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While the intention to reduce the influence of corporate political donations is welcome, the proposed legislation would disproportionately advantage incumbent parties, including enormous increases in public funding, much of which could be spent on election campaigning.

The Australia Institute’s submission to the government consultation into the Bill finds that:

On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Greg and Elinor get out the world’s tiniest violin for Australia’s big banks, who are finally having to compete to offer better mortgage rates, and discuss why three of the ‘big four’ are now offering less for term deposits.

Greg Jericho is Chief Economist at the Australia Institute and the Centre for Future Work and popular columnist of Grogonomics with Guardian Australia. Each week on Dollars & Sense, Greg dives into the latest economic figures to explain what they can tell us about what’s happening in the economy, how it will impact you and where things are headed.

Host: Greg Jericho, Chief Economist, the Australia Institute // @GrogsGamut

Host: Elinor Johnston-Leek, Senior Content Producer, the Australia Institute // @ElinorJ_L

Theme music: Blue Dot Sessions

We’re told it’s a cost-of-living crisis, but not everyone is feeling the pinch. New Australia Institute research shows that the ultra-rich are getting richer, thanks in part to Australia’s distorted tax system. On this episode of Follow the Money, Dr Richard Denniss and Dave Richardson join Dr Alice Grundy to discuss the growing problem of inequality and what we can do to fix it.

This discussion was recorded on Tuesday 20 August 2024 and things may have changed since recording.

Guest: Richard Denniss, Executive Director, the Australia Institute // @RDNS_TAI

Guest: David Richardson, Senior Research Fellow, the Australia Institute // @daverr01

Host: Alice Grundy, Anne Kantor Research Manager, the Australia Institute // @alicektg

Show notes:

Wealth and inequality in Australia by David Richardson and Frank Stilwell, the Australia Institute (August 2024)

‘The Morrison election: What we know now’ by Richard Denniss, The Monthly (June 2019)

Are alternative milks a suitable replacement for dairy milk? A paradigm shift is occurring in milk consumption, with plant-based alternatives gaining traction due to perceptions of their positive environmental impacts. Production requires less energy, water, and land, while demonstrably reducing greenhouse gas emissions. While concerns regarding nutritional parity with dairy milk exist, consumer preference for plant-based options is multi-faceted, encompassing health, ethical, and environmental considerations. This growing demand is reflected in a significant shift within agribusiness commodities. Marketing strategies now position plant-based milks as premium products, leveraging sustainability and health claims to fuel their remarkable industry rise.

From Farm to Future: Reducing Environmental Footprint with Plants

Making the switch to plant-based milks presents both advantages and disadvantages for the environment in the fight against climate change. When compared to dairy milk, plant-based substitutes often have a smaller environmental impact since they require less energy, water, and land and emit fewer greenhouse gases. In contrast to methane-intensive dairy farming, soy and oat milks are recognised for their efficient use of resources and reduced carbon emissions.

The billboards explain that major gas companies in the NT pay no royalties or petroleum resources tax, and that NT drivers contribute 30 times more in vehicle registration to NT Government revenue than the gas industry.

Key Points:

• Australia Institute research has found over the last four years, multinational companies made $149 billion exporting gas they got for free, including $37 billion from the NT. If royalties had been charged on this gas, at least $13.3 billion ($3.4 billion from NT) in revenue could have been raised.
• Reasons provided by Darwin Airport to not run the advertisements include that they were:
  • Negative in nature.
  • Political in nature.
  • Directed at other clients of Darwin Airport advertising services.
• Similar billboards in other jurisdictions, such as Western Australia, have been accepted as legitimate advertising.

“Democracies function best when the public is well-informed, and this becomes a challenge when private companies are deciding what information people can see,” said Richard Denniss, Executive Director of the Australia Institute.

“I think most people would be surprised to learn that vehicle registrations contribute far more to Northern Territory Government revenue than the gas industry, but the reason they’re surprised to hear it is because, as we’ve seen, there are barriers to sharing this type of information in public places like airports.

Degrowth scholarship calls for reducing less-necessary production in rich countries to enable faster decarbonization and reverse other ecological pressures.  But how can this be achieved?  What is the mechanism?  For many years ecological economists advocated setting “caps” on resource use, declining to levels that are compatible with ecological goals. This is a nice idea in the abstract, but it would be extremely difficult to implement.  How do you impose the cap?  How do you distribute resources within it?  Who gets how much? 

There is a simpler and more effective approach: credit guidance. The idea here is to impose rules that limit the quantity of finance that commercial banks can invest in problem sectors.  For example, credit guidance can be used to scale down commercial investment in fossil fuel production on a binding, annual schedule.  But it can also be used to reduce other destructive and unnecessary industries: SUVs, mansions, cruise ships, private jets, industrial beef, dangerous plastics, fast fashion, weapons, advertising, etc.

