Privatising assets didn’t cost Newman his election. Ignoring basic politics did.
Topic: Economics
There was no government in waiting in broke Queensland
The real result from the Queensland election is that drovers’ dogs will occupy the Treasury benches for the foreseeable future. There was no government in waiting, just a bunch of kids waiting their turn.
Facts not fictions
Queensland-based policy think tank the Australian Institute of Progress, has called for a truthful election campaign, saying the choices facing Queenslanders were too important to permit political fictions and misinformation.
Activists should pay taxes
The High Court decision 'overturns 90 years of Australian law, swinging the pendulum quite to the other end, in that it recognises that engaging in public debate is a public benefit in itself'.
Memo to G20: trade is the key to beating poverty
Why are we still arguing about this? If “98 per cent” of “climate scientists” agree the climate is changing (not a hard thing to agree on, given the thesis is so vague), why can’t we just accept that trade is the key to poverty decline? Relative poverty, something which only becomes a political issue once a society heads beyond a threshold, is not as important in the third world as absolute poverty. Inequality, pro-growth and other such distractions are noise, which keep the West’s values held high, and the most impoverished and vulnerable within their economic confines.
Queensland’s assets are too important to trust to the government
Next year’s State Election is shaping as a referendum on the LNP Government’s privatisation agenda. But as well as asking whether they want state assets leased, voters should also ask whether last century’s government ownership model is still the best way to deliver services.
Why on earth wouldn’t Labor support privatisation?
Labor oppositions campaigning against the privatisation of assets by state and federal governments should think again. It’s in their political and economic interests to allow them to proceed.
Why there’s no option but action on Australian tax rules
In the year ahead there will be a national discussion about the future of our taxation system. It will have important implications for economic growth and social policy. The discussion will only be productive if all options are on the table, and if participants don’t resort to what Robert Kennedy called “obsolete dogmas and outworn slogans”.
Piketty split – why soaking the rich won’t help anyone
It’s not Joe Hockey’s “leaners” Australians need to fear, it’s the new breed of economic “levellers” who believe that to make an economy work better you just need to dial down levels of inequality.
