Issue Analysis
Issue Analysis (IA) are shorter publications that deal with controversial and current issues.
Categories
The Importance of Teacher Quality
When all other sources of variation in performance are taken into account – including socioeconomic background and differences between schools – the most important sources of variation in student achievement...... 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
Public Education in New South Wales: Submission to the ‘Vinson’ Inquiry
The most effective way of improving school performance without increasing recurrent funding is to enable schools to respond to the needs of their students, using their own experience and expertise, and...... Read More
Towards Racial Harmony: A New Constitution for Fiji
A new constitution that decentralises collective political power is the best way to achieve stability in Fiji by empowering Fijians to devise solutions for the variety of complex problems they now face. ... Read More
Breaking the Trade Stalemate: What Are Australia’s Options?
Australia’s best hope of long-term trade liberalisation lies in signing a free trade agreement with the United States. Preferential liberalisation of trade may be the only way to break the present stalemate...... Read More
School Funding for All: Making Sense of the Debate over Dollars
Public debate over school funding is characterised by misinformation and misunderstanding, making any agreement or compromise unlikely. Jennifer Buckingham explains the current funding system (who gets...... Read More
Code of Silence: Public Reporting of School Performance
The refusal of state governments to release any comparative school data means the public and parents are powerless to combat bad schools and bad teachers.... Read More
Setting the Record Straight: Free Trade and the WTO
By allowing social issues into the WTO agenda using tenuous links to trade policy, the WTO Council has placed the organisation at the vanguard of political skirmishing over globalisation.... 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
The Truth about Private Schools in Australia
The evidence strongly suggests that private schools offer their students something that goes beyond financial resources and family background. Contributing factors could be the quality and dedication...... Read More
Degrees of Difficulty: The Labour Market Problems of Arts and Social Science Graduates
That the Australian higher education system is comprehensively rigged against students is evident from the current oversupply of graduates in the humanities and social sciences and its impact on their...... Read More
Trailing the Class: Sole Parent Families and Educational Disadvantage
The association between family structure and educational performance has been the focus of much research in recent years. It seems that a child’s education is often one of the casualties of family instability...... Read More
Shooting the Messenger: A Critique of Australia’s Internet Content Regulation Regime
With the expansion of the Internet into society, media reports of pornography, paedophiles and racist web sites have induced government regulatory measures across the globe. This Issue Analysis studies how...... Read More
The Puzzle of Boys’ Educational Decline: A Review of the Evidence
Although research has attempted to explain the decline in boy's performance at school, lack of empirical evidence has precluded conclusions to date and tends to raise more questions than it answers.... Read More
Noble Ends Flawed Means: The Case Against Debt-Forgiveness
Plans by the World Bank and the IMF to relieve Third World debt would have dire consequences for the very countries they are trying to help.... Read More
Taxi! Reinvigorating Competition in the Taxi Market
Without drastic improvements, taxi services will not be able to service the Olympic Games. Long queues and disgruntled tourists will be very embarrassing for Sydney and Australia. Policy changes are needed...... Read More
Why Small Business Is Not Hiring: Regulatory Impediments to Small Business Growth
Small business makes an important contribution to the Australian economy, accounting for 42 percent of employment in 1997-98. Many small firms are labour intensive, employing more workers per dollar of...... Read More
Rear Vision on Trade Policy: Wrong Way, Go Forward
Policies affecting trade flows do not begin or end in the international arena: Decisions about reducing protection must be implemented at home. Without increasing our competitiveness through improved technology,...... Read More
The Last Refuge: Hard and Soft Hansonism in Contemporary Australian Politics
Hard Hansonism includes a number of characteristic policies – on aboriginal affairs, protectionism, privatisation, competition policy, and so on. Soft Hansonism is powerfully manifested in two key spheres...... Read More
Tax Injustice: Keeping the Family Cap-in-Hand
There is a growing awareness of financial pressure on the family, together with anomalies in the interaction of family earnings, taxation and welfare benefits. Increasingly generous welfare benefits appear...... Read More
