This paper examines the policy challenges associated with the ageing of the Australian population through the prism of the global financial crisis. The paper observes that much of the commentary prompted by the financial crisis has featured a reaction against credit-driven consumption--the so-called ‘debt binge’ that has plunged household savings into the red in recent...

This paper argues that as the proportion of elderly people in Australia doubles over the next forty years, growth in federal health spending will create serious budgetary problems. Without policy adjustments or cuts to services, governments will have to force a smaller base of future generations of taxpayers.Jeremy Sammut writes that as the proportion of...

The Rudd government has based its $220 million GP Super Clinics and preventive health policy on the prevailing assumption that more spending on preventive care will tackle obesity, lower chronic disease rates, and reduce health costs. 'But,' Sammut says, 'GP Super Clinics threaten to accentuate, not alleviate, Medicare's unsustainabilty.'

This is the first of a pair of policy monographs. The monographs examine the evidence base and assumptions of four key health policy areas.

Policy experts often think alike, even when the evidence contradicts them. CIS researchers Jennifer Buckingham, Andrew Norton, Phil Rennie, Jeremy Sammut, and Peter Saunders argue that this is how billions of dollars are spent on government programs that don't work. The CIS social policy 'mythbusting team' refute six myths that have led to poor policymaking...