The government is facing the arduous task of securing sustainable expenditure, revenue and debt beyond the current four-year horizon of the budget estimates, argues this report. Key findings: Long-term prospects for Australia’s public finances are not receiving the attention they deserve. It is one thing for Commonwealth and state governments to balance their budgets in...

This paper considers the arguments for and against greater use of a sovereign wealth fund in Australia. It argues that the existing Future Fund is unnecessary and that greater use of a sovereign wealth fund would harm Australia’s future prosperity. Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) have become more prominent both in Australia and abroad since the...

Tax reform is once again squarely on the Australian policy agenda, with the review of Australia’s Future Tax System (the Henry Review or the review) now under consideration. Although personal income tax has been reshaped over many years and undoubtedly lightened over the past 10 years, those changes have left some of the major failings...

The unfolding global economic debacle has led many governments, including our own, to reach into their policy toolkits for fiscal stimulus measures. In doing so, they have revived fiscal policy as a counter-cyclical tool, which was so much in vogue until the early 1970s that Richard Nixon famously declared 'We are all Keynesians now.' Are...

This paper identifies major structural flaws in Australia's current taxation system, and develops a set of proposals to put them right.