In The Australian today:

"Historically, American voters have responded less to the immediate state of the US economy than to recent trends: if the economy is improving, incumbents win. On that basis, Barack Obama should secure a second term in this week's vote. But whoever the next president may be, the US faces challenges its political system seems increasingly poorly placed to address."

In The Australian today:

"According to the "Asian Century" report, making our education system one of the world's five best is crucial to seizing the opportunities created by Asia's economic growth. Perhaps, but the real question is what that would involve. "

In The Australian today:

"On October 9, 2007, the New York Stock Exchange's Dow Jones index reached its all-time high of 14,164.53. Almost exactly five years of turmoil later, the International Monetary Fund's recently released World Economic Outlook warns that the "risks for a serious global slowdown are alarmingly high". With world trade virtually stagnant in recent months, the fund has downgraded its assessment of global economic prospects, while hedging even that projection with a chilling litany of possible downsides. "

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In The Australian today:

"Bad enough strangling the goose: they shouldn't get away with also gilding its eggs. For there are myths and there are facts. And while the myth is that superannuation savings are lightly taxed, the fact is that effective tax rates on long-term super savings are close to or even above the top rate of income tax."

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In The Australian today:

"It's hard to disagree with Ross Garnaut that China's slowing growth will place new pressures on our economy. But the implications he derives from that are wrong-headed. And that is unsurprising, as they are driven more by the politics of protecting the carbon tax than by sensible economic analysis."

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In The Australiian today (subscription required)

"This is a tale of deficits, deaths and deceptions. The deficit is that for 2011-12, which we now know was nearly $44 billion. The deception is the process by which the estimates of that deficit were massaged in the lead-up to the 2010 election. The death is that of budget honesty."

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Henry in The Australian today (subscription required):

"One cannot but admire Joe Ludwig, the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. After the triumph of the ban on live cattle exports, a lesser man might have rested on his laurels. But with the Abel Tasman episode, Ludwig has shown he can trawl new depths"

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Henry in The Australian Monday 10 September 2012:

"Bad government is no excuse for bad governance. Yet an interim report just released by the Productivity Commission highlights the damage this government has done to a key element in the integrity of public decision-making: the process of scrutinising proposed regulations."

Click here to read the article at The Australian's website (subscription required) or on the link to download.

Henry in The Australian Monday 3 September

"Last week's violence in Melbourne is merely the most visible sign of resurgent union thuggery. Far from keeping peace, the Fair Work Act is fanning conflict, allowing negotiation to descend into extortion. And far from addressing root causes, Julia Gillard and Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten are at best papering over the symptoms, at worst tolerating criminality."


Click here to read the article at The Australian's website (subscription required) or on the link below to download a pdf version.

Henry in The Australian Wednesday 29 August

 "The carbon floor price is dead, but it certainly hasn't died alone. Rather, there are so many fatalities in this announcement that Canberra will need a new cemetery."

Click here to read the article at The Australian's website (subscription required) or on the link below to download a pdf version.

Henry in The Australian Monday 27 August 2012:

'Reducing mining investment is not collateral damage from the carbon tax: it is integral to achieving its objective of shrinking the carbon intensive components of Australia's economy. As Treasury found, because of the tax, "the (Australian) mining sector experiences a significant decline in rates of return. As a result, investment falls significantly."'

Click here to read the article at The Australian's website (subscription required) or download the file at the link below.
 A pity prosperity depends on mining

Henry in The Australian Monday 20 August 2012:

"Julia Gillard is a woman of principle: the survival principle. And if the backflip on asylum-seekers is about saving lives, the life it is intended to save is her own."

Click here to read the article at The Australian's website (subscription required) or download the pdf file below. More reading at Henry's blog.

Henry in The Australian Monday 13 August 2012:

"Displaying that Laurel and Hardy sense of timing that has brought them fame on Canberra's vaudeville circuit, Stephen Conroy and Julia Gillard closed last week contradicting each other."

Click here to read the article at The Australian's website (subscription required) or download PM in another fine gold-plated mess. More reading at Henry's blog.

Henry in The Australian Wed 8 August:

"The genie is out of the bottle and no statistic is safe. For clutching his Gini coefficients, Wayne Swan is on the rampage. The Treasurer's fury is directed at this paper's George Megalogenis, who writing in last Thursday's edition dared suggest inequality had increased on the class warrior's watch."

Click here to read the article at The Australian's website (subscription required) or download Treasurer should put his Ginis back in the bottle and go for growth.  
More reading at Henry's blog.

Henry in The Australian Mon 6 Aug 2012:

"Wayne Swan's John Button oration raises important questions: why is it that inequality has increased more in the US than in Australia? And what lessons can be drawn from those differences?"

Click here to read the article at The Australian's website (subscription required) or download The Treasurer is dancing in the dark. More reading at Henry's blog.

