Summary Critics put forward two key arguments against widespread adoption of renewable energy: price and intermittency. Solar and wind costs have fallen so rapidly over the past decade that they are now competitive with fossil fuels, so the price argument is losing traction. Battery and other forms of storage technology are rapidly overcoming the variability...

In late 2010, after over a century of almost uninterrupted growth, demand for electricity in Australia began to fall. Two previous papers, published in 2013 and 2015, examined possible reasons why demand was falling in the National Electricity Market (NEM), which accounts for nearly 90% of Australian electricity consumption. However, no sooner had the second...

One of the poorly understood impacts of a company tax cut is that there is little benefit to domestic investors because the way that company tax payments are credited against the tax payable by Australian owners of companies. The system of crediting company tax paid against the income tax liability of shareholders is known as...

The Federal Treasurer, Scott Morrison, is a strong advocate of both cutting income taxes and reducing the budget deficit. These two goals appear contradictory, since reducing government revenue would lead to a larger budget deficit. The Treasurer gets around this by making exaggerated claims about the economic benefits of income tax cuts. While there may...

Estimates the extent of corporate wrong-doing in Australia. Summary A new report analysing findings from across several corporate regulatory bodies and related agencies finds widespread wrong-doing in the Australian private sector. Meanwhile the six major regulatory bodies and other agencies have seen 3,926 staff cut (or 14.9%) between the 2013-14 and 2015-16 budgets – meaning...