The Australian Institute for Progress welcomes TransGrid’s support for the idea we floated two weeks ago of adding capacity to the Queensland New South Wales Interconnector
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Fact check of premier’s electricity claims
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s State of the State speech is misleading, and at times completely wrong, on electricity issues.
Paying twice, and more – why renewables are a luxury good
But renewables are in fact more expensive, and if you want to cure high prices, the last thing you would do is dose up on the problem.
Queensland interconnector an answer to NSW blackouts and Qld prices
New South Wales faces a power shortage. This could be fixed by increasing interconnection with Queensland. At the same time as it secured New South Wales’ supply it should decrease the cost of electricity in Queensland.
Discovering the real history of our peoples
The uproar over the use of the word "discover" is the latest skirmish in a war over two equally mythical views of Australian history.
The sad reality of ‘Buy Queensland’
Queensland’s new beggar-my-neighbour state purchasing policy, apart from being a dog whistle to neo-protectionist One Nation voters, guarantees falling living standards for all of us.
June 2017 Omnibus Poll
We have just published the report on our June 2017 poll. Download by clicking here.
Big Idea Ten: complete stocktake of areas lost to commercial fishing
Seafood is recognised as an important healthy protein source, and critical to meet the nutritional needs of an ageing population in particular. Last year Australia exported less fish than it imported, indicating that we are not producing enough to feed ourselves. This hasn’t always been the case with export production regularly exceeding imports until 2006-07. Despite having a significant coastline, Australia is relying on exploiting the fishing stocks and aquaculture production of other nations, often developing nations with limited effective management regimes. This unused local resource is a renewable one with sensible management. This situation is unsustainable in a world with global population heading towards 9 billion people.
It would appear that too much of our fish stock has been locked-up, with absolutely no advantage to us but to the detriment of the environment in other regions of the world. Yet we have no clear idea what areas have been locked-up, and how much additional production would be possible and what additional wealth would be available to us if we utilized the resource.
Big Idea Nine: Citizen Initiated Referenda
Recently the plebiscite has had a resurgence to deal with ideas that are difficult to resolve by traditional political means. Queensland had a plebiscite on four year terms of parliament, and the federal government has proposed a plebiscite to deal with the issue of gay marriage. In South Australia the government has also proposed a plebiscite on whether that state should have a nuclear storage facility.
Big Idea Eight: benchmark senior public service pay to the Prime Minister’s
Band 1 public servants in Queensland earn a total maximum remuneration package of $695,216. The Prime Minister of Australia earns $522,000. Executive pay has outpaced community expectations of what is reasonable, and public service pay, including that of statutory authorities like universities, is also in that position.
