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The federal government’s hand-picked Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee has called for a significant increase to the JobSeeker unemployment payment, describing the current rate as “seriously inadequate”.

While the aged pension has increased over time, JobSeeker has stagnated for decades, dragging people without a job well below the poverty line, Australia Institute Chief Economist Greg Jericho said on the latest episode of Dollars & Sense.

Currently worth less than 70 per cent of the aged pension, JobSeeker payments should be increased to 90 per cent, according to the Committee.

The significant disparity between the two payments is the result of a policy decision by the Howard government, Jericho explained.

“What John Howard did was change how [JobSeeker and the aged pension] were indexed,” Jericho said.

“He linked the aged pension – but not unemployment benefits – to average, full-time, male earnings.

“In a sense, what [Howard] was saying was, ‘those people on that government benefit, they’re worthy – these people on unemployment benefits, not worthy.

In 2022 Josh Frydenberg gave the Budget game away when he was reported justifying the many billions of dollars spent on Aukus by saying, “everything is affordable if it’s a priority.” Julia Gillard in 2014 also revealed the Budget reality when she told the audience at the Joan Kirner justice oration “Budgets are made of choices. They make us… think about what we care about the most”.

When we put those two lines together it becomes what I call the Budget Commandment: “Everything is affordable if we choose to care about it”.

Over the next two weeks we are going to hear a great deal from the government about not being able to afford everything. What it means is that it has decided not to spend money on something because it has decided it is not a priority that it cares about the most.

This is relevant because last week the government’s Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee released its second report. It recommended help those in poverty, especially those who were unemployed.

The first recommendation was to raise the level of Jobseeker to 90% of the age pension.

We should at this point note that Australia has the lowest unemployment rate in the OECD when measured using the standard “replacement rate” metric of the level of the benefits relative to average earnings. In essence it is tougher to live in unemployment benefits in Australia than in any other advance economy.

There’s a global crackdown on greenwashing underway, but not everyone is getting the message – not even the Australian Government. On this episode of Follow the Money, the Australia Institute’s Climate & Energy Program Director Polly Hemming joins Ebony Bennett to discuss state-sponsored greenwashing.

This episode was recorded on Tuesday 30 April 2024 and things may have changed since recording.

Guest: Polly Hemming, Climate & Energy Program Director, the Australia Institute // @pollyjhemming

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

Producer: Jennifer Macey // @jennifermacey

Additional editing: Emily Perkins

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

On the same day the AUKUS security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and United States was announced on September 16 2021 (New Zealand time), New Zealand officials gathered in Wellington for the first of two joint-agency meetings to discuss AUKUS.

At the time, New Zealand’s non-involvement was put down to the pact’s central purpose of supplying nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, and New Zealand’s prohibition of nuclear-powered vessels in its territorial waters.

Then Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said: “We weren’t approached, nor would I expect us to be.”

It wasn’t until March 2023 that possible “non-nuclear” involvement in technology sharing was publicly discussed in New Zealand, during a visit by US National Security Council coordinator for the Indo-Pacific, Kurt Campbell.

However, the newly released information – provided following an Official Information Act request – shows “Tier 2 AUKUS” meetings took place at Defence House in Wellington on September 16 and 23, 2021.

The proposal to support a small number of workers through the transitioning of our domestic electricity system is welcome and should be supported.

However, the NZEA Bill turns a blind eye to the vast majority of workers who will be impacted by the transitions caused by climate change and climate policy. The Act also strategically sidesteps Australia’s subsidies and expansion plans for fossil fuels exports which will increase the number of workers who will eventually need to transition out of these industries.

To be effective in achieving its stated goals, the powers of the NZEA would need to expand to both prevent the development of new fossil fuel projects that will increase the number of workers requiring transition support, and to strengthen the NZEA’s ability to plan and coordinate the unfolding transition.

The post No Jobs on a Dead Planet appeared first on The Australia Institute.

It sounds like a joke. And it would be.

Like Qatar and Saudi Arabia, Western Australia is a major producer of gas. In fact, if WA was a country, it would be the third-largest liquefied natural gas exporter in the world, beaten only by Qatar and the USA.

