Research
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Economics
- Banking & Finance
- Employment & Unemployment
- Future of Work
- Gender at Work
- Gig Economy
- Industry & Sector Policies
- Inequality
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- Labour Standards & Workers' Rights
- Macroeconomics
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- Public Sector, Procurement & Privatisation
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- Science & Technology
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- Tax, Spending & the Budget
- Unions & Collective Bargaining
- Wages & Entitlements
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- Climate & Energy
- Democracy & Accountability
- Environment
- International & Security Affairs
- Law, Society & Culture
June 2021
Submission on Kunanyi-Mt Wellington cable car proposal
The proposal for a cableway to operate between a base station and the pinnacle of kunanyi/Mount Wellington includes a four-storey building at the summit, with viewing facilities, interpretation, café, restaurant and function space, amenities, office, and associated plant and infrastructure. The three towers, between 36m – 55m high, with two 80-person cable cars, will pass
Briefing Note: A Statewide Marine Plan for Tasmania
Tasmania’s coasts are in trouble: climate change, overfishing, impacts from aquaculture, land-based run-off and plastic are some of the pressures impacting Tasmania’s coasts. Developing and implementing a comprehensive and integrated State-wide Marine Plan for Tasmania’s coasts is the best way to ensure healthy marine ecosystems long-term.
Carbon Border Adjustments
All G7 members have sharpened their climate and trade policies to consider the use of carbon border adjustments. Australia should lean in rather than push back on the development of such a proposal while taking advantage of the opportunities in existing and new export industries.
Submission to Post 2025 Options Paper
The most urgent challenge facing the National Electricity Market (NEM) as it transitions to clean energy is not technological but regulatory; keeping coal power stations going for the minimum time required as new clean energy and system services supply is built. The Options Paper provides Australian governments with the missing pieces of this coal retirement
One tonne of jobs and growth
Budget incentives to increase investment are expensive, poorly targeted and will do little to improve productivity
Funding High-Quality Aged Care Services: A Summary
The Centre for Future Work has prepared a 4-page summary of our recent detailed report on funding needed improvements in aged care services in Australia, in the wake of recommendations from the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety.
Attitudes towards mandatory COVID-19 vaccination
Key Findings: More than three-quarters of Australians (77%) agree with making the COVID-19 vaccine mandatory for workers in contact with vulnerable demographics, such as aged care workers. Only 13% disagree. One in two Australians (50%) strongly agree with making the vaccine mandatory for certain workers. Coalition (84%) and Labor (83%) voters are the most likely
Out of Sight, Out of Mind / 知らないでは 済まされない
日本語は以下 ↓ Japan uses a lot of coal. The 170 million tonnes the country burned in 2020 is enough to fill the Tokyo Dome 102 times over. Burning so much coal is a key reason Japan is the fifth-largest greenhouse emitter in the world. If the world is to avoid dangerous climate change, coal use
Why the Scarborough LNG development cannot proceed
Woodside and BHP’s Scarborough to Pluto LNG project is the most polluting fossil fuel project currently proposed in Australia. It would result in annual carbon pollution equal to over 15 new coal fired power stations, and more pollution than the proposed Adani coal mine. The direct pollution from this project would increase WA’s total emissions
Industrial Policy-Making After COVID-19: Manufacturing, Innovation and Sustainability
As Treasurer during the 1980s, Paul Keating lamented that Australian governments had for decades been allowing the country’s sophisticated industrial base to fall apart as unsophisticated raw materials came to dominate the nation’s exports and as a result, its economy slipped into developing-world status. Keating’s famous warning of Australia’s looming ‘banana republic’ status spurred the Hawke and subsequent Keating Labor governments into action on economic restructuring, which included considering a range of industry policy intervention options to put Australia on a track to advanced, industrial status, as had been the aim of post-war nation-building that helped to institute an advanced manufacturing industrial base in Australia.
May 2021
Polling: Politicians and Canberra
In February 2021, the Australia Institute surveyed a nationally representative sample of 1,434 Australians. Respondents were asked about the connection between politicians and Canberra. Results show that Australians think Canberra should remain the capital, the Prime Minister should live in the Lodge and politicians should spend more time in Canberra. When asked if the capital
Submission to Inquiry into the Australian aquaculture sector
Aquaculture is one of the fastest growing primary industry sectors in Australia. In 2017-18 aquaculture production was valued at $1.4 billion. This represents 44% of Australia’s total seafood production. The most valuable aquaculture species in 2017-18, at $855 million, was salmonids. Tasmania is Australia’s primary salmonid producer, accounting for 98% of Australia’s salmonid production and
1200 Bridges Too Far
Money originally allocated to ensure a healthy Murray-Darling Basin is now earmarked to be spent on seemingly unrelated infrastructure in New South Wales. Instead of recovering 450GL promised to the environment in downstream states, this money may now flow to a range of questionable projects, including upgrading 1200 bridges in irrigation districts.