In The Australian:

"There are two issues with the National Disability Insurance Scheme: how it will be paid for, and how its services are delivered. The NDIS trials seem designed to address the second; but virtually no progress has been made on the first. As a result, regardless of the trials' outcomes, there seems little prospect of the scheme being adequately funded."

Click here to read the article at The Australian's website (subscription required) or download Why Mr Abbott needs this big new tax.

In The Australian Monday 23 July 2012:

"At the heart of Labor's problems is its reaction to the 2010 election. In that election, voters swung to the Right, but thanks to Julia Gillard's deal with the Greens, the government shifted sharply to the Left. Those opposing movements transformed a gap between Labor and the electorate into a chasm. And with voters sceptical of the Prime Minister's trustworthiness from the outset, that chasm now threatens to swallow Labor whole."

 Click here to read the article at The Australian's website (subscription required) or download Electorate right about PM's left turn.

In The Australian Wednesday 18 July 2012:

"When Hamlet soliloquised about shuffling off the mortal coil, he cited "the insolence of office" in the same breath as "the pangs of disprized love". Judging by the presentations at an Australian National University conference earlier this week on tax reform, he could have had Canberra in mind."

Click here to read the article at The Australian's website (subscription required) or download Ken Henry is no Paul Keating, nor was he meant to be.

In The Australian Monday 16 July 2012:

"It was not meant to be this way. In the Australian collective consciousness, as the country grew, it would become less dependent on natural resources, not more. But the reality is that we remain an economy that rides on the sheep's (or at least, the miners') back, with the prosperity, but also volatility, that implies."

Click here to read the article at The Australian's website (subscription required) 

More reading at Henry's blog. 

In The Australian Monday 9 July 2012:

"With more compensation packages than boat arrivals, the carbon tax is a policy at war with itself."

Click here to read the article at The Australian's website (subscription required) or download Stuck in a policy of odd origins.

More reading at Henry's blog.

"A strange thing happened to the "public interest" test for media ownership as it made its way from the Productivity Commission's 2000 broadcasting report to Stephen Conroy's 2012 Convergence Review. The PC designed the test to apply only to major media mergers. But with little discussion and less explanation, the Convergence Review, while citing the PC report as the authority for such a test, expanded it to cover mere changes of ownership."

Click here to read the article at The Australian's website (subscription required)

Download Let market forces determine the future of media

Henry in The Australian Monday 25 June 2012:

Beaming from ear to ear, Wayne Swan declared the latest figures on Australia's economic growth "stunning". As for Julia Gillard, she hailed the "remarkable" data as "proving the doomsayers and sceptics wrong". "They are proof," Swan added, "that something special is happening in our country."

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More reading at Henry's blog.

Download Bad ideas are slow killers 

Henry in The Australian Monday 18 June 2012:

"Next year, each man, woman and child in this country will pay $450 in electricity charges for "green schemes", including the carbon tax, renewable energy targets and solar feed-in tariffs."

Click here to read the article at The Australian's website (subscription required)

More reading at Henry's blog

Download Carbon impost a recipe for low wages

Henry in The Australian Monday 11 June 2012:

"Two weeks after being elected, Kevin Rudd convened the state and territory premiers to announce "a historic new era of co-operative federalism" that would, at long last, "fix the federation". Five years later, Australian federalism lies in tatters."


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More reading at Henry's blog

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GST punishes resourceful states to reward the rest

Henry in The Australian Monday 4 June 2012:

"Here's the rub," Julia Gillard told the nation's mining executives at last week's Minerals Council annual dinner; "you don't own the minerals". But she carefully omitted to say precisely who does. For she knows full well the commonwealth no more owns those minerals than it owns the moon."

Click here to read the article at The Australian's website (subscription required)

More reading at Henry's blog

Download the pdf.

"It is far easier to make a fish soup out of an aquarium than the other way around. And once the soup has been made, it is a bit late to try to extricate a particularly inedible goldfish. "

More reading at Henry's blog.

Click here to read the article at The Australian's website (subscription required)

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Better for Club Med to stay in eurozone and face up to reform

"Last Tuesday, Martin Parkinson, the Treasury Secretary, used the annual post-budget address to examine the uncertainties in the economic outlook. While his speech was wide-ranging, one component stuck out: the suggestion that the rapid growth of mining was "dampening tax receipts as a share of the economy", with "the accelerated write-offs provided for many mining assets" being "of particular importance". "

More reading at Henry's blog.

Click here to read the article at The Australian's website (subscription required)

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Miner's taxes pay for PM's follies

"Despite the devastating Christchurch earthquakes, New Zealand is undertaking a fiscal consolidation twice the size of Australia's"

Click here to read the article at The Australian's website.

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PM rebuilds the base to go back to the future

Henry in The Australian 7 May 2012:

"Since being elected in 2007, Labor has taken policy decisions that have increased revenue by $24.2 billion and expenditure by $126.1bn, worsening the budget bottom line by $102bn."

