Research

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 cut in jobs and productivity. 

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% support it. Increasing Australia’s renewable energy target to 50% by 2030 enjoys high su...

"…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 benefits of an increase in foreign investment.

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 topography rather than to just narrowly fact check the details of its claims and policies. One...

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 risk of lost income or employment.  Proposals have...

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 manufacturing (including alumina refining, smelting, and secondary fabrication and manufacturing) have bee...

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 what the model shows would have happened helps reveal the impact of tax revenue falling below 23.9 per cent of GDP had on th...

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 small to medium businesses that make up a third of the Australian economy. Like the offici...

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 South West (SW) forests. The SW forests of WA lie within one of the world’...

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 today reveals.