And yet last week WA Premier Roger Cook urged gas companies to develop large reserves off the coast of WA to deal with a “shortage.”

The premier is wrong. The so-called shortage relates to the fact that 90 per cent of gas produced in WA is used for exports, mostly to Japan and China.

WA produces more than enough gas; it just does not keep enough. Exporters use more of the fuel to run their own vast processing plants than any other industry in WA. The export plants burn twice as much gas as is used to generate power in WA.

And while huge amounts are exported from WA, it is not by West Australian companies.

A handful of multinational gas giants – Chevron, Shell, ExxonMobil and others – dominate the business.

Perth-based Woodside does not disclose its level of foreign ownership, although at least 23 per cent is with American investors.

Overall, gas exports from WA are at least 80 per cent foreign-owned.

This matters for two reasons.

First, the foreign companies that control WA’s and Australia’s gas resources do not necessarily act in the best interests of the state or the country.

A WA parliamentary inquiry recently investigated the operation of the state’s domestic gas reservation policy.

The billboard, which draws on Australia Institute research into gas use in WA and its gas royalty system, is located at 263 Georges Terrace, Perth, and has been unveiled the week following the tumultuous annual general meeting of Woodside, one of Australia’s largest gas producers and greenhouse polluters.

Key findings:

• The LNG industry exports 35 times the amount of gas WA uses for electricity generation
• LNG producers themselves are the state’s biggest users of gas, using 2.5 times more than WA’s electricity generation to process gas for export (Figure 1)
• No royalties are paid on around three quarters of the gas exported from WA, including from Chevron’s Gorgon and Wheatstone projects, Woodside’s Pluto LNG or Shell’s Prelude

“It is staggering our governments allow a handful of mostly foreign-owned corporations to export 90% of WA’s gas and give most of it to them royalty-free,” says Mark Ogge, Principal Adviser at The Australia Institute.

“Multinational gas companies are receiving a level of government generosity, in the form of royalty-free resources, that families doing it tough can only dream of. In giving away the community’s gas, governments are forgoing billions of dollars that could be providing cost-of-living relief.

Despite repeated claims by business groups that Australia needs to reduce its reliance on income tax, the reality is that Australia is not only a low tax country when compared with other developed (OECD) countries but is also one of the least reliant on income taxes. Of the 38 developed nations Australia is the 9th lowest for all taxes and 7th lowest for income taxes including Social Security Contributions (SSCs).

The argument that Australia is over-reliant on income tax relies on narrowly defining income tax that mistakenly excludes SSCs. These social security contributions are levied by almost all developed countries to assist in the funding of a wide range of social benefits which can include unemployment benefits, accident, injury and sickness benefits, old age, and disability pensions, as well as the provision of various hospital and medical services. Importantly they act similar to income tax, in being levelled as a percentage of income earned (often just on employment earnings). SSCs are categorised as taxes on labour income by the OECD.

Claims that Australia is over-reliant on income tax do not stand up to scrutiny. Australia sits well below the OECD average when it comes to both income taxes and the amount of tax collected overall.

The post Income tax in Australia’s tax system appeared first on The Australia Institute.

If buildings shifted one third of their peak electricity consumption to the middle of the day, this would save $1.7 billion annually and add additional peak capacity equivalent to 52% of Australia’s existing coal generation fleet. It would reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions from electricity by 1.9% (2,780,000 tonnes) per year and accelerate decarbonisation by encouraging more renewable energy investment.

In order to pursue such potential benefits governments should measure and incentivise demand flexibility in buildings.

The post Buildings as batteries appeared first on The Australia Institute.

The Institute objects to this proposal as appears driven by short-term speculation rather than energy market needs or economic viability.

“This is not a serious proposal to address energy challenges in Australia and NSW,” said Rod Campbell, Research Director at The Australia Institute.

“The assessment documents include no discussion of how this defunct power station can suddenly become viable using a highly uncertain fuel source. There is no discussion of levelised costs, electricity market strategy or a host of other issues that a genuine proposal would have.

“The environmental impact statement has vastly underplayed the greenhouse gas emissions and other potential environmental impacts that the project could have, not least what a large new customer for woodchips would mean for logging operations.

“This project should be rejected and allow community, regulatory and investor focus to return to viable, sustainable renewable energy projects.”

The post Submission on restart of Redbank Power Station appeared first on The Australia Institute.

This submission makes recommendations that would ensure private schools are more transparent and accountable for how they spend public money.

The NSW Government review into Section 83C of the Education Act 1990 (NSW) is a timely addition to the broader discussion on school funding in Australia. Many private
schools in NSW receiving government funding or tax concessions appear to be operating in breach of the relevant legislation that requires them not to operate for
profit, to pay wages in line with market values, and with expenditure that is not required for the operation of the school. Examples include:

• Cranbrook School, which spent $125 million on a five-story sandstone building that contains a double-height orchestra room, 267-seat theatre, and Olympic-sized indoor pool;
• The Scots College, which in 2019 paid a reported $29 million to renovate a library so that it would resemble a Scottish Baronial castle; and
• The King’s School, which paid $15 million to buy six hectares of land next to Lane Cove National Park for staff and student camps.

To arrest growing inequality in our school system, we recommend that:

The Australian supermarket sector continues to be dominated by a duopoly of two firms: Coles and Woolworths. There is increasing evidence that this duopoly has used its market power to propagate and magnify recent inflationary shocks.

Supermarket profits have increased in recent years and there is now evidence that margins have also increased. Food retailers are an important and significant part of household’s weekly expenses, with low-income households spending a bigger proportion of their income on food. This means that food inflation is a particularly important pain point for Australia’s
most vulnerable households.

The current cost of living crisis makes investigating the lack of competition and pricing behaviour of food retailers very relevant. We hope the following insights and policy recommendations will be useful to help reform this essential market.

The post Supermarkets or super mark-ups? appeared first on The Australia Institute.

Government-commissioned economic analysis suggests the economic case for red imported fire ant eradication is marginal. The main flaw in this modelling is that it only covers a 15-year time period. By simply extending the analysis of the latest government-commissioned modelling, the economic case for RIFA eradication goes from marginal to compelling. For every dollar spent eradicating the ants, the public benefit is between $3 and $9.

This analysis shows that RIFA will cost Australia more than $22 billion by the 2040s. This means that it is less costly to spend $200 million or even $300 million per year every year for the next ten years (which would be a total of between $2 billion and $3 billion) to eradicate RIFA now.

We suggest that one of the reasons that the eradication plan has gone underfunded is that the latest cost-benefit analysis – commissioned by Biosecurity Queensland of Department of
Agriculture and Fisheries, titled Assessing the Impacts of the Red Imported Fire Ant and published in 2021 – downplays the economic case for urgent action.

The post Red imported fire ants – the benefits of avoiding a national disaster appeared first on The Australia Institute.

The 2023 state election served to highlight some of the fundamental issues with the electoral system in New South Wales. The Australia Institute welcomes the inquiry into the election, and our submission to the inquiry builds on existing research to examine several of these issues in detail:

• The enormous advantages enjoyed by incumbent MPs and established political parties;
• The way in which donation and spending caps favour major parties;
• The lack of transparency and effective regulation around political finance;
• NSW’s failure to implement measures used successfully elsewhere in Australia, including the state’s continued use of optional preferential voting, and its lack of truth in political advertising laws.

The post Submission – Review of the 2023 NSW election appeared first on The Australia Institute.

The results show that:

• Seven in 10 Australians (69%) support an end to native forest logging on public land across Australia, including 37% who strongly support an end.
• Only one in five (19%) oppose an end to native forest logging across Australia.
• There is majority support for ending native forest logging across Australia in Western Australia (71%), NSW (70%), Victoria (66%) and Queensland (68%).
• There is majority support for ending native forest logging on public land across Australia from all major voting intentions, with highest level of support from Labor voters (79%), followed by Greens voters (76%), Coalition voters (62%), One Nation voters (61%) and Independent/Other voters (57%).

The post Polling Research: Ending native forest logging across Australia appeared first on The Australia Institute.

Key findings:

• An overwhelming majority (84.6%) of voters agree truth in political advertising laws should be in place in time for the next federal election, with almost 7 in 10 (69.7%) of voters strongly agreeing. Only 4.9% of voters disagree, 10.5% didn’t know or weren’t sure.
• 7 in 10 voters (70.8%) say the NACC should be able to hold public hearings in any circumstance, or when a hearing is in the public interest. Only 15.9% say the NACC’s power should be limited to holding public hearings in exceptional circumstances, which is currently the case.
• Two-party preferred: 65% Simon Kennedy (LNP) vs 35% Martin Moore (GRN) based on respondent allocated preferences.
• First preferences: 53% Simon Kennedy (Liberal Party), 17% Martin Moore (Australian Greens), 12% Roger Woodward (Independent), 8% Natasha Brown (Animal Justice Party), 6% Simone Francis Gagatam (Sustainable Australia Party), 4% Vinay Kolhatkar (Libertarian), including the redistributed Undecided voters.
• Nearly one in four respondents (24.5%) have not decided their first preference vote in the upcoming by-election.

The post Polling – Cook By-Election: Integrity Reform appeared first on The Australia Institute.

The proposed changes to the PRRT as contained in Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Accountability and Fairness) Bill 2023 deliver returns to taxpayers that are well below community expectations and do little to alter the current reality that gas companies are failing to pay a fair level of tax under the current PRRT regime.

We argue that the government should:

• Adopt a stricter cap of either 60% or 80%, or
• Reform the PRRT regime to ensure any windfall gains are taxed.

Our polling demonstrates that stricter caps would have much greater support than the 90% proposed. The concern that any changes to the cap would continue to play into the hand of the oil and gas industry accountants however could be countered by reforming the PRRT so that whenever the rate of return on the funds employed exceeds a certain threshold the liability would be triggered. This supports our recommendation that the government pursue a PRRT regime that would ensure any windfall gains are taxed, given such gains are not expected or included in investment decision taxing them would not affect investment decisions.

These recommendations would also meet the demands of the more than 10,000 people who have signed the Australia Institute petition calling for the repair and increase of the PRRT to address this imbalance and ensure the Australian people get a fair share of the windfall profits from our own natural resources.

The aim of the government should be not to shift PRRT return from a later period to earlier, but to deliver bigger returns, always.

Some of these problems can be addressed by disclosing ministerial diaries, expanding the lobbyist register to include in-house lobbyists and introducing a more transparent and fit-for-purpose pass system that reflects the different reasons for visiting Parliament.

The post Submission: Access to Parliament House by Lobbyists appeared first on The Australia Institute.

The post Democracy and accountability in the pandemic appeared first on The Australia Institute.

A submission made by The Australia Institute to the NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure regarding the Glendell Mine Modification 5. The Modification should be rejected on both economic and environmental grounds. At the very least, it should be subject to a comprehensive economic assessment before a planning decision is reached. The Australia Institute has successfully demonstrated in a previous submission that the economic benefits of the Glendell coal mine are overstated.

The post Submission: Glendell Mine Modification 5 appeared first on The Australia Institute.

The report, co-authored by Greg Jericho (Policy Director) and Jim Stanford (Director), finds that a minimum wage rise of between five and 10 per cent in the Fair Work’s Annual Wage Review, due in June, is needed to restore the real buying power of low-paid workers to pre-pandemic trends, but would not significantly affect headline inflation.

Key findings of the report include:

• Last year’s decision, which lifted the minimum wage by 8.65 per cent and other award wages by 5.75 per cent, offset some but not all of the effects of recent inflation on real earnings for low-wage workers.
• At the same time, inflation fell by 3 full percentage points.
• There has been no significant correlation between rises in the minimum wage and inflation since 1997.
• Raising wages by 5 to 10 per cent this year would offset recent inflation and restore the pre-pandemic trend in real wages for award-covered workers.
• Even if fully passed on by employers, higher award wages would have no significant impact on economy-wide prices.
• A 10 per cent increase in award wages could be fully offset, with no impact on prices at all, by just a 2 per cent reduction in corporate profits – still leaving profits far above historical levels.

“Australia’s lowest paid workers have been hardest hit by inflation since Covid. There is a moral imperative to restore quality of life for these Australians and this analysis shows that there is no credible economic reason to deny them,” Jericho said.

In Australia’s democracy ultimate responsibility for something as important as monetary policy should rest with the parliament. This is because the Australian Parliament is ultimately responsible to the Australian people, while the RBA board is not.

The post Submission to the Reserve Bank Reforms 2023 bill appeared first on The Australia Institute.

They charge exorbitant fees for access to research that the public funds. The global momentum toward a free open access model is gaining traction, but Australia lags behind.

This paper looks at several changes that could stop public funds from being funnelled to the oligopoly of academic publishers.

Key Findings:

Key findings:

• More than three quarters of Tasmanians support a new, fit for purpose anti-corruption commission.
• 69% of Tasmanians support reducing inshore salmon sites, compared to 22% who oppose.
• 58% of voters support a ban on rent increases above the rate of inflation, compared to 32% who oppose a ban.
• 57% of Tasmanians support banning political donations from the gambling, salmon farming and property development industries.
• 57% of Tasmanians are opposed to the Liberal Government’s plan to make 40,000 hectares of native forest available for logging.
• Only among Liberal voters do more support (70%) than oppose (23%) the proposal (73% of Labor, 96% of Greens, 65% of Jacqui Lambie Network, 77% of independent and 50% of other voters opposed to the proposal).

The post Polling – Tasmanian Election Issues appeared first on The Australia Institute.

However, further changes are needed to ensure that appointments to the ART are open and free from political influence.

The post Inquiry into the ART bills appeared first on The Australia Institute.

Key Findings:

• Three in four Australians (76%) support the federal government legislating a right to disconnect.
• One in nine Australians (11%) oppose legislating a right to disconnect.
• A majority of Australians across all voting intentions support legislating a right to disconnect (61% to 90%).

The post Polling – Right to Disconnect appeared first on The Australia Institute.

The Fair Work Commission’s Review of Modern Awards 2023-24 is considering the impact of workplace relations settings on work and care. This submission argues for good quality, secure part-time jobs to achieve more gender-equitable sharing of care and to support women’s full economic participation.

The post Submission to the Fair Work Commission Modern Award Review 2023-2024, Work and Care appeared first on The Australia Institute.

Key findings:

• The Liberal party is on 37.1% of the first preference vote; Labor on 23.0%; followed by the Greens on 13.7%, Jacqui Lambie Network on 8.5%, Independents on 12.8%, and Other on 5.0%
• Almost half (46%) of Tasmanian voters say the state is generally heading in the wrong direction. One in three (36%) say it is heading in the right direction
• When asked which of three senior Liberal parliamentarians would negotiate with the crossbench most effectively, Premier Jeremy Rockliff was chosen by only 39.4% of survey respondents, while 42.3% didn’t know or weren’t sure.
• When asked which of three senior Labor parliamentarians would negotiate with the crossbench most effectively, Opposition Leader Rebecca White was chosen by 31.2% against 41.8% who didn’t know or weren’t sure.
• Labor voters overwhelmingly believe White would negotiate better than Anita Dow or Dean Winter (59%, 9% and 16% respectively).

The post Polling – Tasmanian State Election 2024 appeared first on The Australia Institute.

In accordance with the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety (Aged Care Royal Commission) the proposed scheme includes a requirement for attainment of a Certificate III qualification and engagement in ongoing training or continuing professional development (CPD).

The post Professionalising the Aged Care Workforce appeared first on The Australia Institute.

The NSW planning system approves coal mines and other projects with damaging climate impacts almost by default. Part of the reason for this is the economic assessments of major projects that are commissioned by project proponents. These assessments invariably overstate project benefits and understate costs to the community. Improved public service capacity and governance of consultants could improve these outcomes.

The post Submission: NSW Planning system and the impacts of climate change appeared first on The Australia Institute.

The Victorian FOI system receives more FOIs than any other jurisdiction but is failing to make decisions within the statutory timeframe, has a growing backlog and high numbers of complaints about delays.

The post Submission: Inquiry into the operation of the Freedom of Information Act 1982 appeared first on The Australia Institute.

