Even as Australians are being warned to expect a dramatic fall in gross domestic product thanks to a larger than expected drop in the trade surplus, we still have a lot to be thankful for. Fundamentally…
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Economist Professor Ross Garnaut has released his final report to the government on climate change and the economy. The report says global warming is expected to continue and estimates that a $26 per tonne…
Last night, the ABC’s Four Corners brought the horror of the Indonesian slaughterhouse into Australian living rooms. The government’s response to images of cattle being hacked to death, having their tails…
So here is the problem: research quality is a nebulous concept and it takes many years to work out whether someone’s output has actually high quality or not. This is especially hard for non-insiders. The…
West Australian Premier Colin Barnett’s bold claim on Friday that his state was looking “over the horizon” past Canberra to forge stronger links with China capped off a few weeks of strong rhetoric from…
The belated disclosure by Sony last month that hackers had accessed millions of customers’ identity and credit card data worldwide has put the security of personal data once again into the spotlight. Warnings…
Speculation last week that Paul Keating and Peter Costello could nominate for the top job at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was a mere distraction, but the hoopla did manage to highlight a crucial…
Now that Gina Rinehart has more than doubled her fortune in one year to top the 2011 BRW Rich 200 list, she will no doubt see her contribution to last year’s $22 million campaign to stop Labor’s resources…
Each year for the last three years, I’ve taken a group of architecture students to Alice Springs for a 10-day urban design workshop. I first found myself in this city during Desert Mob – the annual sale…
The Grattan Institute’s John Daley and Annette Lancy in The Conversation on Wednesday suggested that regional universities are failing to have economic impacts, and that investment in regional universities…
The UK government has released a Green Deal that, at face value, seems impossible to replicate in Australia. But how radical and ambitious is this policy? The first thing to note is that the Green Deal…
Air travel is considered to be one of the most energy-intensive industries in the world, and fastest-growing emissions contributors. But Australia could have a flourishing bio-derived aviation fuels industry…
Federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland has said that Australia needs to rethink its natural disaster policies if it wants to reduce disaster costs in the future and avoid becoming the insurer of last…
Coffee prices are rising again, and you might be wondering how much more you’ll soon pay for your morning coffee. Although coffee prices are fickle the fluctuations affect most of us very little compared…
Some of the most famous and prestigious universities in the United States were founded after different regions offered inducements such as free land to attract a campus to their area. These university…
Australia has been a nation of immigrants since 1788. It has always sought additions to its population to increase its prosperity and economic strength. But two recent controversies have distracted us…
New fossil-fuel power plants that nobody wants to pay for, electricity companies saying power prices will go through the roof: the economy of generating electricity is a complicated business. Last week…
Labor’s post-WorkChoices industrial relations regime has come under renewed scrutiny in the past week, following Fair Work Australia’s recognition that community sector workers were being underpaid due…
In the 1980s Wall Street’s Gordon Gekko arguably became a neoliberal pin-up when he uttered the phrase: “Greed…is good. Greed works.” Fast forward to 2011 and there appears to be another creed: “Cream…
Sustainability is often criticised as too diffuse a term to be meaningful. Yet it is too important to ignore. Business can be a positive force for change towards sustainability, playing a crucial role…
In the foreword to the international development assistance component of this year’s Federal Budget, Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd gives cogent reasons for Australia’s position on foreign aid funding. He…
Around 15.6% of Australian adults have limited or no access to basic financial services like a transaction account, a credit card or insurance, putting them at risk of predatory lending, a new study has…
LinkedIn’s highly successful share market debut on Wall Street overnight will have no doubt delighted the social networking site’s founders and investors, with the stock’s price more than doubling during…
A new way for academics to survive the “publish or perish” imperative has emerged. The imperative itself is not new: commentators in the 1950s were already lamenting the growing pressure for academics…
Politically, increasing petrol prices is one of the least popular things a government can do. But is there any point to a carbon tax if it doesn’t cover petrol? Vladimir Putin has just found how quickly…