Donating clothes is a common practice for many. When people no longer have use for their clothes, when they no longer fit, or when they simply no longer like them, donating seems like a much better option than throwing them out. We think that by donating our clothes, we are contributing to both an environmental, and a social good. However, this seemingly altruistic practice may in fact be doing more harm than we realise.

Most donated clothes are never resold locally and are instead exported to other countries, with countries in the Global North being the largest exporters, and countries in the Global South being the largest importers. While some garments are then resold within the importing country, an estimated 40% of second hand clothing imports are declared to be unsuitable for reuse or resale, subsequently ending up in landfill, and worsening already struggling waste management systems. This begs the question of whether this practice is best described as ‘dumping’ rather than ‘donating’.

Nina Boyarchenko and Leonardo Elias

While the gas industry has been busy trying to tell you that we need more gas, we’ve been busy countering their spin with facts, especially in Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

However, not everyone is as enthusiastic as we are for the message to get out.

A billboard too far?

We wanted to let the people of the Northern Territory know the facts about gas, so we designed this billboard and tried to put it up at Darwin airport.

The Airport refused our business saying it was “negative” and “directed at one of its clients”.

No worries, we’ll leave Santos out of this.

We came back with this design.

On this episode of After America, political scientist Associate Professor Zim Nwokora joins Dr Emma Shortis to discuss the DNC and the Trump campaign’s failure to cut through against a new Democratic candidate.

This discussion was recorded on Friday 16 August 2024 and things may have changed since recording.

Guest: Zim Nwokora, Associate Professor, Deakin University

Host: Emma Shortis, Senior Research for International & Security Affairs, the Australia Institute // @EmmaShortis

Show notes:

‘Sweet home, Chicago: the Democrats return to the site of their most tumultuous convention. This time, they are united’ by Emma Shortis and Liam Byrne, The Conversation (August 2024)

Theme music: Blue Dot Sessions

Everyone loves avocados. From ‘avo-toast’ to the adorable Jellycat Amusable Avocado plush toy, avocados have captured the hearts (and minds) of consumers globally. 11 billion pounds of avocados were consumed globally in 2020 alone.

Gizem Kosar, Davide Melcangi, and Sasha Thomas

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s July 2024 SCE Labor Market Survey shows a year-over-year increase in the average reservation wage—the lowest wage respondents would be willing to accept for a new job—to $81,147, but a decline from a series’ high of $81,822 in March 2024. In this post, we investigate how the recent dynamics of reservation wages differed across individuals and how reservation wages are related to individuals’ expectations about their future labor market movements.

This would see products like period underwear and tampon inserters placed in the same category as vapes, gambling and gaming PCs.

This isn’t the first time federal policy has made menstrual products harder to afford.

People who menstruate, most of whom are women, fought for nearly two decades for the goods and services tax (GST) to be removed from sanitary products such as tampons. The campaign lasted from before the GST was introduced in the year 2000, all the way up until 2018, when state and federal governments finally agreed to act.

The decision to exempt sanitary products cost the budget $30 million.

This might sound like a lot of money, but in budgetary terms, it’s next to nothing.

By way of comparison, tax breaks for luxury utes cost Australians $250 million last year, according to recent research by The Australia Institute.

While car sales data is not broken down by gender, few would contest that this tax break is mainly enjoyed by men.

And not just any men. The tax break only applies to new vehicles that cost over $80,000. Some of these utes cost up to $250,000, so we’re talking about very rich men.

There is widespread public support for banning gambling advertisements on free-to-air media because of the harm caused by gambling. The main objection is that Australia’s free-to-air networks, hit by declining revenues and fragmenting audiences, can’t afford to lose the money.

But there’s a simple solution.

A small levy on the many billions of dollars gambling companies extract from Australians could compensate the media for the lost revenue – with enough left over to increase funding for the ABC.

Such a levy would cost the gambling industry less than a quarter of a billion dollars a year.

That’s a tiny fraction of the money lost on wagering.

Each year, losing bets cost Australians about $25 billion dollars, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare and the Australian Gambling Research Centre.

That doesn’t include the cost to society of problem gambling, which feeds addiction and mental health problems.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, gambling company revenues totalled $17.2 billion dollars in 2022-23.

Meanwhile, the industry spent about $239 million advertising on free-to-air TV, metropolitan radio, and online.

Key Points:

• Gambling company revenues totalled $17.2 billion dollars in 2022-23.
• Meanwhile, the industry spent about $239 million advertising on free-to-air TV, metropolitan radio, and online.
• Therefore, a levy on gambling revenues of just 1.4% could replace all that lost advertising income.
  • Round it up to 2% and the government could replace some of the money the ABC has lost in budget cuts as well.

“Politically, this policy is definitely worth a punt, with good odds that it would be a vote-winner,” said Stephen Long, Senior Fellow at the Australia Institute.

“A 2% levy on the gambling industry, which represents a tiny fraction of the money lost on wagering, could compensate the media for any lost revenue resulting from a gambling ads ban. There would even be enough left over to replace some of the money that the ABC has lost in budget cuts as well.

