Australia’s federal government has been hollowed out in recent decades. But states can – and still do – deliver. That’s why they are the main drivers of climate action.
- Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland
The deal is a global aspiration, not a legally binding agreement. But it should end the idea that burning carbon – in Australia and elsewhere – can continue on a significant scale beyond 2050.
Australia’s latest climate change statement shows we have little hope of reaching net zero emissions by 2050. There’s good news on the 2030 target, but then what?
Taxing electric vehicles was always a bad idea. But the High Court’s ruling against Victoria’s law could make state-based road user charges impossible.
The argument that “if we don’t sell it, someone else will” works for the street-level drug dealing. Coal exports are different – and here’s how.
Put to the test in the past two years, the idea of a “natural” rate of unemployment has failed. There’s no need to push unemployment up to any particular rate to bring down inflation.
While Australia must make some hard choices to pay for services in the future, increasing the goods and services tax is just too hard.
The financial impacts of an ageing Australia aren’t particularly worrisome, but we’ve been worrying for decades.
20 years ago, solar and wind were expensive enough to make nuclear seem like an option for Australia. With cheap renewables a reality, there’s simply no point to domestic nuclear.
Australia’s former chief scientist argues that the transition to clean energy is economically manageable and will ultimately yield benefits.
We shouldn’t let controversy over the approval of one small, short-lived mine distract from more consequential decisions looming on coal.
Most publicly funded stadium projects are boondoggles. The Hobart AFL stadium is worse than that.
The Albanese government’s attempt to sell the AUKUS nuclear submarine plan as a job-creation program is bad economics.
For average Australians, the stagnation of real wages has been the most tangible manifestation of the failure of neoliberalism. Yet “wages” are only mentioned four times in Chalmers’ Monthly essay.
Known as parallel importing, importing goods directly from overseas suppliers lowers costs and increases supply, which is what Australia’s electric vehicle market needs to catch up with the world.
Victorian Labor started the process of privatising electricity assets. Now Premier Daniel Andrews says it was a mistake.
By sticking to a tax-cut plan made in 2018, the Albanese government must choose between debt and services.
Labor MP Daniel Mulino argues that the capacity of the state to undertake income redistribution has reached its limits, but that the need for social insurance continues to grow.
The landmark change places Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies under immense pressure to follow suit.
Opposition from vested interests – including oil refineries and the car dealership industry – has held Australia back on fuel efficiency. The onus is now on the Albanese government to intervene.
Our research provides no support for the existence of a wage-price spiral. That means is no case for cutting real wages to fight inflation.
Labor won’t concede to the Greens’ core demands on the bill, but a climate “trigger” on new developments could ensure the bill has real force.
How Sri Lanka ran out of foreign currency to pay for imports is a story of fiscal imprudence, unsustainable exchange rate policy and chronic mismanagement.
It’s time for a national grid that serves the public and meets the challenges of a warming world. A new government-owned and operated body should take control of Australia’s electricity system.
Renewed interest in nuclear energy will go nowhere unless we talk about carbon pricing. As energy minister Chris Bowen points out, nuclear is extremely expensive.
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