This paper looks at how Australian governments have responded to anti-microbial resistance (AMR) since the problem became evident in the 1980s. Of particular importance in Australia’s response was the 1999 establishment of the Joint Expert Technical Advisory Committee on Antibiotic Resistance (JETACAR), which was set up to provide independent expert scientific advice on the threat...

Some industries have far more political influence than others, and some political systems are more susceptible to the influence of industries than others. The relationship between the defence industry and the US federal government has been so strong for so long that the notion of 'Military-Industrial Complex' is widely used to analyse politics and economics...

The Australian banking industry is the most concentrated in the world and also the most profitable. In fact the ‘big four’ Australian banks make up four of the eight most profitable banks in the world. The big banks have conceded that they are not highly competitive but have argued that their market power provides benefits...

Australians work some of the longest hours in the developed world – substantially longer than their counterparts in Denmark, The Netherlands and Norway. For many Australians though, work stress is related not to the number of hours worked, but a mismatch between the workers’ desired and actual hours of work, and the inflexibility of these...

This report argues that the mining boom has not been managed well, and that it has been allowed to expand with little consideration for the collateral damage it causes to other sectors of the economy.