“For the media and the Australian public, this represents a rare win-win scenario.

“Implementing such a policy would reduce the harm to the community that gambling advertising causes, while simultaneously guaranteeing a revenue stream for public interest broadcasting.

“The free-to-air networks could then sell the advertising slots the gambling companies occupied to other businesses while pocketing the levy as well, producing a revenue bonanza.

It pains us to admit that in today’s fast-paced world, there is constant pressure to be stylish and relevant. Take blue jeans for instance – the never-ending list of new trends or the infinite number colours, cuts and styles seem to justify our temptation. We are pressured to be new and different, yet forced to conform.

Amidst this desire, many of us are aware that the costs of our purchases are much more than the dollar sum at the check-out. The thought that our new pair of jeans is likely produced by an impoverished, underpaid labourer in South-East Asia lies dormant at the back of our minds, as does the knowledge that its production will emit somewhere between 33 and 80 kilograms of CO2 into the atmosphere. However, the vast distance between our everyday lives and the reality of hot sweaty factories and smoggy skies renders the gravity of our purchase insignificant. After all, what’s the hurt in just one more pair?

Accordingly, we can consider ‘blue jeans’ as a symbol of Western colonialism and capitalism, and a useful way to explore the impact of jeans and fast fashion on the climate and the oceans. Given the statistics, the ethical choice should be easy, but as expendable incomes continue to shrink, it becomes harder to ask consumers to pick the ‘right’ side in this dilemma.

On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Australia Institute Senior Economist Matt Grudnoff and Elinor discuss the government’s gambling reforms and new research showing that the wealth of Australia’s richest 200 people nearly tripled over the last two decades.

Each week on Dollars & Sense, we dive into the latest economic figures to explain what they can tell us about what’s happening in the economy, how it will impact you and where things are headed.

Host: Matt Grudnoff, Senior Economist, the Australia Institute and Centre for Future Work // @MattGrudnoff

Host: Elinor Johnston-Leek, Senior Content Producer, the Australia Institute // @ElinorJ_L

Show notes:

‘Give Junk Food & Gambling Ads the Punt’, The Australia Institute (2022)

‘Wealth and inequality in Australia’ by David Richardson and Frank Stilwell, The Australia Institute (2024)

Theme music: Blue Dot Sessions

Bluetooth headphones are essential and addictive, you might even be using a pair now. Following Covid-19 pandemic headphones have become vital for work, while also being essential tools for personal privacy, in work, entertainment or fitness activities. These varied applications have made them indispensable in modern life, influencing work, leisure and well-being. Headphones can therefore be linked to the capitalist obsession with enhanced productivity and the modern desire for escape. Widespread headphone use has also garnered cultural significance with subcultures like hip-hop, making Bluetooth headphones fashion accessories and status symbols, which have established a thriving market for affordable and luxury models. This surge in popularity has made headphones the core of an industry characterized by rapid innovation.

This article was originally published, in slightly different form, on Strong Towns member Joe Cortright’s blog City Observatory. It is shared here with permission. In-line image was provided by the writer.

Gara Afonso, Kevin Clark, Brian Gowen, Gabriele La Spada, JC Martinez, Jason Miu, and Will Riordan

Columbia University Professor and former World Bank Chief Economist Joseph E Stiglitz joins Ebony Bennet on this episode of Follow the Money to discuss inequality and the rise of Trump, Australia’s “environmental deficit” and his new book, The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society.

This discussion was recorded on Tuesday 13 August 2024 and things may have changed since recording.

Guest: Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize-winning economist // @JosephEStiglitz

Host: Ebony Bennett, Deputy Director, the Australia Institute // @ebony_bennett

Show notes:

The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society by Joseph E Stiglitz (2024)

Theme music: Pulse and Thrum; additional music by Blue Dot Sessions

You probably have at least ten tote bags at the back of your cupboard. The humble tote bag has a knack of accumulating in a way like no other. Yet, while these reusable cotton bags may seem good in principle, they have a much larger environmental impact than appears at first glance.

Gara Afonso, Domenico Giannone, Gabriele La Spada, and John C. Williams 

On this special episode of After America, recorded live at the State Library of New South Wales, Dr Emma Shortis is joined by Professor Joseph Stiglitz and the Hon Malcolm Turnbull AC to discuss the role of inequality in US politics and dealing with the Trump White House.

This discussion was recorded live on Monday 29 July 2024 and things may have changed since recording.

Guest: Joseph Stiglitz, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Economics and Professor at Columbia University Business School // @JosephEStiglitz

Guest: Malcolm Turnbull, former Prime Minister of Australia // @TurnbullMalcolm

Host: Emma Shortis, Senior Research for International & Security Affairs, the Australia Institute // @EmmaShortis

Show notes:

The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society by Joseph E Stiglitz (2024)

‘How the World Can Deal with Trump’ by Malcom Turnbull, Foreign Affairs (2024)

Theme music: Blue Dot Sessions