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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?

closing the gap
From Measuring to Merely Meeting: Productivity Commission misses mark on Closing the Gap
Nyunggai Warren Mundine AOMay 16, 2024PP57
Why, despite decades of expenditure on Aboriginal affairs, do solutions to ‘Closing the Gap’ in...
Jim Chalmers
Holes appear as Treasurer tries to convince with verbal flourishes
Simon CowanMay 4, 2024CANBERRA TIMES

The more detail we get on the government’s Future Made in Australia plans, the more...

Back to the future: Labor revives failed policies of the past
Simon CowanApril 22, 2024CANBERRA TIMES

The federal government’s planned Future Made in Australia Act is just the latest example of...

Australian money
Labor’s $250m paid parental leave plan is not so super
Simon CowanMarch 9, 2024CANBERRA TIMES

The government has committed more than $250 million to expanding paid parental level. This is...

John Kehoe Image
Canberra’s fiscal ticking bomb
John Kehoe, Tom SwitzerFebruary 15, 2024
Join us on March 13 for a breakfast conversation with John Kehoe, exploring the challenges...
Jim Chalmers. treasurer, economics, tax, stage three tax cuts
Chalmers is doing a fantastic job … at ignoring the dire outlook
Tom SwitzerFebruary 13, 2024SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

Chalmers is doing a fantastic job … at ignoring the dire outlook. We are only...

Lessons from the Ord
B.R. DavidsonJanuary 1, 1982PM2

Readers will draw their own various conclusions from these two modest but compelling essays. It...

The Rhetoric and Reality of Income Redistribution
Gordon TullockSeptember 25, 1981OP5

Income distribution is an overwhelming part of the program of all governments. Too often, however,...

Pump the brakes, Hastie. Let me explain how wrong you’ve gotten it
Simon CowanOctober 3, 2025CANBERRA TIMES
In reality, it was taxpayers and consumers who were being held hostage: by government who...
The end of cash for diagnosis? Now that would be a good thing
Steven SchwartzAugust 28, 2025THE AUSTRALIAN
The Albanese government’s plan to divert children with mild developmental delays out of the NDIS...
Productivity roundtable’s uncertain impact. What was the point?
Simon CowanAugust 23, 2025CANBERRA TIMES
Surely it was not the 10 supposed reform directions, some of which contradict the others...
degrowth
Summit must end national complacency about Australia’s prosperity
Michael StutchburyAugust 18, 2025AUSTRALIAN FINANCIAL REVIEW
The Economic Reform Roundtable should commit to making Australia an aspirational and enterprise-driven, high-growth nation...
At this rate, the only outcome from this summit will be making us poorer
Simon CowanAugust 9, 2025CANBERRA TIMES

As we approach the productivity summit to end all summits, the various players have begun...

Government’s spending surge a threat to productivity
Simon Cowan, Robert CarlingJuly 26, 2025CANBERRA TIMES
As we get closer to the productivity roundtable that the government hopes will solve all...
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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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