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Today the Business Council of Australia released its “Regulation Rumble 2024 report” which ranked Victoria as the worst state to do business. And yet when we examine the actual business investment figures from the Bureau of Statistics, it is clear private business investment in Victoria is actually growing more strongly in that state than almost anywhere else in Australia.

The discrepancy between what the BCA argues and what the data says is due to the reasons behind the BCA’s report. Notionally the report is designed to rank the states in order of places to do business. In reality, it is designed to pressure state governments to reduce taxes and regulations in order to increase the profits of companies.

This is made clear by the criteria – the BCA noted that it “examined planning systems, payroll taxes, property taxes and charges, retail trading hours, workers compensation premiums and licences to do business”. That is, anything that costs businesses is bad regardless of the impact it might have on the community through perhaps better services funded by state revenue.  It concluded that South Australia was the best place to do business and that “this was largely driven by it having lower payroll taxes, lower property charges and less voluminous business licensing.”

The BCA has a very clever media strategy, and its report got wide coverage.

Our latest article, entitled ‘The Dialectical Matrix of Class, Gender, Race’ published in Environment and Planning F, goes beyond intersectional studies on the themes of class, gender, and race to assert Marxist dialectics in the analysis of capitalist, patriarchal, and racial forms of oppression. Understanding the ways in which these forms are internally related is of utmost importance, considering heightened global tensions within the polycrisis reflected in the conditions characteristic of genocide in Gaza; or the wider global femicide; or the intensifying crisis of global capitalism.

Building on a previous article in Environment and Planning A, our more recent article assesses wider contributions within and between Marxism Feminism and Black Marxism to elevate consideration of the structural relationships between gender oppression, racial discrimination, and capitalism.

On this episode of After America, Zoe Daniel MP, Independent Member for Goldstein and former foreign correspondent, joins Dr Emma Shortis to talk about the incoming Trump administration, Australia’s relationships with the United States and China, and the role of independent politicians in Australian defence and foreign policy-making.

This discussion was recorded on Thursday 28 November and things may have changed since recording.

Order What’s the Big Idea? 32 Big Ideas for a Better Australia now, via the Australia Institute website.

Guest: The Hon Zoe Daniel MP, Independent Member for Goldstein // @zoedaniel

Host: Emma Shortis, Director of International & Security Affairs, the Australia Institute // @EmmaShortis

Show notes:

Greetings from Trumpland: How an unprecedented presidency changed everything by Zoe Daniel and Roscoe Whalan (March 2021)

Theme music: Blue Dot Sessions

After attacks on the trans community in the wake of the election, Riki Wilchins takes a look at the actual data.

“This organisation is making a profound contribution to public policy in our country.”
The Hon Clare O’Neil MP, Minister for Housing and Homelessness

Read our 2024 Impact Report here

Per Capita’s research and relentless advocacy over many years has secured many progressive policy changes this year across tax, gender equality, industry policy, education, housing, responsible technology and progressive economics:

Stage 3 tax cuts
The government changed these to be fairer in January after our years of advocacy.

Super on parental leave
Superannuation will now be paid on government-funded parental leave. We have been calling for this since 2017.

Future Made in Australia
The government’s proposed industry policy closely aligns with recommendations from our Centre for New Industry around decarbonising and diversifying Australia’s industry.

Paid student placements
Social work students will now be paid for their mandatory 1000 placement hours following our report and advocacy.

At the moment numerous media outlets are attempting to make the case that the Victorian government’s finances are in a parlous state.  The Financial Review for example has editorialised “Allan and Pallas in denial about Victoria’s state of decline”, while The Age stated as though it was an uncontested fact that “The state’s finances are heading towards a cliff.”

The media like to point to Victoria’s debt and deficit but they do so by including government fixed capital investment in the deficit. This might seem to the layperson as perfectly reasonable, but it is not how accounting works in the private sector and it presents a distorted picture of the state of the budget.

Including capital investment in a similar manner would, for example, see BHP’s 2024 profit drop from its declared US$20.7 billion to a marginal US$0.2 billion. Many other profitable companies would be in deficit were their budgets measured in the same way that now has the media suggesting the Victorian state finances are in deep trouble.

In 2022-23 (the latest year of ABS data), Victoria’s general government sector actually made a profit (net cash flow from operating activities) of $4.0 billion. Victoria’s budget papers also show a $1.4 billion surplus from operating activities in 2023-24.

The Vulnerability to Extreme Heat report identifies locations across Australia which have a high likelihood of experiencing extreme heat and a high concentration of people who are vulnerable because of illness, age and/or income level.

It finds that wealthy, coastal areas of major cities are generally less vulnerable to extreme heat than inland suburbs, and that rural areas are generally more vulnerable than urban areas.