The Australia Institute surveyed a nationally representative sample of 1,017 Australians about a proposed levy on fossil fuel exports. 508 respondents were asked whether they would support a levy of $1 per tonne of emissions (raising around $1.5 billion per year) and 509 whether they would support a levy of $20 per tonne (raising around $30 billion per year).

The results show that more than twice as many Australians support a levy as oppose it, regardless of its size.

• Half of Australians support a levy, regardless of whether it is set at $1 per tonne (52% support) or $20 per tonne (also 52% support).
• One in five Australians oppose a levy, regardless of whether it is set at $1 per tonne (20% oppose) or $20 per tonne (21% oppose).
• One in four Australians do not know if they support or oppose a levy, again regardless of the level it is set at (27% for both).

The post Polling – Fossil fuel levy appeared first on The Australia Institute.

The margin of error is +/- 3.9%.

Respondents were asked whether they support or oppose the Albanese Government’s changes to the Stage 3 tax cuts.

• Two in three (66%) Dunkley residents support the Albanese Government’s changes to the Stage 3 tax cuts.
• About one in three respondents (28%) oppose the Albanese Government’s changes.

The post Polling: Stage 3 Tax Cuts in Dunkley appeared first on The Australia Institute.

Respondents were asked whether they support or oppose the Albanese Government’s changes to the Stage 3 tax cuts.

• In each electorate, six in 10 respondents (between 62% and 63%) support the Albanese Government’s changes to the Stage 3 tax cuts.
• About one in three respondents (between 31% and 36%) oppose the Albanese Government’s changes

The post Polling: Stage 3 Tax Cuts in Kooyong, Mackellar and Wentworth appeared first on The Australia Institute.

National Party electorates will get a larger average benefit than Liberal and Labor electorates. Tasmania, the Northern Territory and South Australia will also see large benefits.

This paper updates Divided Nation which looked at the distribution of the original Stage 3 tax cuts by federal electorates.

In this paper we will compare the electorate distribution of the modified Stage 3 tax cuts with the electoral distribution of the original Stage 3.

The post Benefits of Modifying the Stage 3 Tax Cuts by Electorate appeared first on The Australia Institute.

The science is clear: fish farming in Macquarie Harbour must end to save the skate.

New scientific evidence has resulted in a substantial change in circumstances since the decision that allowed large-scale fish farming. Environment Minister Plibersek should revoke this decision and replace it with one that recognises the clearly unacceptable impacts of this foreign-owned industry that provides few jobs and pays less tax.

The post Save the Skate appeared first on The Australia Institute.

Halfway through the 47th Parliament and the first term of the Albanese Government, four of the recommendations have been implemented in full and another 14 implemented in part or otherwise progressed.

The Albanese Government has advanced other democratic reforms, including a spill of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and the restoration of territory rights on voluntary assisted dying. This is a significant improvement, and a much more substantial rate of change than that seen under the previous Coalition governments.

Despite this welcome progress, much more needs to be done to ensure elections are as fair and representative as they can be, and to make the government more transparent and accountable. This paper identifies 16 “off the shelf” reforms that should be adopted this year, many recommended by parliamentary reviews that considered these issues in detail.

The post The 47th Parliament and the Democracy Agenda appeared first on The Australia Institute.

The survey took place from Tuesday 23 January 2024 to Monday 29 January 2024, on Thursday 25 January the Prime Minister officially announced changes to the stage 3 tax cuts.

The results show that:

• Two in three Australians (65%) think it is more important to adapt economic policy to suit the changing circumstances even if that means breaking an election promise, than keep an election promise regardless of how economic circumstances have changed. Majority support is observed across all age groups, genders, voting intentions, and large states.
• Nearly six in 10 Australians (58%) prefer for the Stage 3 tax cuts to be restructured so middle and low-income earners receive more.
• Restructuring the stage 3 tax cuts is the most preferred option across all age groups, genders, voting intentions, and large states.
• One in six (16%) Australians would prefer to keep the Stage 3 tax cuts in their current form than scrap or restructure them, this includes only one in four (25%) Coalition voters and one in three (32%) people earning over $200,000.

