantial contribution to the Australian economy is a fact that can no longer be contested. This contribution is of enormous significance, especially as Australia seeks to become integrated into the regional economy. (more…)

  • IAN VERRENDER. Election 2016: Who would want to inherit this budget mess?

    This election isn’t one that anyone would want to win. The global economy is uncertain, our debt is rising, and it seems we’ll be relying on luck rather than management to avoid a recession, writes Ian Verrender.

    It was hardly the kind of message an incoming Prime Minister would wish to hear.

    Not long after he seized power late last year, Malcolm Turnbull met with senior econocrats to get a handle on the economy.

    His meeting with Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens did little to inspire confidence. Business confidence had been shattered during the Abbott/Hockey era, he was told, business investment was abysmal, wages were all but stagnant and the terms of trade were collapsing.

    This shouldn’t have come as a surprise, for Stevens was traversing familiar ground.

    For months he’d been issuing warnings to anyone who’d listen about the limits of monetary policy; that it was time for government to pull its weight. But the idea that the nation was on the cusp of a potential recession, particularly with a looming election, was confronting.

    Turnbull quickly flicked the optimism switch to overdrive. There never was a more exciting time to be an Australian. We would transform from mining to something else via the magic of innovation. The economy was already well into the process of transition.

    The rhetoric was fine. But that was as far as it went. While boosting confidence is important, it is no match for solid fiscal management. And so, in the process, the new Prime Minister missed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to seize the moment.

    Australia’s economy is at an inflexion point. The boom days are gone but the tax rorts and the spending remains. Clamping down, right when the global economy was slowing, would have been tough, painful even.

    At that point, however, Australians were prepared to follow what appeared to be a dynamic leader, certainly an intelligent one.

    For that brief period, had the brutal truth been outlined along with a plan – where the pain would be borne fairly – to fix the nation’s finances, we may have been able to steer a course back to economic strength over the medium term.

    The one acronym missing from any political discourse, however, is the AAA, as in triple A credit rating.

    Just as Paul Keating’s “banana republic” call galvanised the nation, the electorate would have worn spending cuts and perhaps even a higher GST, had it all been balanced by closing the tax loopholes for the wealthy.

    Strong leadership was required. What no-one realised was that Turnbull had signed away his freedom, that he was a captive of the factions that had installed him, that wanted no change, just a popular leader who could win an election and maintain their jobs.

    At first, it appeared negative gearing, the capital gains discount and the exorbitant tax breaks for the wealthy via superannuation were all under investigation. But almost every policy, apart from superannuation, was jettisoned.

    Incredibly, the Prime Minister now has become the great advocate of negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount, just to have a point of difference with the Opposition.

    Rather than a grand vision for the nation and the economy, he has switched to an Abbott style three world slogan election campaign. Except that in place of the DDD (Debt and Deficit Disaster), we’ve reverted to the time-honoured BBH (Budget Black Hole) and now JAG (Jobs and Growth).

    That’s entirely understandable given the DDdebt has nearly DDdoubled since the Government came to power. No point reminding anyone of that. And Labor really doesn’t want to go there either.

    The one acronym missing from any political discourse, however, is the AAA, as in triple A credit rating. Each of the three major credit ratings – Fitch, Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s – has issued thinly veiled warnings that gold star rating is under threat unless action is taken to halt the deterioration in our fiscal position.

    As Fitch’s director of sovereign ratings, Mervyn Tang, said in an interview with Elysse Morgan on PM, Australia’s triple A rating is safe, so long as all the expectations about growth released in the recent budget are met and there are no unforeseen domestic or international shocks.

    That’s a couple of mighty big ifs. For starters, the budget, now barely a month old, carries a series of assumptions that at this stage are looking hopelessly optimistic.

    Iron ore last week was trading about $US10 a tonne below the estimate. Wages growth has slipped to its lowest since the last recession in 1992, to just 2.1 per cent in the March quarter, well below the 2.5 per cent budget forecast for the new financial year.

    If that persists – and there is every indication it will – tax revenue will fall well short of forecasts and we will see yet another deficit blowout in the December half year update, as has become tradition.

    Then there is the plunge in business investment. The March quarter figures, released last week, showed a whopping 5.2 per cent decline, far worse than expected.

    If this campaign has achieved anything, it has demonstrated the impotence of our political masters and just how beholden they are to the vested interests that deliver them to power.

    The problem is that we don’t have a balance sheet strong enough to cope with this kind of downturn. Australia historically has run large current account deficits, importing more than we export and financing the difference with debt and imported capital. That’s a problem in this environment.

