Research reports

By international standards, New Zealand has one of the world’s most centralised forms of government. In other OECD economies, local government runs health and police services, accounts for the majority of public investment, and typically controls a third of public spending. In New Zealand, by contrast, local government has traditionally been small and weak in comparison with central government.

In WHY vs WHY™ Big Australia, we pit opposing writers against each other, Jessica Brown & Oliver Hartwich (YES) vs Mark O’Connor (NO). They go head-to-head, each side presenting 7 key reasons why you should say yes/no to Big Australia.

After each side presents their arguments, the opponent then tries to tear each of them apart, both in the book & on this website (with further rebuttals). For readers, we aim to leave nothing unanswered.

Does Europe’s crisis have the potential to derail the Australian economy? How can the European crisis spread to Australia? And are there opportunities for Australia amid the European catastrophe?

The federal government’s plans to establish a Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) should be scrapped. As a commercially oriented company, it competes with private investors. As a company with a public mandate, it nevertheless aims to serve a public policy goal. These dual purposes are hard to reconcile.

Government influences price levels in more ways than is immediately apparent. Through its direct and indirect interventions in the market, government is one of the most important price drivers in Australia and responsible for the rising cost of living. To make life more affordable, government needs to remove regulatory obstacles.

In 2009, CIS Research Fellows Robert Carling and Dr Oliver Marc Hartwich predicted sovereign debt troubles on both sides of the Atlantic at a CIS event called ‘Trans-Atlantic Fiscal Follies.’ In August 2011, they were joined by CIS Research Fellow Adam Creighton to discuss the future for those countries buckling under their sovereign debt obligations. How much worse is it going to get? And does it have to get worse before it gets better? Will the dollar survive as the lead currency? Will the euro survive at all? Will gold continue to rise? And what’s the endgame of government debt?

A growing population presents us with challenges and opportunities. Population growth, and the skilled migration that fuels it, helps our economy grow – giving us the resources to support our ageing population, build better infrastructure, and protect our environment. A growing, pluralistic society makes us socially richer too.

Australia is one of the most multicultural countries in the world. Almost a quarter of the population was born abroad; almost half have at least one parent born overseas. It is remarkable that this high degree of diversity has not led to social segregation. On the contrary, Australia’s migrants are extremely well-integrated by international standards.