Yesterday
China really is the biggest trade cheat. The data shows it
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has developed a forensic approach to counting industrial subsidies in all their forms. The Chinese results are illuminating.
February
How not to waste Gonski school funding
Additional federal money may unfortunately extend and expand inefficient and ineffective practices rather than lift the quality of teaching.
January
Trump’s difference is in the detail second time around
Anthony Albanese was not going there when asked about this. But be assured the pressures Donald Trump is unleashing will make the need to change inevitable.
Trump’s tax plans will send Aussie businesses to America
The promise of a US economic boom driven by lower taxes and deregulation is already starting to turn the heads of Australia’s business titans and entrepreneurs.
Trump threatens to double taxes for foreign nationals, companies
The US president has ordered officials to draw up retaliatory measures against “extraterritorial” levies, setting the stage for a global tax fight.
Trump’s ‘Maganomics’ will damage growth: economists
Surveys of more than 220 economists in the US, UK and Eurozone showed most respondents believed his protectionist shift would outweigh the benefits of his policies.
December 2024
The treasurer must ask what he can do for business
Jim Chalmers is asking business to dig Australia’s economy out of the hole. But he also needs to say what he is going to do to help businesses invest and lift the nation’s embarrassingly poor productivity.
November 2024
Labor struggles down the last stretch
The Albanese government’s numbers don’t add up for voters as the election looms.
US Treasury boss Yellen pressed Chalmers on tax stand-off
Australia is refusing to sign up to a key part of global efforts to make multinational companies pay their fair share of tax.
Supermarket grilling just a political distraction
The primary driver of the Coles and Woolworths business model is volume, not margin as the politicians or regulators would have us all believe.
Coles chairman says cost of living has been ‘politicised’
James Graham told the comapny’s AGM that supermarkets are being targeted unfairly by politicians.
An OECD global tax deal is close. Australia should jump on board
It wasn’t a good look for Australia to be on the world stage at last month’s IMF meetings as a noted holdout on a crucial international agreement.
Trump win puts global corporate tax deal ‘in peril’
Experts believe that countries will now be unlikely to apply rules over fears of retaliation from Trump-led administration.
September 2024
Woolworths and Coles could be ‘innocent’: Samuel
Graeme Samuel says the higher prices charged by the two major supermarkets could have been caused by suppliers, as the ACCC found the retailers have increased their earnings and operating margins over the past five years.
Infection super agency to lead future pandemic response
A new Australian Centre for Disease Control will get powers to manage any future pandemic, under the national COVID-19 review due to be handed to government.
Unlike the original Dr Jim C, Chalmers has no excuse
Failing to learn from past policy mistakes is far, far worse than making them in the first place.
Ireland’s problem: what to do with its $14b budget surplus
More than a decade on from a crash that required the EU and IMF to step in with loans, deciding what to do with the country’s tremendous fortune is proving tricky.
August 2024
Australia’s fall in disposable income is the worst in the world
Australia experienced the largest fall across the OECD over the past two years. Economists say it will take another two years to recover.
Future Made in Australia is already running off the rails
The Albanese government has fallen into the trap of trying to achieve political wins at high economic cost. And nobody is stopping them.
July 2024
Only one country has a higher company tax rate than Australia
Economists say the effective average tax rate of 28.5 per cent on company income makes the country uncompetitive against global rivals and workers poorer.