The Australia Institute provided advice to EDO NSW and the Bulga Milbrodale Progress Association on the possible economic effects of closing Wallaby Scrub Road, in the Hunter Valley, NSW. Rio Tinto proposes to close the road in order to expand the Mt Thorley-Warkworth coal mine.

Report on what we do and don’t know about mines, closures and rehabilitation in New South Wales. Little data is available to the public on the clean-up from the mining boom. State government agencies often lack basic information on how many mines are in operation, with still less published on closures and abandonments.

In the 2016 budget the government announced that it would close carbon tax compensation to new recipients of welfare payments. This would save the government $1.4 billion over the forward estimates, by reducing the income of some of the poorest Australians by around $10 per fortnight.  This cut was introduced to the Parliament in September

The Australia Institute welcomes the opportunity to make a submission to Treasury’s Review of the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT). The review occurs at a time when Australia is set to become the world’s largest gas exporter, yet PRRT revenues are declining. Several major gas projects are unlikely to pay PRRT for decades, according to

New research has drawn a comparison between very high wholesale prices in the National Energy Market in South Australia and Queensland. While high prices in South Australia have received much political and media attention, even higher prices endured by Queensland electricity consumers over the past five weeks have gone almost entirely unreported.

A full third of the benefit of a company tax cut would be enjoyed by just 15 companies in Australia. Once phased in the cut would be worth $6.7 billion per year to these companies. Most of these companies are ‘oligopolies’ that dominate their markets and have little incentive to reinvest proceeds of a tax

The Prime Minister and Energy Minister ignored advice from AEMO that renewables were not to blame for the SA blackout. In the afternoon of 28 September 2016, a huge storm raged through South Australia, knocking over multiple power lines and triggering a stage-wide blackout. Almost immediately, politicians blamed the blackout on the relatively high concentration

New polling conducted by ReachTEL for The Australia Institute of the electorates represented by Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott reveals very strong support for increasing and not cutting Australia’s renewable energy target. 57% of Tony Abbott’s constituents oppose his proposal to cut the RET. 59% of Malcolm Turnbull’s electorate oppose the cut while just 28%

Economic assessment of the Rocky Hill project understates costs and overstates benefits. It is unlikely to be in the economic interest of NSW or the Gloucester community to approve this project.

“…do you know any foreigners you want to give 5% of our national company income to? Any deserving cases out there?” The available evidence suggests that Keating is indeed correct — Australia is on the brink of handing a large gift to foreign investors while the evidence suggests Australia will not get even the dubious

In the context of One Nation’s presence in the Australian Senate, indications of increased voter support for the party and wider populist trends in the United States and Europe, Australians need to understand One Nation’s world view – especially where the party’s ideas come from.  It is important to chart One Nation’s ideological and political

Economic insecurity is one of the greatest factors inhibiting victims of domestic violence from escaping violent situations at home.  To address that problem unions and employers have developed paid domestic violence leave provisions which allow victims to attend legal proceedings, medical appointments, or other events or activities related to the violence they have experienced, without

The unit price of aluminium is more than 50 times greater than the unit price of bauxite.  Yet Australia is growing its presence at the lower-value end of this industry – while perversely shrinking its presence in an industry whose output sells for 50 times as much.  In recent years, Australia’s downstream capabilities in aluminium

This paper looks at the effect that the fall in tax revenue post Global Financial Crisis (GFC) had on the Commonwealth’s budget. It does this by modelling what would have happened if revenue had instead remained at the government’s tax revenue target of 23.9 per cent of GDP. The difference between what actually happened and

The ABC is not biased against business according to the recent ABC Editorial Review of business and economics coverage. Far from being anti-business, research released today by The Australia Institute finds that the ABC’s ample coverage of business and economics skews towards big business. Big business receives three to five times more ABC coverage than

The Forest Products Commission (FPC) is a statutory body wholly owned by the Western Australian government. Its primary function is to conduct forestry activities on a commercial basis in state-owned forests, including softwood plantations, sandalwood and native forests. The FPC is responsible for most of Western Australia’s (WA) native forestry, which occurs in the state’s

The NAIF will spend $5 billion of public funds in Northern Australia on infrastructure that is unable to attract commercial financing, which could include subsidising the controversial Adani Carmichael coal mine.  Australians don’t want their money funding infrastructure for coal and gas companies under the $5 billion Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF), national polling released

The Australia Institute has assessed the proposal for a $5 levy on iron ore in Western Australia. The policy should be supported as a pragmatic alternative to a resource rent tax. The analysis finds that if the $5 levy had been imposed on relevant production over the last five years it would have raised $11.5

The Australia Institute made a submission on the Wilpinjong Extension Project in March 2016. Our submission focussed on the economic assessment by Deloitte Access Economics in appendix M of the environmental impact statement (EIS).

Australia sends asylum seekers to offshore camps wherethey are detained indefinitely and subjected to well documented abuses, in violation of their human rights. The Australian Government outsources the operations at the camps, and Spanish company Ferrovial has responsibility for the system’s largest operational contracts, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Broadspectrum. Investors in Ferrovial, including the Norwegian

Energy systems are changing whether we like it or not. Currently there is a lack of policy to ensure that this change is orderly and just. There are already examples of communities that are being affected by these changes and the current policy vacuum.The Australia Institute has published many reports and submissions related to coal

The Australia Institute made a submission on the Airly Mine Extension proposal in October 2014, highlighting our concerns with the economic assessment of the project conducted by Aigis Group. Our key points were: The economic assessment does not comply with relevant guidelines. Inappropriate consideration of wages as an economic benefit, overstating the value of the

Voting and electoral participation are part of Australia’s culture, expressed through our long history of electoral reform as well as modern trends such as the social media tag #democracysausage. Ensuring that everyone’s vote is counted is consistent with our ethos that everyone gets a “fair go”. Australia has among the highest electoral participation rates in

The Australia Institute made a submission on the latest proposal for the Invincible coal mine, located near Lithgow NSW. As with several proposals before this, the economic assessment of the proposal is flawed, with costs understated and benefits overstated. The project is unlikely to represent a net benefit to the NSW community and should be

Remember when Prime Minister Turnbull and Immigration Minister Dutton blamed unionized construction workers for the high cost of housing in Australia? The idea that workers (not property speculators or bankers) are to blame for the property bubble is pretty far-fetched — in fact, it sparked a viral storm on social media, using the #blameunions hashtag.

The focus of this year’s Go Home on Time Day is the threat to the “Great Aussie Holiday.”  Thanks to the rise of precarious work in all its forms, a growing share of Australian workers (about one-third, according to our research) have no access to something we once took for granted: a paid annual holiday.