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Archived news for April 2011 | Recent news
Hey, big spenders, look at Victoria
A new report on Victorian public finances underscores why state governments require stronger fiscal rules to promote budget responsibility. The...
What happened to the meat axe?
Remember when Kevin Rudd said he was "dead serious" about bringing back the razor gang to trim the public service? Two days before the 2007 federal...
Why bad policy can be good politics
Why would the Gillard government want to cut an unambiguously popular area of government spending - medical research? Because, perversely, it may...
Totting up carbon tax is anything but a piece of cake
When asked on ABC1's Q & A about the carbon tax we'll pay on a birthday cake Assistant Treasurer Bill Shorten joked he didn't know how many...
Learning from public policy mistakes of the GFC
In the Financial Times at the end of March, the former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan wrote "With notably rare exceptions (2008, for...
Three wise men must end GST's 'groundhog day'
The arcane world of Commonwealth-state financial relations is, in many ways, like the 1993 movie Groundhog Day. The question as to how GST revenue...
Deregulation can save the taxi industry from itself
The regulation of Melbourne's taxi industry was a mess from the beginning. Taxis were new, smart and efficient when they were introduced in 1908,...