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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?

Restoring Hope: Practical Policies to Revitalise the Australian Economy
Paul Kelly, Tony Abbott, Andrew Stone, Tom SwitzerJanuary 28, 2020

The book launch of Restoring Hope: Practical Policies to Revitalise the Australian Economy by Andrew...

Sport grants always political
Simon CowanJanuary 24, 2020Ideas@TheCentre

The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) has revealed that the federal government handed out tens...

Is anyone really shocked by Sports Rorts 2.0?
Simon CowanJanuary 18, 2020Canberra Times

The Australian National Audit Office has revealed that the federal government handed out tens of...

It’s time to storm the gates on age pension reform
Simon CowanNovember 9, 2019CANBERRA TIMES

There’s always been something of an irony in the invocation of the phrase “an Englishman’s...

To fix retirement incomes, let’s start with reining in superannuation
Simon CowanOctober 28, 2019The Canberra Times

At the end of last month, the government announced yet another retirement incomes review. That...

Tax is the first lever the government can pull for growth
John HumphreysOctober 17, 2019Australian Financial Review

The Australian economy has stalled. According to the most recent national accounts, Australia’s GDP per...

Australia’s post-pandemic public debt: is there still a problem?
Robert CarlingFebruary 5, 2024PP54
This report provides an update of the public debt situation and outlook based on the...
infrastructure, building, blowout, tax
Bungles, Blowouts and Boondoggles: why Australia’s infrastructure projects cost more than they should
Grahame CampbellNovember 23, 2023OP198
A large amount of taxpayers’ money, state and federal, is expended on large scale infrastructure...
Cohort of losers: generational burden of government Covid response
Gigi FosterJune 13, 2023AP49
In the Covid era, many policies were defended on the basis that they would help...
The ‘national conversation’ on budgets, spending and tax
Robert CarlingMarch 23, 2023PP49
There is a wide-ranging agenda of issues to which this paper aims to make a...
PP45 Image Australia's debt
A Sea of Red: Tracking Australia’s debt iceberg
Robert CarlingMarch 21, 2022PP45
The increase in debt raises economic policy issues of major concern. It is reducing fiscal...
The MMT Hoax
Tony Makin, Gene TunnyMay 27, 2021PP41

Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is a supposedly new macroeconomic paradigm, but it is essentially a...

Alarm bells ringing on more interest rate pain
Michael StutchburyMarch 18, 2026DAILY TELEGRAPH
Australians were losing faith that the combination of Labor’s economic policies and the RBA monetary...
Blame diagnostic inflation for the NDIS’ $10b Autism bill
Steven SchwartzMarch 5, 2026AUSTRALIAN FINANCIAL REVIEW

As recently reported in The Australian Financial Review, autism costs the National Disability Insurance Scheme...

The RBA had no choice but to tighten the screws
Robert Carling, Michael StutchburyFebruary 6, 2026THE CANBERRA TIMES
The government has been rightly blamed for fuelling the inflation flames with too rapid growth...
The only things going up now are the prices
Robert CarlingFebruary 3, 2026DAILY TELEGRAPH
The decisions that made higher rates unavoidable were taken in Canberra. If inflation is the...
Economic exceptionalism is dead – and rate cuts died with it
Michael StutchburyJanuary 31, 2026AUSTRALIAN FINANCIAL REVIEW
Jim Chalmers doesn’t have a central bank governor to blame for his forward misguidance or...
Tip from a friend: Australia’s economy is in a slow race to ruin
Michael StutchburyNovember 29, 2025THE AUSTRALIAN
Sometimes it takes outsiders to say the obvious but unwelcome things: high spending, low growth...
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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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