Research What the evidence actually shows about minimum wage increases Minimum wage increases raise pay for the workers who keep their jobs at the higher rate, but the cost falls on workers at the margin, youth, casual staff, the low-skilled, and people trying to enter the workforce for the first time, who lose hours, lose shifts, or are never hired at all. Both effect
Research Does immigration lower wages? What the evidence actually says The belief that immigration broadly suppresses wages and destroys jobs for existing workers rests on the assumption that an economy contains a fixed number of jobs, and that assumption is false. Decades of research across multiple countries find immigration has small effects on average wages, with t
Research Why government intervention in markets keeps backfiring Government intervention in markets consistently produces outcomes that diverge from what was intended, not because policymakers are careless or malicious, but because prices carry information about scarcity and value that intervention suppresses, and decisions made without that information are syste
Research Why government-run enterprises cost more and deliver less Government-owned enterprises systematically underperform private equivalents on cost, efficiency and service quality, not because public servants are less capable, but because they operate without the discipline of profit, loss, competition or bankruptcy that forces private enterprises to improve. W
Research Does foreign aid actually reduce poverty? What decades of evidence show Large-scale developmental aid, government-to-government transfers and broad budget support intended to produce lasting economic growth, has a poor record on its own stated goal, and has in many cases entrenched the corrupt governments and dependency it was meant to help overcome. Targeted humanitari
Research Why first home buyer grants make housing less affordable When supply is constrained, giving buyers more money to spend does not make housing more affordable, it lets sellers charge more. Twenty years of first home buyer grants in Australia have been repeatedly capitalised into higher prices, transferring the benefit from the buyers the scheme is meant to
Research The hidden cost of cutting defence spending Cutting defence spending is not a saving, it is a deferral. The cost of maintaining credible deterrence is always lower than the cost of responding after deterrence has failed, and Europe's post-Cold War experience, decades of cuts followed by a war on its border it was unprepared for, is the most r
technology Parliament house is not cyber secure. What could go wrong? Seven of eight mandatory cyber controls failing at Parliament House — and a 2019 state-based breach that apparently changed nothing.
Labour Market Government moves to loosen long service leave for coal miners as industry lobbies for relief Australia's coal miners have an entitlement that follows them from employer to employer — but that design may be creating the very problem it was meant to solve.
Taxation Here’s how trusts work. And here’s why the tax man wants a bigger slice Two families, identical incomes — but one pays half the tax. The government wants to close the gap. Here's what changes.
technology Australian businesses race to adopt Ai so they can… One in eight Australian businesses now uses AI, and the adoption rate has tripled in three years — but the productivity data tells a very different story.
Energy Hydrogen's Hidden Cost: Why Government Backing Creates Losers, Not Markets The Grattan Institute has a careful, well-funded case for backing green hydrogen. The logic has one serious flaw.
Fiscal Policy The RBA's housing blind spot is about to cost Australia Australia's inflation gauge is built to see new home construction costs — but blind to established property values, and a coming tax change will exploit that gap.
Taxation Raising the GST from 10% to 15% is better for… The PBO has put dollar figures on three ways to raise the GST to 15% — and they reveal a trade-off politicians rarely admit exists.
Energy Nobody owns the EV charger problem—and Australia's paying for it Australia's EV charging network is growing fast and nobody is in charge of it — but the fix might not be what the experts are recommending.
technology Senate launches inquiry into AI data centres as power demands collide with climate goals Australia's Senate is investigating AI data centres — but the real question is whether clean energy targets will bend to accommodate them.
Taxation Senate inquiry finds capital gains tax discount working as designed—but questions remain on who benefits most Australia's CGT discount does exactly what it was built to do. A Senate inquiry has now formally asked whether what it was built to do is still the right answer.
Fiscal Policy Productivity Commission opens data dashboard on Australia's stalling output growth Australia's productivity dashboard is live — and the five-year trend it reveals is the number Canberra's current policy agenda is least equipped to answer.
Defence NATO unity fractures over defence spending and strategic priorities Trump wants Europe to spend more on defence — but the investment horizon is a decade, and his term ends in three years. The incentive problem is structural.
Foreign Policy China's Pacific missile test raises stakes for Australia's island partners A Chinese ICBM landed near two Pacific island nations without warning. The smallest countries in the region had no say — and now they're deciding who to call.
Energy Markets shrug off Iran war as oil retreat signals geopolitical risk priced out A war in Iran ended. Oil fell back to where it started. Wall Street hit a record. But one leading economist says the peace deal is the variable, not the resolution.
Housing Why Australia's housing cooling is only half the story Australia's housing market is cooling — but is that actually fixing anything, or just resetting the clock on the next price surge?
Government Spending Data centre boom masks weakness in broader capital investment Australia's capex figures jumped 14.6% in a year — but almost all of it came from one sector, and what that conceals is the real story.
Energy Nuclear Gamble: Coalition Bets $Billions on 2050 Deadline Australia has never built a nuclear plant, has no trained workforce, and currently bans the technology — so what does $118 billion actually buy?
Health Policy Three-quarters of Australian children exceed screen time limits, ABS data shows Nearly three in four Australian children exceed the government's screen time limit — but the harder question is whether the limit itself still makes sense.
