The copyright wars are set to continue, with the government releasing a Productivity Commission report arguing for a relaxation of intellectual property laws.
Headlines pointed to the privatisation of hospital, end-of-life and dental services, but the Productivity Commission’s report is actually a lot less radical.
Waves of policies from successive Coalition and Labor governments have followed a paternalistic lead. This has created further impediments to thousands of Indigenous peoples who are doing plenty.
The report’s stated goal is to make the social housing system work better. It does not present as a manifesto for an entirely marketised and deregulated framework driven by the profit motive.
Sue Thomson, Australian Council for Educational Research and Peter Goss, Grattan Institute
The Productivity Commission has said that education spending has substantially increased over the last decade but student achievement has shown little or no improvement. Is that true?
The Productivity Commission report finds that the agricultural industry is overburdened by red tape but there’s still no clear solution for the best type of regulation.
Cutting penalty rates can be a vote-changer and the looming Fair Work Commission decision is tricky for both sides of politics. So what cards do the parties hold and how might they play them?
The Fair Work Act delivers a much more peculiar system of collective bargaining than many realise. It has outcomes that contradict the hopes and fears of both sides of the IR debate.
The challenges we face demand profound changes in our thinking and priorities. Replacing the Productivity Commission with a National Sustainability Commission would help us make this paradigm shift.
The federal opposition says that reducing penalty rates in the retail and hospitality sectors would widen the gender pay gap across the economy and hit consumption.
Incoming Director of the Australian Institute of Business and Economics at UQ, and Professor of Management, Faculty of Business and Economics, Macquarie University
Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne