In this address to the session 'Managing the Growth Shock' at the Economic and Social Outlook Conference in Melbourne on 30 June 2011, Gary Banks discusses the role for policy in the current mining boom. "Australia’s past reform successes have generally been founded on a clear understanding of problems warranting policy solutions. Where policy initiatives...

This report presents findings on the first systematic national survey of Demand Management (DM) undertaken by electricity network service providers in Australia.

Noise standards adopted by the states and territories for the planning and operation of rural wind farms should include appropriate measures to calculate the impact of low frequency noise and vibrations indoors at impacted dwellings. This is among seven recommendations made in this report on wind farms by Senate Community Affairs References Committee. On 27...

The land sector - including agriculture and forestry - accounts for around 23 per cent of Australia’s total greenhouse gas emissions, making it imperative to craft climate change mitigation policies tailored to landholder. Other key points include: The Government’s Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI) provides a good foundation for financial incentives to landholders to take part...

This paper focuses on pollution pricing mechanisms and an approach to setting scheme caps and targets, and proposes moving to cap and trade system within three years. It comes on the back of recent proposals from Professor Garnaut, comments from the Coalition on robust governance structures and the release of an economists letter calling for...