For at least five years now, Australia’s labour market has demonstrated signs of a structural shift that has undermined traditional patterns of wage determination, and eroded the quality and security of work.
Australian Energy Market Commission is conducting a Reliability Frameworks Review, which is looking at how to improve reliability in the National Electricity Market.
In our submission The Australia Institute argues that the best market reform under consideration by the Commission is wholesale demand response. Demand response allows energy consumers to reduce or delay their consumption of electricity and sell that conservation into the market.
Wholesale demand response could improve reliability and reduce costs by lowering the price of demand peaks. It may also reduce emissions by displacing fossil fuel generation during peaks of demand.
Of the tax cuts in the 2018 Federal Budget, Australian women get half the tax cut of men.
New research today by The Australia Institute shows about two thirds of the benefit of the income tax cuts proposed will flow to men, while previous spending cuts have mainly disadvantaged women.
Bracket creep is as maligned as it is misunderstood. Indeed, it can even be a good thing. But while most people probably know that bracket creep refers to people getting tipped into higher marginal tax rates as their wages rise, few seem to realise that there is good bracket creep and bad bracket creep.
A large post-Budget poll of the division of Longman shows the proposed flat personal tax rates are rated as unfair and company tax cuts remain deeply unpopular among voters due to head to a by-election in the seat of Longman.
The Australia Institute commissioned ReachTEL to conduct a survey of 1,277 residents across the federal electorate of Longman on the evening of 10th May 2018.
Results:
Budget proposes Australia’s progressive tax system be overhauled to put majority of workers on the same tax rate.
[Report - see PDF below]
The Australia Institute has issued a briefing paper which modelled the distributionary effects of the proposal, showing the benefits flow overwhelmingly to the highest income earners who get 62%, while just 7% of the benefit goes to the 30% of Australians on the lowest wages.
Reported moves to expanded the under-utilised Pension Loan Scheme (PLS) to allow pensioners access to the scheme would be a welcome budget breakthrough.
“This is sensible economic reform which will allow those on the aged pension to effectively access some of the value of their home without having to sell it,” said Ben Oquist, Australia Institute executive director.
“Congratulations to Scott Morrison for delivering this budget breakthrough.
“It never made sense to exclude pensioners from accessing the scheme while allowing wealthier Australians the right to use the mechanism,” said Mr Oquist.
The answer to the meaning of life is, as we know thanks to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, "42". What is less well known is that the answer to what Australia's tax policy should be is also a single, specific and essentially arbitrary numerical figure.
[This article was first published in the Australian Financial Review - here]
A new report from the Australia Institute shows the recently announced 23.9 tax-to-GDP cap is entirely arbitrary, and that a strict tax cap with no policy change will severely limit choices in Government spending.
The report shows 23.9 per cent is the average tax-to-GDP ratio between the introduction of the GST and the Global Financial Crisis, a technical assumption.
The report also found implementing a strict tax ceiling of 23.9 per cent does not take into account that, in the absence of a policy change, average tax rates on personal income will constantly increase because of bracket creep.