The Tariff Board was told that if women could buy music that was cheap they would buy music that was dirty.
Vanguard Laundry Services in Toowoomba, Queensland, has provided jobs to about 78 people with histories of mental illness and long-term unemployment.
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The Productivity Commission has highlighted the growing burden of mental illness in Australia. But to really change things, its final recommendations should have a sharper focus on prevention.
Rental stress leaves hundreds of thousands of Australians struggling for years to cover all the other costs of living.
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After paying rent, more than half of low-income tenants don’t have enough left over for other essentials. And the latest evidence shows nearly half of them are stuck in this situation for years.
Unless the Productivity Commission inquiry examines the government’s shortcomings, it will fail to bring any necessary improvements.
Inala Wangarra
When it comes to improving Indigenous policies and programs, Indigenous communities should be the ones evaluating government – rather than the other way around.
Every reference but one to inequality nearly doubling was removed from an Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report.
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The Institute for Health and Welfare issued an “errata” to correct statements about inequality that were perfectly correct.
The statistics show the wealthiest households are getting a growing share of household wealth. The Productivity Commission is trying to tell us they are not.
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Freedom of Information documents show the Bureau of Statistics spent a good deal of effort toning down news of rising inequality. The Productivity Commission seems to have been at it too.
Failure to further strengthen the compulsory super system would be disadvantageous to many future retirees and be an added burden on a later generation of taxpayers.
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Liberal senator Andrew Bragg is one of the Coalition backbenchers who oppose the scheduled superannuation guarantee rise to 12%. They are looking to the retirement incomes inquiry to leverage change.
Indigenous students usually start university later in life.
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A recent Productivity Commission report showed the demand driven system of university funding didn’t increase participation rates for Indigenous students. But our analysis actually shows the opposite.
More students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are attending university than a decade ago.
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University enrolments surged from 2012-2017 due to demand-driven funding. But they were would have risen anyway, perhaps just not as quickly.
Using a variety of statistical analyses, the authors have found no evidence of more employment in hospitality and retail because of reduced penalty rates.
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Australia’s Fair Work Commission concluded that cutting penalty rates would create more jobs. Our research suggests it was wrong.
Former Labor prime minister Paul Keating, the father of Australia’s compulsory superannuation system, with former prime minister Julia Gillard at Labor leader Bill Shorten’s campaign launch in 2016.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
The Productivity Commission was only permitted to examine the efficiency of the super system. A quarter of a century on, it’s time to examine the design of the system and who it helps and hurts.
We find it hard to read forms and to understand risk, so we stick with what we know.
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Incoming Director of the Australian Institute of Business and Economics at UQ, and Professor of Management, Faculty of Business and Economics, Macquarie University
Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne