Ideas@TheCentre

Population pessimism is unfounded – and irresponsible

Australia’s population is growing, whether you like it or not. But in dealing with it, nothing would be more irresponsible than pessimism. The challenge is not to stop population growth but to find practical solutions to accommodate it. [...]

Celebrate tax freedom while you can

Australia is on a slippery slope of becoming more like European countries. If the government continues to spend big and finance it through deficits, the future tax burden may have to rise substantially to pay for a growing debt burden. [...]

Coming apart

For a society of free individuals to work, or to at least avoid social conflict, there needs to be some common ethical ground. This is being eroded by the welfare state for the underclass. Meanwhile, at least parts of the upper class have apparently decided they can get further without sticking to traditional rules of behaviour. [...]

Wasteful energy

Australia is trying to return the budget to surplus, so a saving of $10 billion would be handy. But blinded by activism and without a sense of economic logic, Australia is bound to waste both money and energy. [...]

Slow justice damaging political culture

The wheels of justice grind slowly, but perhaps even more so in Australia. Comparing the speed of Fair Work Australia’s investigation into Labor backbencher Craig Thomson to a snail’s pace is unfair to common molluscs. [...]

Who needs a car industry anyway?

Holden’s outrageous pay deal is just the tip of an iceberg of wasted subsidies. Australia needs a car industry as much as Germany needs its own black coal mines. [...]

Time to drop the Dick

To the prospective new owners of DSE, drop ‘Dick Smith’ from the business name. Any association with him and his ranting is a liability. Maybe the chain would become profitable once more if customers were not greeted by his face at the stores. [...]

Wrong person for a difficult job

Lagarde was always the wrong choice for the job. The least that countries like Australia should do is vehemently defy her demands for additional contributions to her compromised IMF. [...]

Taking taxpayers for a ride

A car industry is only worth having if it is able to stand on its own feet. Keeping an industry alive for the sake of having an industry is economic folly and a waste of taxpayers’ resources. [...]

Christmas pudding without butter

Milton Friedman once quipped that if you put the government in charge of the Sahara Desert, there would be a shortage of sand within five years. In the very same way, an interventionist and protectionist government can create a staple food shortage even in the most highly developed nation on the planet. [...]