The PM likes to say you can't tax your way to prosperity but a glance at Northern Europe shows economic success can coexist with high taxes and big government.

There are many lessons in the weekend's result for politicians of all stripes.

Where do you draw the line between what the government should cover and what can be left to the generosity – or otherwise – of private citizens?

The air’s been thick with economists making confusing statements on the changes to stage 3 tax cuts.

The Morrison government loses points for underfunding essential government services on the one hand, and, on the other, wasting billions on politically high-profile projects.

The Prime Minister’s Plan to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 is full of . . . hyperbole. A masterpiece of the spin doctor’s art. A document carefully crafted to mislead.

For centuries men have been our economic designers. Now that women are better educated than men and make up 47 per cent of the paid workforce, we have a problem.

The main culprit is not Donald Trump and his trade war but primarily one big and well-known problem inside our economy: five years of weak growth in wages.

The perverse nature of the Prime Minister’s deal with the Nationals has been highlighted in a new study that found the cost of not acting sooner on climate change will be worn most heavily by the...

Australia has the lowest benefits for the short-term unemployed among 34 countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Ministers are relying less on advice from public servants and relying more on the political advisers in their own offices.

The RBA governor, Dr Philip Lowe, is under unprecedented scrutiny, but it’s delusional to think that fixing the inflation problem with “monetary policy” is simply a matter of finding a better person...

Despite what the Treasurer wants you to think this week’s measures and mini-budget aren’t expansionary, they’re contractionary.

Consider this. If you were to contract the coronavirus, in what physical state would you prefer to be at the time – in good health or poor health? It’s the same with economies.

The federal government has run budget deficits in more than 80 per cent of the years since federation.

Whenever the feds leave a policy vacuum, the states fill it – badly. Only leadership by the federal government can make our ramshackle federation work.

The older I get, the more I worry about the nightmare we oldies are leaving for our children and grandchildren. The obvious problem is climate change, but other difficulties are everywhere you look.

It's our young people who'll carry the worst scars of the coronacession.

Most people don't realise it, but we're on the verge of letting foreign multinationals pay less tax on the profits they earn in Australia because we locals don't mind paying higher tax to make up the...

Politicians are motivated far more by the desire to retain office than by any desire to make the world a better place.

Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg are taking both the continuing threat from the coronavirus and the need to restore the economy far too cheaply.

Using immigration to raise our living standards is like trying to go up a down escalator. You have to run just to stop yourself going backwards.

He’s not the first treasurer to be strong on party dogma but light on economic understanding, but he’s among the first to be heading into stormy weather light on expert advice.

It never ceases to surprise me that a prime minister so ready to proclaim his Christian faith is so hard of heart when it comes to people on benefits (age pensioners excepted).

It surprises me that so few of us have joined the dots on our COVID-19 failures.

Despite a remarkable 1.9 per cent fall in CPI in the June quarter, we face no imminent threat of deflation.

Among the many issues needing early attention from the winner of the federal election is universities.

The domestic headwinds we’re suffering are home-grown and all too evidently a sign of poor economic management.

We've been assured since at least 2012 that a return to strong economic growth wasn’t far off. Last week, big cracks emerged in the optimistic facade.

We all have our own mental picture of who’s unemployed. Match your picture against what ACOSS adviser Dr Peter Davidson told the jobs summit.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is having delusions of grandeur if he's suggesting he'll have the courage to attempt anything like the bold reforms attributed to his political heroes.

Economic life – and that’s what economics is, the study of “the ordinary business of life” – has changed hugely while I’ve been in this job.

The Smaller Government brigade has to shoulder the blame for the appalling state of the aged care system.

There is a clear-cut difference between Labor and Liberal this election, all that remains is to answer a threshold question.

Trees do far more for us than help with our greenhouse problem.

A recession is not what happens to gross domestic product in two successive quarters or even half a dozen, it’s what happens to employment.

Unless the federal government does more a lot more, Australia’s economic recovery will be weak and slow.

The nation’s economists have not covered themselves in glory in the present inflationary episode, showing an unwillingness to re-examine their long-held views.

This summer we’ve had our Pearl Harbour moment. Can the Prime Minister show leadership and turn it into a moment of change?

If there’s one thing that annoyed me about 2021, it’s the way we have been aping all things American.

Treasury has made only trivial updates to the most fiscally irresponsible budget since Whitlam.

The Treasurer is disguising the truth that high-income earners are getting much bigger dollar savings than those in other brackets.

It’s right for our elected leaders to be held responsible for coronavirus failures, but systemic failures have also led to governments falling short.

The PM may have looked at our prospective budget deficits and taken fright.

Politicians have been tempting us to put our immediate interests ahead of our offspring’s future – and it’s worked a treat.

Qantas is just the latest and most egregious case of Big Business Behaving Badly.

The most important piece of local economic news was a marker that didn't move an inch.

Economists didn't think it was possible but it turns out the world can be fairer and richer.

No one's more interested in taxation than me, but there's got to be more to this election campaign than claims about which side is high taxing and which low taxing.

The growth in the number of homes has pretty much kept up with population growth in recent decades, meaning a shortage of places to live can’t explain rising house prices.

Of the many stuff-ups during the now-finished era of economic reform, one of the worst is the unending backdoor privatisation of Australia's universities.

The idea that one thing dealt to the hopes of a political party sets fast in the days after an election.

Don’t be taken in by the Morrison government’s outraged cries of “protectionism” against the EU plan to impose a carbon tax on our exports to Europe.

Well-known economists are coming to similar conclusions about the ideas of “neoliberalism”.

As the migrant tap to fill labour shortages is temporarily closed, business’ neglect of investment in training and technical skills has been highlighted.

Sometimes if you really want to help somebody, you do them a favour and don’t do what they ask you to.

The longer you take to realise you must act, the more disruption you end up causing.

The Prime Minister reassures us we have a plan to reach net zero at no perceptible cost to anyone or anything. Funny thing is, it has the feel of Amateur Hour.

Since corporate crime is commercially motivated, much higher fines are needed as a deterrent.

Our leaders use words like 'jobs' and 'tax' in tricky ways.

Trump has helped to deepen America's economic and social woes, but the ever-rising “deaths of despair” among working-class white men reveals divisions had been growing for years.

The nation’s economists are determined to protect us from the scourge of inflation, no matter the cost, but there’s a black hole in their thinking.

Australia has left behind its commitment to decency and the fair go.

The Americans' decision to drop their company tax rate to 21 per cent from the start of next year is unlikely to overcome our Senate's resistance to cutting our company tax rate to 25 per cent for...

Big business seems to be going through the stages of grief. Now it’s reached denial.

Despite expectations from some economists, the case for an interest rate rise on Melbourne Cup day is weak and could unduly punish homeowners for issues beyond our control.

We're turning the people who are supposed to be the chief beneficiaries of a good economy into those who must suffer to bring the good economy about.

How can it be so hard to ensure the continued survival of such an important river system which underpins the livelihoods of 2.6 million people?

A culture has developed that business’ contribution to the economy is so heroic that behaving with honour and even obeying penny-fogging laws is optional.

Until we’ve fixed our chronic weak wage growth problem, we’re likely to see weak economic growth.

The Liberals can get elected with no policy, but Labor only wins when it makes the case for change.

Immigration is not the answer to lifting our living standards and won’t help limit the damage being done to the environment.