Issue Analysis
Issue Analysis (IA) are shorter publications that deal with controversial and current issues.
Categories
Overcoming a Culture of Low Expectations
The most important thing we can do to encourage disadvantaged Australians into work – including people with disabilities, children in jobless families, and Indigenous people living in remote communities... Read More
Defeating Dependency: Moving Disability Support Pensioners Into Jobs
The focus of welfare reform efforts should be on encouraging some of the 750,000 existing disability support pensioners back into work. Read More
What’s Next for Welfare-to-Work?
When jobs are hard to find, the incentive for unemployed people to move to other welfare payments such as DSP grows. There is a real danger that rising unemployment could undo the recent gains in reducing... Read More
Million Dollar Babies: Paid Parental Leave and Family Policy Reform
Support for the introduction of paid parental leave has been so vocal that rather than being a means to an end, paid parental leave has become the end itself. Evidence-based policy has been sidelined... Read More
Baby Steps Toward Self-Funded Parental Leave
The debate about increasing the aged pension highlights the fact that, once again, government handouts lead to increasing burdens on taxpayers. When considering a government-funded paid maternity leave... Read More
A Whiff of Compassion? The Attack on Mutual Obligation
The Rudd government is planning to water down the existing work requirements and mutual obligation policies that have helped unemployed people find jobs. Read More
What are Low Ability Workers To Do When Unskilled Jobs Disappear? Part 2
Despite low unemployment, working-age welfare dependency remains high, partly because demand for unskilled labour is in decline. Instead of more government spending on education and training, we need to... Read More
What are Low Ability Workers To Do When Unskilled Jobs Disappear? Part 1
Nearly two million working-age people are on welfare benefits. The fall in the unemployment figures has disguised a displacement of jobless people into other benefits like the Disability Pension and Parenting... Read More
A Welfare State for Those Who Want One, Opts-outs for Those Who Don't
A system of welfare state opt-outs will help increase people’s independence from government and reverse the unrelenting growth of public spending. Under the scheme, people who want to pay higher taxes... Read More
Twenty Million Future Funds
The government’s claim that we need a Future Fund to pay for public servants’ superannuation is bogus. In fact, the Future Fund should be denationalised and the money distributed into individual savings... Read More
Six Arguments in Favour of Self-Funding
The welfare state served us well in the past but is decreasingly relevant to current conditions. It came into existence to provide health care, education, and income security which people needed but could... Read More
Clearing Muddy Waters: Why Vinnies are Wrong on Inequality
A recent St Vincent de Paul Society report claimed income inequality in Australia is dramatically widening. CIS suggested the report was grossly exaggerated. The authors of the report responded by telling... Read More
A Headlong Dash into the Chasm of Hyperbole
The St Vincent de Paul Society’s recent paper, The Reality of Income Inequality in Australia, warns of Australia’s ‘current headlong dash into the chasm of inequality,’ basing its claims about... Read More
Papua New Guinea’s Choice: A Tale of Two Nations
The recent withdrawal of the Australian police is disastrous for the people of Papua New Guinea. The police deployed under the Enhanced Cooperation Programme had only been in place for six months, but... Read More
Lessons from the Tiwi Islands: The Need for Radical Improvement in Remote Aboriginal Communities
The governance structures created during the last 30 years for remote Aboriginal communities are so dysfunctional that the many millions of dollars that have been channelled into various programmes for... Read More
The $85 Billion Tax/Welfare Churn
Given the government’s newly-won control of the Senate, most attention is focused primarily on the next 18 months, but it is important to think longer term about the kind of tax and welfare systems we... Read More
A New Deal for Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in Remote Communities
A New Deal for Aborigines: Private property rights, educational reform, health care privatisation, and the application of the rule of law are urgently needed in Australia’s remote communities if Aborigines... Read More
The Pacific is Viable!
Whilst all is relatively quiet in the Pacific, there is still no growth. With aid runing at more than $1.5 billion a year to cushion the effects of stagnation, Pacific governments continue to opt for inaction.... Read More
Only 18%? Why ACOSS is Wrong to be Complacent about Welfare Dependency
A new report from the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) accepts that welfare dependency among working age Australians has reached 18% but denies this is a problem. It says that Australia still... Read More
Why We Must Reform the Disability Support Pension
There has been a big increase in people claiming the Disability Support Pension (DSP) although at least half of the claimants are capable of holding down a job. A large part of the increase in DSP numbers... Read More
Lies, Damned Lies and the Senate Poverty Inquiry Report
A recent Senate Report claims that ‘poverty’ in Australia is widespread and has been getting worse is ‘seriously flawed’ and its use of evidence is ‘partial and selective.’ Its treatment of... Read More
How Union Campaigns on Hours and Casuals are Threatening Low-skilled Jobs
For several years now Australian unions have been waging campaigns to limit working hours and the growth in casual employment in the name of improving workers’ well-being. Yet these campaigns are little... Read More
How To Reduce Long Term Unemployment
More than half the people claiming unemployment allowances in Australia have been on benefits for more than a year. Introducing a six-month time limit on unemployment benefits could dramatically reduce... Read More
The Tender Trap: Reducing Long-Term Welfare Dependency by Reforming the Parenting Payment System
Moving single parents whose children are at school off welfare and into work is a key component of a broader strategy to eradicate poverty since joblessness is the biggest cause of poverty. It is essential... Read More
Is the ‘Earnings Credit’ the Best Way to Cut the Dole Queues?
The 'earnings credit' proposed by the 'Five Economists' in 1998 will not sufficiently decrease joblessness in Australia, and may in fact encourage welfare dependency. The 'earnings credit' – a tax break... Read More
Michael in a Muddle: Michael Pusey’s Bungled Attack on Economic Reform
Andrew Norton reveals many serious errors of fact and logic in his detailed critique of Michael Pusey's new book, The Experience of Middle Australia: The Dark Side of Economic Reform. The main thrust of... Read More
Aid Has Failed the Pacific
The Pacific islands are an arc of instability threatening Australia’s security. While current problems are of considerable strategic concern to Australia, the principal victims are the people of the... Read More
Poor Statistics: Getting the Facts Right About Poverty in Australia
Some welfare organisations suggest that poverty statistics are unimportant and that the CIS critique of the Smith Family’s figures was a distraction from the real business of tackling poverty. But the... Read More
Poor Arguments: A Response to the Smith Family Report on Poverty in Australia
The welfare lobby, including The Smith Family and NATSEM, continues to inflate poverty statistics to advance a political agenda of income redistribution. The Smith Family report claimed that one in eight... Read More
Playing with Fire: Churches, Welfare Services and Government Contracts
Striking a balance between state funding and religious autonomy is the latest challenge for church-based welfare agencies. Church-based welfare agencies risk losing their autonomy if they accept government... Read More
