The Australian government has begun to focus on the issue of financial inclusion, as reflected by an allocation of $60.6 million in this year’s federal budget. This follows earlier government support for…
Australia has one of the lowest poverty rates for families in work in the OECD.
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One of the most hotly debated features of Budget 2011 was the freezing of thresholds for some family payments. This has been described positively as a “war on middle class welfare” and negatively as punishing…
Are Australian universities meeting their potential?
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“Australia’s universities, like its wine, are decent and dependable, but seldom excellent.” So said The Economist magazine, in a piece published online. We asked Australian tertiary education experts to…
Personal credibility is what convinces voters.
AAP/Alan Porritt
As a boxer Tony Abbott had a limited but effective method described by some as “the whirling dervish”. He was full of energy and on the attack with arms swinging. It was a tactic that could work for the…
Tony Abbott presented an alternate vision instead of an alternative budget.
AAP/Alan Porritt
Tony Abbott has arguably outlined the most important public policy agenda for the next decade (no matter which side of politics forms government over that period). The major questions will now be: who…
About one in seven households earn more than $150,000.
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Wayne Swan’s budget tightening measures have launched a fierce debate on what constitutes “middle class welfare”. And what income and wealth levels define the middle class. The Gillard government has imposed…
People power and social media helped win a campaign to protect medical research from cuts. Photo: AAP.
One day in April, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research director Douglas Hilton called his communications manager, Penny Fannin, into his office. “He said he’d heard significant cuts were…
Treasurer Wayne Swan supervises journalists examining his budget. His tax plans are a “fiscal illusion”.
AAP/Andrew Taylor
Thinking about tax policy gives individuals the opportunity to devise their own “great society”. As economics laureate James Buchanan explains “Many economists, along with other social scientists and social…
Goethe says we should approach life as an architect views a vast quarry.
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Decent people take comfort in the idea that money is not profoundly connected with happiness. There are statistics that suggest that as income increases happiness does not rise to an equal degree; and…
Changes to the charity tax rules could impact on Gloria Jean’s among other organisations.
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Tonight’s budget is expected to tighten a tax loophole for charities which run businesses unrelated to their charitable work. The government thinks it will increase revenue for Australia’s coffers. It…