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• Government Spending

Governments spend taxpayers’ money on a wide range of programmes from education to defence and from welfare to infrastructure. Yet there can be too much of a good thing, and some government spending is just wasteful. How can we ensure that taxpayers are getting value for money?

Declaring Dependence, Declaring Independence: Three Essays on the Future of the Welfare State
Peter SaundersAugust 1, 2008OP111

In a time when governments are running up enormous welfare bills and intrusively regulating everyday...

Child Care and the Labour Supply
Jennifer Buckingham OAMJuly 23, 2008IA97

Child care is said to be a public good because it supposedly has developmental and...

House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment and Workplace Relations Inquiry 2008
Kayoko Tsumori, Peter SaundersJuly 11, 2008
A Whiff of Compassion? The Attack on Mutual Obligation
Peter SaundersJune 10, 2008IA96

Mutual obligation requires people receiving welfare benefits to undertake a prescribed activity or forfeit some...

KiwiSaver or KiwiSucker? A Critical View
Phil RennieMay 7, 2008IA94

The promised benefits of KiwiSaver do not match the high cost of the taxpayer subsidies....

The False Promise of GP Super Clinics: Part 1: Preventive Care
Jeremy SammutMay 6, 2008PM84

Dr Jeremy Sammut examines the evidence for preventive care programs to help make the Medicare...

Keeping Budgets on the Rails: Rules for Fiscal Responsibility
Robert CarlingNovember 13, 2025AP94

Executive Summary Fiscal rules are numerical limits to one or more of government spending, revenue,...

An economic walk on the supply side
Michael StutchburyOctober 16, 2025OP208

This is an edited version of Michael Stutchbury’s keynote address to the 2025 Freedom to...

Addressing Australia’s Productivity Problem. CORE Blueprint to Unshackle Productivity
Jim CoxAugust 14, 2025AP86

Introduction There is no one action that will lift Australia’s dwindling productivity growth; it is...

The Productivity Problem. Australia’s Growth Slump Is Undermining Prosperity
Jim CoxAugust 7, 2025AP85

Executive summary Concern over Australia’s slow rate of productivity growth is justified as it is...

Leviathan on the Rampage: Government spending growth a threat to Australia’s economic future
Robert CarlingJuly 23, 2025AP84

Executive summary The rising trend of government expenditure in Australia has long been present but...

hurdles
Economic challenges ahead for the government
Robert Carling, Gene Tunny, Peter TulipJune 19, 2025IA153

The re-elected federal government faces a long list of economic challenges, some of them created...

Handouts won’t cure poverty
Wolfgang KasperOctober 11, 2005The Australian Financial Review

The Australian government has joined the turn-of-millennium drive to eliminate extreme Third World poverty a...

A workable way out of the welfare trap
Lawrence MeadAugust 18, 2004The Australian

IN the past decade, the US reduced its welfare rolls by more than 60 per...

Will higher funding really deliver higher education?
September 3, 2002The Age

A curious feature of the current higher education debate is that very little of it...

Leave off, tax breaks can redress child costs
Barry MaleyMay 1, 2002The Australian

Three fundamental issues underlie the maternity leave debate. First is the form and level of...

Give choice a chance: Market phobia sees universities clinging to the stable penury of government funding
March 13, 2002The Australian

Five years ago, like today, there were signs that commonwealth higher education policy might be...

A tax credit system should be the basis for funding education
Jennifer Buckingham OAMOctober 20, 2001The Australian Financial Review

There is not much for parents or schools to get excited about in the education...

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Submission to the Independent Review of the Australian Public Service
Simon Cowan, Eugenie JosephAugust 1, 2018
Submission to the National Commission of Audit
Alexander Philipatos, Jennifer Buckingham OAM, Jeremy Sammut, Robert Carling, Simon Cowan, Stephen Kirchner, Trisha JhaApril 1, 2014T30.08

The federal government’s Commission of Audit (CoA) was established in 2013 to review the performance...

Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Bill 2012
Andrew BakerJanuary 25, 2013

Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Bill...

Submission to the COAG Select Council on Disability Reform on NDIS ‘eligibility and reasonable and necessary support’ criteria
Andrew BakerSeptember 10, 2012

Submission to the COAG Select Council on Disability Reform on NDIS ‘eligibility and reasonable and...

Submission to Native Title Leading Practice Agreements Discussion Paper 2010
Helen Hughes, Mark Hughes, Sara HudsonNovember 30, 2010

The Native Title process is only one of the processes returning land to traditional owners....

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