Extreme heat is the number one cause of weather-related illness and death in all parts of Australia, except Tasmania, and Australians on low incomes who are older and/or have a long-term health issue are more vulnerable to the effects of extreme heat.

Doctors for the Environment Australia say the research is a vital tool which will help governments to save lives.

Tasmanian parliamentary pay frozen

Tasmanian MPs’ rate of pay has been frozen since 2018. Before then the base salary of Tasmanian members of parliament increased annually. It was last increased in July 2018 to $140,185 per year.

Figure 1: Members of parliament base rate of pay 1996-97 to 2023-24

Introduction

A collection of guides and toolkits for civil society organisations on how to counter disinformation collated by the Commons Librarians.

A comic based on trans news stories from the month of November 2024.

by Piper Bly

Bathrooms, bathrooms, bathrooms! Where’s a girl to go piss when all the guys in suits are so pissed at me?

On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Greg and Elinor discuss Trump’s wild new tariff announcement and the end of the standoff between Labor and the Greens over housing.

This discussion was recorded on Wednesday 27 November 2024 and things may have changed since recording.

Pre-order What’s the Big Idea? 32 Big Ideas for a Better Australia now, via the Australia Institute website.

Host: Greg Jericho, Chief Economist, the Australia Institute and Centre for Future Work // @grogsgamut

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

Show notes:

‘Welcome to Trump’s trade war – where no one wins because everyone just pays more for things’ by Greg Jericho, Guardian Australia (November 2024)

Theme music: Blue Dot Sessions

For years politicians have been rolling out policies they claim will make housing more affordable. And for years housing affordability has continued to get worse. Housing needs to become cheaper and instead it is becoming more expensive.

You might expect that our politicians would be concerned by the fact that all their policies fail. Instead, the government rammed two new housing affordability bills through the parliament yesterday which are more of the same.

The best you can say about the government’s two new policies is that they will have no impact on the housing market.

The list of policies that both sides of politics have claimed will fix the problem is long. First home buyer grants, government support for social and affordable housing, first home buyers accessing super to buy a home, plus many, many more.

All the while anger is growing as house prices keep rising.

There are two things you can do to make something cheaper. You can increase supply or decrease demand. Or both. If there is a bumper crop of apples (more supply), then the price of apples goes down. When fewer people wanted to buy DVDs (less demand) the price of DVDs went down.

The first problem is many of these policies don’t increase supply or decrease demand. In fact, some of them do the opposite.

The various first-home-buyer grants gave first-home buyers more money to buy a house (increase demand). They all show up the auction and bid up the price of homes making them more expensive.

Thousands of voters have signed a petition, launched by The Australia Institute, demanding a public inquiry into the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Reform) Bill.

The changes would significantly benefit Labor and the Coalition, giving them a huge financial advantage over independents and minor party candidates seeking a seat in the Australian Parliament.

The Australia Institute petition, launched just over a week ago, states:

Trust in our democracy is embedded in strong electoral laws and processes.

The Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Reform) Bill risks undermining this trust by being unfair, rushed, and shrouded in secrecy.

We call on you to immediately establish a parliamentary inquiry, with public hearings, to assess the proposed changes to Australia’s electoral laws.

This must happen before major changes to Australian electoral law are put to Parliament for a vote.

The petition has attracted more than 18,000 signatures.

In the past, even small changes to our electoral system have been scrutinised by a parliamentary committee. Petitioners agree that should happen before these proposed changes are passed.

“The integrity of Australian elections is too important for the Albanese government’s proposed changes to be rushed through without scrutiny, including a thorough parliamentary inquiry,” said Bill Browne, Director of the Australia Institute’s Democracy & Accountability Program.

Endangered Maugean skate and its only home, Macquarie Harbour, are matters of national environmental significance and protected under national environmental law. One third of the harbour is World Heritage and Maugean skate, an endangered stingray-like animal, are one of the natural values of Tasmania’s Wilderness World Heritage Area.

Scientific evidence shows salmon farming operations are the primary risk and ‘almost certain’ to be ‘catastrophic’ to the skate.

The Australia Institute commissioned polling by Dynata, which surveyed a nationally representative sample of 1,009 Australians between 13 and 15 November 2024 about their attitudes towards fish farming in Macquarie Harbour where it is putting the endangered Maugean skate at risk of extinction. The margin of error is ±3%.

This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

The years of war and terror imposed upon the Middle East have left its people, as Jordan Elgrably tells host Chris Hedges, “tired of saying that [they’re] human too.” In this episode of The Chris Hedges Report, Elgrably discusses the stories that remind English-speaking Western readers of the humanity behind those from this often misunderstood and misrepresented region.

Discount Biff Tannen and evil buffoon Donald Trump may issue a second, even worse ban on transgender Americans serving their country.