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Category: public policy
Where to for public sector reform?
As top departmental heads rolled in the wake of the election of the Marshall Liberal Government, the question was asked: ‘What next for the public service?’
Debate over the size and shape of South Australia’s public sector is a perennial issue in political and business circles and the SA Centre for Economic Studies added its perspective […]
Migration important to SA regions
A major report on Australia’s population and the impact of immigration policy published by the Federal departments of Treasury and Home Affairs in April posed some pertinent questions for future research.
The report – Shaping a Nation, Population growth and immigration over time – asks, in part, whether the “current patterns of spatial distribution of population […]
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Restoring faith in the political process – Michael O’Neil
Australians are disenchanted with our current political environment. More than 70 per cent think that the system of government needs reform.¹ And, yet, given the opportunity to break out of the two-party malaise at the recent State election, South Australians chose the status quo. Voters were seemingly not prepared to add a major new player […]
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Bankers under the spotlight on gambling lending
As Australia recently listened to harrowing stories of the major banks providing money to addicted gamblers at the Banking Royal Commission, we recalled that this is not a new issue.
The Centre published a report – Problem gamblers and the role of the financial sector – in 2010 and the issues seem as vexed now as […]
A further comment on recent trends in private and public sector wage rates – Anthony Kosturjak
In a recent post we observed that data on average weekly earnings showed that wages growth in the South Australian public sector had been outstripping wages growth in the private sector over recent years. However, we noted that caution should be exercised when using data on average weekly earnings to monitor differences in wages growth […]
Cost of living prominent in SA election – Michael O’Neil
The South Australian election scheduled for 17 March 2018 has turned into a three-horse race: Labor, Liberal and SA Best, led by Nick Xenophon. It is also the first outing for Cory Bernardi’s Australian Conservatives at a state level. In prospect, it is entirely possible that neither of the major parties, even with the assistance […]
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Murray Darling Basin Declaration – Professor Sarah Wheeler
In the first week of February a group of senior water scientists and economists called for urgent action to address Murray-Darling Basin issues in a joint Declaration.
The signatories were concerned that $6 billion dollars in water recovery has been spent over the past decade, with $3.5 billion of this on irrigation infrastructure (on and off farm) and $2.5 […]
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Professor Paul Kerin: “Global carbon credits will cut costs and prices”
Recent claims by Tony Abbott and others that allowing firms to purchase international carbon credits (CCs) to meet emissions quotas was like a tax that would raise costs and prices defy the most basic laws of
economics. They’re simply untrue.
Indeed, allowing such purchases can only reduce costs and prices. Furthermore, those advocating a continued ban on international CC […]
Underemployment and poverty in Australia
Last month saw the publication of the fourth edition of “Thinking about Poverty”, edited by Klaus Serr, La Trobe University.
The book examines aspects of poverty and inequality in Australia from theoretical and empirical perspectives.
In their contribution on “Un(der)employment, Poverty and the Future of Work after the Global Financial Crisis”, SACES Senior Research Fellow Dr Andreas Cebulla […]
Changing the definition of Horizontal Fiscal Equalisation – by Robert Schwarz
The Commonwealth Treasurer and the Productivity Commission (PC) seem intent on providing a greater share of goods and services tax (GST) grants to Western Australia (WA).
But do you have to change the definition of horizontal fiscal equalization (HFE) to deliver a fiscal advantage to WA, being the outlier fiscally strongest State, at the expense of […]
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