More reading at Henry's blog.

Click here to read the article at The Australian's website.

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Flimsy balancing trick really a lacklustre effort

Henry in The Australian 7 May 2012:

"Tomorrow, in presenting the 2012-13 budget, Wayne Swan is likely to repeat the Gillard government's mantra that it has achieved "the fastest fiscal consolidation on record". But the reality is far from the government's claims of shining fiscal rectitude."

More reading at Henry's blog.

Click here to read the article at The Australian's website.

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Talk of fiscal rectitude is Labor spin

Henry in The Australian 30 April 2012:

"Given just how warped our taxation of superannuation is, one might have thought it difficult to make it worse."

Click here to read the article at The Australian's website.

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Doubling tax on super will blow out distortions

Henry in The Australian 23 April 2012:

"It is nonsense to talk of population ageing as a problem. Rather, its main cause -- the immense rise in human life expectancy -- is perhaps society's greatest achievement. But it does create challenges, and providing aged care is central among them."

More reading at Henry's blog.

Click here to read the article at The Australian's website.

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Aged-care package buys time but tsunami ahead

Henry in The Australian 16 April 2012:

"The Gonski Review of Funding for Schooling is right: our schools should provide better and more equitable outcomes. Unfortunately, the funding model it recommends is unlikely to achieve those goals."

More reading at Henry's blog.

Click here to read the article at The Australian's website.

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Extra money won't fix schools

Henry in The Australian 1 April 2012

"That drugs destroy lives hardly needs to be said. The question is how we should deal with them. In a recently released report, Australia21, a policy think tank, calls our prohibition-based approach an exercise in "failure and futility". Australia21's claims are exaggerated and in important respects incorrect. But that doesn't mean our policies should stay as they are."

More reading at Henry's blog.

Click here to read the article at The Australian's website.

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Prohibition still best way to beat drugs

Henry in The Australian Monday 2 April 2012

"The ALP's crushing defeat in Queensland has renewed calls for Labor to expand and empower its shrinking membership."

More reading at Henry's blog.

Click here to read the op-ed at The Australian's website (subscription required).

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ReformingTheALP.pdf

Henry in The Australian Monday 26 March 2012:

"The challenge facing Queensland's new 264 is to clean up the legacy of 14 years of Labor rule, improve the state's 266 and deliver on its ambitious election promises. "

More reading at Henry's blog.

Click here to read the op-ed at The Australian's website (subscription required) or on the link below to download a pdf.

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Campbell_must_clean_up_state_finances_Mon_26_Mar_2012.pdf

Today in The Australian

 

Presumption of guilt unshackles society’s bigotries
For those committed to preserving a society worth living in, few sights could be more dispiriting than that of mass rallies undermining the presumption of innocence. But last Monday’s demonstrations should have been eminently predictable. After all, the presumption of innocence comes as naturally to human beings as playing the violin does to baboons.
Click or tap here (login required) to read the oped at The Australian's website or check back here next week to download a pdf.

You can’t keep a bad idea down, but this lot can’t even keep it straight.

and

Shock, Horror: Economists Impertinent, Prevent Clear Thought , “The Vibe” Preferred

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YouCantKeepABadIdeaDown.pdf
ShockHorrorEconomistsImpertinentPreventClearThought.pdf

The tragedy of part-time work

The ACTU is concerned about the ‘dramatic and troubling’ increase in the numbers working part-time. And rightly so. For it makes our lives disorderly, wastes valuable energy and impedes millions of young people from fully experiencing the school of life.

Read more at Henry's blog.

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TheTragedyOfPartTimeWork.pdf

Writing into today’s Age, Michael Power, a lawyer with the self-styled Environment Defenders Organisation, claims “mining is largely uncovered by the carbon tax

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FillingAMuchNeededGap.pdf

Mining pays a relatively low rate of company tax compared to its share of the economy. Mining companies currently account for about 30 per cent of corporate gross operating profits, but only around 15 per cent of corporate tax receipts

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ThereHeGoesAgain.pdf

Henry has contributed a chapter to "Only in Australia: The History, Politics and Economics of Australian Exceptionalism" to be published in 2015 by Oxford University Press.

The project is a book of 15 chapters contributed by twelve authors and to be published in 2016 by Oxford University Press.

The book is about the Australian difference. It is about how Australia in economic and social policy has diverged from the approach of other countries with it might be naturally compared. Australia seems to be following a ‘special path’ of its own that it laid down more than a century ago. Australia’s distinctive bent is manifested in tightly regulated labour market; a heavy reliance on means testing and income taxation; a geographical centralisation of political power combined with its dispersal amongst autonomous authorities, and a readiness to use of compulsion in contexts stretching from saving to voting.

This book to seeks to explain why Australia is different in its policy posture.