The economic crisis caused by lockdown measures in response to COVID-19 has distorted the Australian economy. The economic costs of lockdowns have not been equally shared across the country. This paper outlines five key pieces of evidence that lockdowns, rather than freezing the economy in place, have disfigured it.

This report combines data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics with RegData Australia to analyse the effect of red tape on business creation. The report finds that up to 398,000 additional businesses could have been created by 2018-19 if regulation was maintained at 2004-05 levels.

This report is the first to quantitatively estimate both the growth and complexity of Australia’s primary piece of environmental legislation and the departmental rules it enables.

This paper finds the Trump Administration’s deregulation agenda, along with a range of other free market policies, including a reduction to the corporate tax rate from 35 per cent to 21 per cent, liberalisation of the domestic energy sector, and instant asset write-offs, has contributed to a number of positive economic outcomes