    Government debt, meanwhile, continues to climb. It’s now at $435 billion, not far off the $500 billion ceiling, which will soon require lifting, or perhaps even a second storey addition.

    While our government debt is low by international standards, that’s not the full story. Our total international debt clicked over the $1 trillion mark late last year and has continued to rise.

    That’s because our banks have been borrowing like drunken sailors offshore to help pump up the dangerously inflated Australian property market. Given the federal government now guarantees Australian offshore bank debt, that bank debt is a taxpayer problem.

    Last week, the Reserve Bank calculated the guarantee effectively subsidised our big banks to the tune of about $4 billion a year because it allows our banks can borrow at cheaper rate.

    That has a two-fold effect. First, it places even greater strain on the AAA rating. And second, if the credit rating is cut, mortgage rates would rise immediately.

    Oddly, there has been nary a peep of this during the campaign. Instead, the Prime Minister is adamant that the best way to ease the deficit is to cut taxes to corporations and the wealthy; a counter-intuitive concept if ever there was one.

    If this campaign has achieved anything, it has demonstrated the impotence of our political masters and just how beholden they are to the vested interests that deliver them to power.

    Take the ludicrous debate over the proposed superannuation changes, announced in the budget. Rather than a retirement savings plan, superannuation has morphed into a tax effective wealth accumulation vehicle for the rich.

    The changes, bold as they are for a Coalition Government and long overdue, will affect a miniscule proportion of the population. From now on, rich superannuants will only receive tax free earnings on balances of up to $1.6 million. Earnings on anything above $1.6 million will attract just 15 per cent tax.

    The howls of outrage have been deafening. The usual lobby groups kicked into action, decrying the shift as retrospective. Except, no-one complained about the retrospective nature of Peter Costello’s decision in 2007 to make it open slather for the rich, when he eliminated all income tax from retirement earnings.

    And what about younger Australians, many with degrees and trades but no job security and no chance to buy a house, earning $60,000 a year? They pay tax. And it is their taxes that will pay for wealthy superannuants to live tax free in the palatial style to which they have become accustomed.

    This election is not one that anyone would want to win. The next three years will be hard going. The global economy is uncertain and the chances of recession are rising. We will be relying on luck rather than management to avoid a recession.

    Ian Verrender is the ABC’s business editor and writes a weekly column for The Drum. This article first appeared in The Drum on 30 May 2016. See link below:

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-30/verrender-election-2016-who’d-want-to-inherit-this-budget-mess/7457808

     

  • TIM SOUTPHOMMASANE. Bamboo ceiling and race relations.

    Many of us have good reason for thinking that the state of our race relations is under challenge. We frequently see stories about people being racially vilified on public transport, and our recent public debates are punctuated by controversies about race.

    We know racism is a reality in contemporary Australian society. About 20 per cent of Australians say they have experienced racial or religious discrimination of some kind.  About 11 per cent say they have been excluded from social activities or the workplace because of their race.  About 5 per cent say they’ve been physically assaulted because of their racial background. (more…)

  • MUNGO MacCALLUM: Rituals of irrelevance and distraction.

    So we have at last reached a marker along the long trek to the election.

    The Pre-election economic and fiscal outlook (PEFO) was announced at the end of the second week, which is supposed to mean just where we and our political masters see the state of the nation.

    PEFO was, like all its predecessors, determinedly optimistic: there are problems, sure, but we can expect things to get better. Nothing to see, folks. But for once there is a serious caveat: it just might not work out exactly as the Treasury and Finance Department hope. And if it doesn’t, we are up shit creek in a barbed wire canoe without a paddle. (more…)

  • MUNGO MacCALLUM: Tax – in the eye of the beholder.

    The dementors of Newscorps couldn’t believe their luck.

    When the hapless Duncan Storrer rose to ask why rich people were to receive tax cuts while the poor, like himself, did not, the man ticked all the boxes.