Too little too late
Since the middle of 2020, the Australian economy has recovered strongly. By many measures, the recovery to pre-COVID levels looks to be almost complete. But have the gas and gas processing sectors had much to do with it? An analysis of the data suggests the gas industry effectively made no contribution to the economic recovery,
Banking on Australia’s Emissions
The Australian Government claims that Australia has reduced its emissions by 19 per cent on 2005 levels and is on track to ‘meet and beat’ its Paris commitments. This claim relies on creative accounting and historical drops in emissions that are unrelated to government policy and do not underpin a net zero trajectory.
National Energy Emissions Audit
Welcome to the February- April 2021 bumper issue of the NEEA Report, presenting electricity-related data updated to the end of March 2021, data on gas consumption to the end of February, and petroleum product consumption to the end of January. Details on data sources and methods are included in the appendix. Key Findings: Between February
Women and men in arts and entertainment
As Australia continues to experience the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and looks to economic recovery, the arts and entertainment sector should be a key target for economic support. The arts and entertainment sector employs an even mix of women and men, and employs many more people per million dollars of turnover than industries like
Investing in Better Mental Health in Australian Workplaces
Australian society is experiencing an epidemic of mental illness that imposes enormous costs on individuals with poor mental health, their families, and the broader economy. There is no doubt that the stress, isolation and disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has made this crisis even worse. Unsafe workplaces contribute significantly to the incidence of mental
Investing in Better Mental Health in Australian Workplaces
Australian society is experiencing an epidemic of mental illness that imposes enormous costs on individuals with poor mental health, their families, and the broader economy. There is no doubt that the stress, isolation and disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has made this crisis even worse.
Budget Analysis 2021-22: Heroic Assumptions and Half Measures
The Commonwealth government has tabled its budget for the 2021-22 financial year. The government is counting on a vigorous and sustained burst of consumer spending by Australian households to drive the post-COVID recovery. Yet the budget itself concedes that the main sources of income to finance expanded consumer spending (namely, wages and income supports) will remain weak or even contract. As shown in the Centre for Future Work’s analysis of the budget, these two dimensions of the budget are fundamentally incompatible.
Official Development Assistance: A Comparison
Foreign aid assistance by Nordic nations is amongst the most generous in the world. Policymakers are increasingly targeting that aid toward climate adaptation. In contrast, Australia’s aid programs remain dismally underfunded. The 2021 May Budget gives Australia an opportunity to reset its priorities and to move closer to the Nordic nations in fulfilling humanitarian responsibilities
Polling – Attitudes to tax and budget priorities
Key results The Australia Institute surveyed a nationally representative sample of 1,000 Australians about their attitudes towards tax and budget priorities. The results show that most Australians agree with positive statements about taxation, and would prefer additional government spending to tax cuts or deficit reduction. Seven in ten (69%) Australians agree with Oliver Wendell Holmes’
Funding High-Quality Aged Care Services
Implementing the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety will require additional Commonwealth funding of at least $10 billion per year, and there are several revenue tools which the government could use to raise those funds. While the Royal Commission’s 148 recommendations were not explicitly costed, the Centre’s report shows that
Submission: Review of Tasmania’s Climate Change Act and developing the next Climate Action Plan
Tasmania should position itself as a climate change leader by setting a target of net-zero emissions by 2035, underpinned by 5-yearly interim targets and sectoral emissions targets. Electrifying transport, buildings, and industry, as well as reducing residential and industrial gas use, and offsetting agricultural emissions will be key to Tasmania’s climate transition. Conservation of Tasmania’s
Mind the gaps
Existing mines in NSW’s Upper Hunter region are approved to mine 241 million tonnes per year, but mined just 150 million tonnes in 2019/20. The difference of 91.5 million tonnes shows that there is no need for new coal projects in the state. Filling in the Upper Hunter’s final voids would cost between $12 billion
Polling: Voluntary assisted dying in South Australia
The Australia Institute surveyed a representative sample of 511 South Australians about voluntary assisted dying (VAD) in February of 2021.
Missing a Stitch in Time:
Australia’s electricity industry constitutes a large and critical component of our national economic infrastructure. The industry produces $25 billion per year in value- added. It employs around 50,000 Australians, paying out $6 billion per year in wages and salaries. It makes $45 billion in annual purchases from a diverse and far-reaching supply chain, that provides the sector with inputs ranging from resources to equipment to construction to services.
Polling: Childcare reform
The Australia Institute surveyed a nationally representative sample of 1,004 Australians about their attitudes towards free and universal childcare.
April 2021
The Public Square Project
In recent times, online platforms like Facebook have usurped core aspects of what we expect from a public square. However, Facebook’s surveillance business model and engagement-at-all-costs algorithm is designed to promote commercial rather than civic objectives, creating a more divided and distorted public discourse. This discussion paper aims to initiate a focused discussion around the