This report resulted from a request by the Council of Australian Governments to conduct a preliminary high-level review of sixteen areas of policy reform, aimed at improving productivity. The paper was provided on 29 June 2012 to the cross jurisdictional Taskforce established to advise Council of Australian Governments (COAG) on the development of a National...

These statistics describe the characteristics of Federal defendants with finalised offences, including information about their offences and sentence outcomes. Provides comparable data showing the number of defendants with Federal offences dealt with by the Higher (Supreme and Intermediate), Magistrates' and Children's criminal courts for all states and territories except Tasmania. Details are provided on the...

Public schools face a real cut of over $670 million a year unless the Federal Government substantially lifts its investment in public education, argues this report. This report finds that: Public schools will receive $673 million less in real terms in 2015/16 than they did in the last financial year (2011/12). That is a 12...

This research report for the study on the impacts of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) Reforms: Business Regulation and Vocational Education and Training (VET). The report has three sections detailing an overview, Business Regulation and VET. Effective economic reform promotes productivity growth and improvements in living standards. The implementation of Australia’s National Competition Policy...

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...