The post Polling: Stage 3 Tax Cuts and Election Promises appeared first on The Australia Institute.

Oslo’s “car-free Livability Programme”

Launched in 2016 as part of Oslo’s climate and energy strategy, the Programme aimed at “handing the urban spaces back to the people” by improving accessibility and liveability.

In recent years the Australian Government has released several plans aimed at reducing the amount of plastic waste. These plans include the 2018 National Waste Policy, the 2019 National Waste Policy Action Plan, the Australian Packaging Covenant, and a goal to recycle or reuse 100% of plastic waste and end plastic pollution by 2040.

What is common to all of these policies is that they focus on recovery, particularly recycling, and not on reducing the production and consumption of plastics in the first place.

The inexorable increase in the growth in plastics waste shows that existing policies are not working. Existing approaches to dealing with plastic waste – including energy recovery (using it for fuel), composting, and recycling – are not making a significant contribution to reducing the amount of plastic waste that is created. Only about 15% of all plastic waste generated over the last 20 years has been recovered through recycling, composting or energy recovery.

These forms of plastic waste recovery have not kept pace with consumption and waste because they are difficult and costly, and unlikely to ever match current levels of plastic waste.

If Australia is to turn the tide on plastics waste, more effective policies that reduce production and consumption are needed.

The post Plastic waste in Australia appeared first on The Australia Institute.

PALM visa holders are permitted to work in occupations classified as low-skilled, semi-skilled or unskilled, and the majority work in agriculture or meat processing. PALM visa applicants are sponsored by an ‘Approved Employer’ who is entitled to make wage deductions for costs including travel, accommodation and visa processing fees.

Workers must obtain written permission to leave their Approved Employer and switch between Approved Employers. These conditions, coupled with problems ensuring the enforcement of minimum wages and the provision of enough working hours to earn a decent wage, have led to reports of underpayment, and of people on PALM visas running away from their Approved Employer.

The conditions of the visa, coupled with long-standing issues with the agricultural sector (in which most PALM workers are employed), make it essential to ensure that PALM workers are given proper working rights and that these rights are protected.

This paper calculates the size of the PALM visa program and discusses what is necessary to reduce the exploitation of temporary workers involved.

The post The PALM Scheme appeared first on The Australia Institute.

The Australia Institute finds that an Army Reserves model could offer benefits including medical support, tax incentives, and financial compensation to Australia’s predominantly volunteer bush firefighters, helping bolster the capability and resilience of volunteer firefighting efforts.

The post Bush Firefighter Reserves? appeared first on The Australia Institute.

There is also the risk that voluntary schemes weaken the argument for government regulation and mandatory standards for emissions disclosure and management. This is particularly worrying when voluntary commitments are being encouraged by the government itself, as is the case in Australia. Climate Active appears to be an attempt by the Australian Government to avoid holding the private sector to account, rather than a complementary measure to robust regulation.

To date, Climate Active has played a significant role facilitating greenwash in Australia by promoting fossil fuel companies and large polluters as ‘climate active’ and neglecting to ensure the veracity of carbon offsets being bought by its members. This is even after numerous independent investigations have found them to be fraudulent. Climate Active has undermined the credibility of its own brand and undermined consumer confidence. The scheme has diminished the credibility of its members who have acted in good faith, both by failing to ensure robust claims, and a willingness to certify businesses who clearly are not ‘climate active’.

That assessment is contained in an article contained in a new special issue of the Journal of Australian Political Economy (JAPE), evaluating the government’s record on a range of issues halfway through its term. The special issue of JAPE was published on 18 December, and was edited by Prof Emeritus Frank Stilwell at the University of Sydney.

The article reviewing the government’s labour policies was co-authored by several staff at the Centre for Future Work, including Greg Jericho, Charlie Joyce, Fiona Macdonald, David Peetz, and Jim Stanford. It considers the impacts of several government initiatives, including:

The first is that self-employment is inexorably growing. The second is that self-employment cannot, or should not, be regulated in order to protect self-employed workers and improve the conditions of their work.