    He was obviously a victim, and presumably a whinger. And he was not only an invited guest of the one-eyed leftist ABC, but of its most unholy program of all – Q and A. And unsurprisingly, its gullible audience proclaimed him a hero. The man was born to be destroyed. (more…)

  • PETER BROOKS. Mind the gap in doctors’ fees – it is all around us

    John Thompson reminds us of the total lack of transparency in fees charged by doctors in Australia. Surgeon’s report shows the ineffectiveness of private health insurers to control health costs Posted on 07/05/2016 by John Menadue

    So can we dissect this further. What is in a medical fee – well may you ask. When you go to your doctor you may see a fees schedule on the reception desk – or you may have received a letter from the receptionist / practice manager indicating that you will be responsible for certain fees over and above what you will get back from Medicare and ( possibily ) your Private Health Scheme . It is not unusual to be asked to pay something in advance before an appointment ( usually for a procedure – endoscopy ) is even made . Even lawyers don’t make you do that- do they . So there are at least three fees- what the Government pays the doctor – the Medicare fee , then there is the AMA rate – why this is different does not seem to be based on any scientific evidence , and then there is what the doctor actually charges you . Again not based on anything but what the doctor feels the market will support – and it usually does because effectively you have no choice .Do you ask for a second opinion ? do you have a discussion about the fee and why it is so much higher than the Medicare rebate or the AMA fee- when this person is going to put a new hip into you next week or open up your belly – I don’t think so . (more…)

  • MARK GREGORY: Leaks from NBN were in the public interest. The response was designed to hide the NBN mess.

    The National Broadband Network (NBN) was meant to be a nation building project that positioned Australia as a leader in the global digital economy, but it has become a political football and as every day passes, Australia’s future prospects in the global digital economy are diminishing. (more…)

  • JOHN KEANE. Money, Capitalism and the Slow Death of Social Democracy.

    In this article, John Keane speaks of the slow death of social democracy but suggests that there may be possibilities that social democracy could embrace Green movements, intellectuals and parties that have common interests. See extracts from article below and link to the full article in The Conversation. (more…)

  • BOB KINNAIRD. Like earlier Free Trade Agreements, the new FTA with Singapore continues to waive labour market testing which has been designed to protect Australian workers and students.

    Prime Minister Turnbull announced the Australia-Singapore ‘Comprehensive Strategic Partnership’ (CSP) on 6 May last, just a few days before he called the 2 July election.

    Cynics will suspect the timing and also see the Singapore announcement as something of a consolation prize. The much bigger FTA fish for the Turnbull government was the elusive agreement with India. This was originally promised by the end of 2015 but Special Trade Envoy Mr Robb this week said only that a deal is now possible around mid-2016. (more…)

  • WAYNE McMILLAN. Is there any difference between Labor or Liberal coalition governments when it comes to economic management?

    There is much political rhetoric spouted by both sides of Australian politics when it comes to economic management and the truth generally lies somewhere in between the myths and the half-truths. To make matters even worse, so-called economic experts from the financial and business sectors, shock jocks and news media outlets tend to centre discussion narrowly on surpluses, deficits and government debt taken out of any meaningful, economic context. The language or terms used in the news and in political debate, often gives an inaccurate or incorrect picture of what is really happening. The political pundits and the commentariat tend to give the impression that the process of preparing budgets and guiding an economy to prosperity is a simple, straightforward process and only requires a good measure of common sense. (more…)

  • IAN McAULEY. The more we examine the Coalition’s ‘plan’ to cut corporate taxes, the more is revealed of its economic shortcomings.

    The more we examine the Coalition’s proposal to cut corporate taxes, the more is revealed of its economic shortcomings.

    Many have commented on the inequity of cutting corporate taxes while tightening eligibility for disability support, reducing benefits for new welfare recipients, freezing Medicare rebates, and inadequately funding health and education. (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE. Bamboo ceiling and the old boys club. Our business sector is not equiping itself for our future in Asia.

    For three decade James Ruse High School in NSW and similar high schools around Australia have been dominating Higher School Certificate results. And according to the NSW Education Department 80% of these top students come from a background other than English with most coming from Asian Backgrounds

    But despite this remarkable record few of these students make it to the top in business, political or academic life. They may be regarded as intelligent and hardworking but what is holding them back in mainstream organizations in Australia? (more…)

  • GEOFF HISCOCK. Asia’s easy opportunities overshadow Indian business ties. Australian businesses lack enthusiasm for Indian opportunities.

    At the Australia India Business Council forum in Sydney earlier this week, Indian diplomats wondered why Australian businesses lacked enthusiasm about engaging with an economy that is destined to become the world’s third largest within the next two decades. (more…)

  • Brexit and possible consequences.

    In the London Review of Books, Ferdinand Mount, describes the gaggle of opponents of the EU and the possible consequences if the UK votes to brexit (exit from the EU).

    He highlights some of the risks:  a risk of recession or at worst a slump; capital flight; impact on employment; a rumpus in Scotland and knock-on effect on the morale of the rump EU.

    For full article, see link:

    http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n10/ferdinand-mount/nigels-against-the-world