In a recent survey The Australia Institute conducted they asked whether respondents considered Australia to be a high tax country compared to other developed nations. 66 per cent said yes! The OECD tells us that Australia is the 6th lowest taxing country. But even though we think taxes are high, a majority would prefer better...

The federal government gives just over $4 billion in direct subsidies to mining companies each year, mainly in the form of cheap fuel and tax breaks for building roads and railways, this policy brief reveals. This is at a time when the industry is earning record profits. Significantly, the subsidies and tax concessions set out...

This paper considers how data-matching could also be used to improve the delivery of social security assistance payments rather than simply as a revenue raising exercise. One of the tools used by the government in pursuit of ‘welfare cheats’ is data-matching. The Data-matching Program cross-checks income and personal details held by one agency against similar...

The purpose of this paper is to consider a feature of the mining boom which has been barely considered in the Australian policy debate to date, namely, how fast should the mining construction boom be allowed to develop?

While it is easy for proponents to talk up the benefits of individual mines, when they are considered together, the overall impact is not as positive as the Australian public has been led to believe. On the back of record high commodity prices the mining industry in Australia is experiencing an unprecedented period of expansion...