This research confirms that corporate profits in Australia, despite recent moderation, remain well above historic norms, and must fall further in order to allow a rebuilding of real wages in Australia that have been badly damaged by recent inflation.

This paper uses data from the August 2023 ANUpoll, as well as previous waves of data collection, to analyse financial wellbeing in Australia, and how it has changed since prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this briefing paper, Centre for Future Work Associate, Dr Anis Chowdhury, catalogues the assumptions and failures of conventional inflation targeting policy, and the misleading nature of so-called ‘independent’ central banks. He argues the review panel missed an historic opportunity to reconsider those assumptions, and help craft a more balanced and democratic macroeconomic policy framework.

This report analyses the Reserve Bank of Australia's (RBA’s) performance over the past 30 years, and makes recommendations on the monetary policy framework, governance, leadership and culture of the RBA.

This research sheds further light on the role of higher corporate profits in driving higher prices in Australia since the COVID pandemic.