This new report from the Carmichael Centre at the Centre for Future Work shows that, in reality, self-employment is not growing inexorably — in fact, in most countries (including Australia) it is declining.

The much-trumpeted surge in self-employment and ‘freelancing’ is a myth. However, the nature of self-employment is changing: fewer self-employed people are running successful independent businesses, and more are engaged in precarious ‘solo’ activities like short-term contracting and part-time ‘gig’ work.

The report also shows that some forms of self-employment can be regulated to protect affected workers, provided two simple and important criteria are satisfied: the workers are vulnerable and hence need protection, and a viable mechanism exists that enables their work to be efficiently regulated.

The report reviews the proposed provisions of the second part of the federal government’s new Closing Loopholes legislation, which would allow for minimum labour standards to be applied to digital platform workers and owner-operators in the transportation sector. The new legislation (to be considered in Parliament in 2024) is an appropriate and effective response to the challenges facing these two groups of ‘gig’ workers.

With the passage of the Restoring Territory Rights Act through the Commonwealth Parliament in December 2022, the ACT at last became able to legislate on this issue. After almost 20 years – during which time every state in Australia has legalised voluntary assisted dying (VAD) – terminally ill Canberrans will soon also be able to exercise their right to choose to end their life with compassion and dignity.

The Australia Institute supported the Restoring Territory Rights Act, and has long advocated for VAD as a human right, and for the right of the ACT and Northern Territory to legislate VAD. With this submission we add our support to the passage of the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill 2023, and offer some suggestions for how the bill could be improved.

The post Ensuring equitable access to Voluntary Assisted Dying appeared first on The Australia Institute.

The Australia Institute recommends including the following commitments and targets in the final ERRP:

1. Set a transport sector emissions reduction target of a 37% reduction on 2020 levels by 2030.
2. Commence an e-bike library trial in Tasmanian towns.
3. Introduce a grant program to support businesses to switch to cargo e-bikes.
4. Set a target of 67% of new passenger vehicle sales to be EVs by 2030, and 100% by 2035.
5. Commit to introducing stamp-duty and registration waivers to incentivise EV uptake, as well as introducing more equitable and incentivising purchase-price incentives than the current rebate.
6. Include a target of 100% of new bus purchases being electric by 2025, and 100% of the bus fleet being electric by 2030.
7. Increase public transport accessibility to 49% by making public transport services cheaper, more frequent and more reliable in both urban and non-urban areas.
8. Commit to developing Hobart’s northern suburbs railway, between Bridgewater and the CBD.
9. Develop an online reporting platform to track emissions from Tasmania’s transport sector.

The post Submission to Tasmania’s draft Transport Emissions Reduction and Resilience Plan appeared first on The Australia Institute.

• The results show:
  Seven in 10 Australians (71%) do not know the Federal Government funds a
  program in which people providing pastoral care services to students are hired
  on the basis of religion.
• Two in three Australians (66%) agree that pastoral care workers should be
  employed on the basis of qualifications and experience only, and not be
  required to have the endorsement of a religious group (18% disagree).
• Over half of Australians (56%) support their state or territory hiring pastoral
  support workers directly – rather than through a third-party agency – which
  may impose religious belief or faith conditions on employment.
  • More Australians don’t know or are unsure (28%) than disagree with the
    proposal (16%).

The post Polling: School Chaplains appeared first on The Australia Institute.

The submission draws the Reference Group’s attention to Australia Institute research on the important advocacy role played by the not-for-profit sector.

The post Not-for-Profit Sector Development Blueprint appeared first on The Australia Institute.

The estimated value of this waste is $921 million.

Unwanted and unused Christmas gifts and food ultimately end up in landfill, increasing the greenhouse gas emissions that drive the climate crisis. But this research shows nearly half of Australians (48%) would prefer it if people did not buy them Christmas presents. Less than one in two Australians (46%) consider how the gifts they purchase will eventually be disposed of.

These results suggest that it could be time for a change in consumer habits. Buying fewer unwanted Christmas presents would be a positive outcome for the environment and for consumers. Fewer items would be wasted and sent to landfill, and millions of Australians would save money at Christmas time.

The post Christmas Waste 2023 appeared first on The Australia Institute.