Peter Whiteford Crawford School of Public Policy Australian National University The Robodebt class action bought by Gordon Legal has been settled at a cost to the government of around $1.2 billion. According to federal Labor frontbencher Bill Shorten, this is the biggest class action in Australian legal history. This comprised refunds of $721 million to […]
Richard Holden UNSW As well as restoring dignity to the Oval Office, another thing which will definitely change under a Biden presidency is US policy on the environment. Biden’s plan for “a clean energy revolution and environmental justice” includes rejoining the Paris Agreement on climate change, investing US$1.7 trillion over the next decade in “green […]
Brendan Coates Grattan InstituteMatthew Cowgill Grattan InstituteTim Helm Grattan Institute The government has targeted its JobMaker Hiring Credit too narrowly. The scheme to go before the Senate this week will give employers who take on someone aged 16 to 29 years who has been on JobSeeker or a related benefit a bonus of A$200 per […]
John Hawkins University of Canberra. The International Monetary Fund this week delivered a somewhat surprising message. It warned Earth was on course for “potentially catastrophic” damage under climate change, and called for green investment and carbon prices to put the global economy on a stronger, more sustainable footing. Of course, the message itself makes a […]
Hal Pawson UNSW & Cameron Parsell University of Queensland COVID-19 triggered multimillion-dollar commitments by state governments to tackle homelessness. Our research for the Australian Homelessness Monitor 2020, released today, reveals at least 33,000 rough sleepers and other homeless people have been booked into hotels and other temporary accommodation during the crisis. Beyond this, several states […]
1 November 2020. As this newsletter is published, voting in the US elections is under way, with commentators speculating from the polls that Biden will win. Given the unexpected outcome of 2016, they prefer, nonetheless, to call the result uncertain. Whatever the outcome of this election, these last Trump years have seen increased international tensions, and […]
1 November 2020. With the Taiwan dilemma deepening, Australia might be forced to take a stand As the United States gets closer to an unusually divisive election potentially followed by months of distracting disputation, will China take the immense gamble of trying to invade Taiwan, or at least strangle it into submission? If so, Australia […]
1 November 2020. Too often, the public debate is about whether regulation should be decreased. Regulation typically exists for a reason, however, and the issue should be how to regulate effectively. The Prime Minister has embraced deregulation as a prominent feature of his reform agenda. But what does that mean? For businesses, the catchcry of […]
1 November 2020 A major reason for the loss of trust in governments and parliaments is the way powerful special interests with their lobbyists have come to dominate the public debate and skew decisions in their favour. The fossil fuel sector is the most obvious and recent example. Lobbyists are using their destructive influence more […]
1 November 2020 So, unless you’ve been off the grid or in a bunker since January, the 2020 Budget has been offered up by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg (five months late), with the historic backdrop of the cold hard economic reality of living with a global pandemic. In May last year, the Treasurer guaranteed a surplus. […]
1 November 2020. The new social encyclical of Pope Francis is a cry for those oppressed by poverty, hunger, and exclusion, protesting against the injustice of a world with so much wealth failing to do enough for everyone to have the opportunity for a reasonably good life. Not surprisingly, Francis drew from the parable of […]
