From today's Australian:

"Something fishy has happened to prices for our feathered friends. Not only has this year's Christmas Price Index, which calculates the cost of buying the gifts specified in the Twelve Days of Christmas, increased by 3.7 per cent, well above the Reserve Bank's inflation target, but prices for turtle doves, French hens and calling birds all spiked in 2012, rising by 25 per cent or more. Even swans, which at more than $1000 each already squeezed the family purse, have increased by a hefty 8 per cent."

In The Australian today:

"Little Miss Bossy tells everyone what to do. Little Miss Naughty is badly behaved.  And Little Miss Fickle breaks her promises. But no one is as scary as Little Miss Ogyny, especially when she goes on the attack."

Henry in "The Australian" today

"This Wednesday is Ted Baillieu's moment of truth. He must respond to the independent inquiry into taxi services. Does he have the ticker to tackle entrenched interest groups? "

In The Australian today:

"Julia Gillard's announcement yesterday that she would take action to "save families up to $250 a year on electricity bills" is readily understandable. With a long, hot summer in prospect, Australian families are in for an electric shock. "

In The Australian today:

"It just won't go away. All week, Julia Gillard refused in parliament to answer detailed questions about her role in overcoming the West Australian regulator's concerns with the incorporation of the so-called AWU Workplace Reform Association. Now it is clear that she was pivotal in doing so."

In The Australian today:

"Corruption, the economist Robert Klitgaard once said, is the inevitable product of "rents plus discretion minus accountability". He had the gangsters running equatorial Africa in mind; but if the allegations being presented to the Independent Commission Against Corruption are proven, he could have been writing about the government led by Kristina Keneally in NSW."

In The Australian today:

"The opposition was right to ridicule the Asian Century white paper. But that hardly means the changes under way in the world economy can be dismissed; on the contrary, positioning Australia to grasp the opportunities they create, while managing their risks, should be at the heart of the opposition's economic strategy. "

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. "

Click on the filename to download a pdf.

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."

Click on the filename to download a pdf.

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."

Click on the filename below to download a pdf.

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."

Click on the filename below to download a pdf.

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

There is inspiration in respiration

One of those obnoxious climate sceptics, may they perish in the eternal flames (should it stop raining long enough for those flames to burn the way they used to), has written querying a report on the ABC science blog. That report suggests climate change is to blame for yes, obesity: “Steadily rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may be affecting brain chemistry and contributing to the obesity epidemic”. The sceptic (may he perish etc.) complains this assertion does not seem to be based on any evidence.

Read more at Henry's blog.

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ThereIsInspirationInRespiration.pdf

Henry in The Australian Monday 19 March 2012:

"Since 1999 Australia's prison population has increased by 50 per cent. And with high and likely rising recidivism rates, it seems set to continue growing."

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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It_s_only_when_crime_doesn_t_pay_that_criminals_will_be_deterred_Mon_19_Mar_2012.pdf

The 264 is placing huge weight on its rather small cut in the company tax rate. However, Australia has an imputation tax system. That means that dividends that are ‘franked’ are effectively pre-payments of personal income tax. As a result, the company tax bites most when companies are paying dividends to foreign shareholders. Those dividends are typically covered by double tax agreements: so payments made on investments in Australia to foreign investors are taxed at the higher of the Australian or foreign tax rate. When the Australian rate of company tax is cut, the investor’s tax liability only decreases if the effective Australian tax rate is higher than the tax rate overseas. In other cases, the result of cutting the Australian tax rate is simply to transfer tax from the ATO to its foreign counterparts. 

Read more at Henry's blog.

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JustHowImportantCuttingCompanyTaxRates.pdf

Henry in The Australian Monday 12 March 2012:

"Should the News 267 Council recommended by the Finkelstein 267 inquiry be established, it will have no difficulty finding penalties: for severe offences, 100 pages of the inquiry's report; for recidivism, another 100; and for the truly heinous, the entire document, committed to memory. Like capital punishment, that should ensure recalcitrants never do it again. "

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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Watchdog_can_muzzle_264_critics_Mon_12_Mar_2012.pdf

Henry in The Australian Monday 5 March 2012:

"Whatever Wayne Swan's strengths may be, a sense of irony is not among them. Were it, he might have hesitated to publish in The Monthly, the brainchild and mouthpiece of developer Morry Schwartz, an essay excoriating tycoons for investing in the 267. But then again, The Monthly hews to the Left; and what Swan really objects to is not tycoons as such, but those who dare to disagree with him."

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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Swan_s_attack_on_wealthy_a_bit_rich_5_Mar_2012.pdf

Henry in The Australian Monday 27 February 2012:

"Tetth bared and hissing in action, Rudd and Gillard, the cobra and the mongoose of Labor politics, seem intent on giving fresh life to the famous opening lines of Marx's The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte: "Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."

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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Decline_and_fall_of_social_democracy_27_Feb_2012.pdf

Henry in The Australian Mon 20 Feb 2012:

"Call it Rip Van Winkle economics. Invented by Julia Gillard, it says we should protect struggling firms so that when we wake up from the mining boom, they will still be there. It's a pity that by then the world will have moved on, ensuring today's laggards are tomorrow's relics."


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

Henry in The Australian Monday 13 February:

"It is disingenuous to claim, as the 264 does daily, that its private health insurance changes, which seem set to get parliamentary approval this week, are a savings. And it is even more disingenuous to claim they will increase efficiency in our health system. Rather, they will increase costs while entrenching a two-tier health system that penalises the poor. "

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

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Both_sides_failing_the_test_on_health_13_Feb_2012.pdf

Henry in The Australian Mon 6 Feb 2012:
 
"'A major report released today by Rio Tinto shows just how foolish ACTU president Ged Kearney is to dismiss mining as merely 'digging things out of the ground'."

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

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Direct_support_to_those_industries_with_a_future_6_February_2012.pdf

Henry in The Australian Sat 4 Feb 2012:

"According to Julia Gillard, things are difficult for Australian manufacturing as the resource boom threatens "to hollow out other sections of the economy".

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

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Julia_Gillard_s_policy_to_prop_up_inefficient_firms_....pdf

Henry in The Australian, Mon 30 Jan 2012:

"According to Fred Chaney, the rioters at the Aboriginal tent embassy have no more in common with most Aborigines than the Cronulla rioters have with most other Australians."

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

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Enforcing_one_rule_of_law_for_all_30_Jan_2012.pdf

Henry in The Australian, Tues 24 Jan 2012:

"No question in defence is more vital than "how much is enough?". But not according to Paul Dibb and Richard Brabin-Smith"

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

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Sub__self-reliance__a_blank_cheque_to_protectionists_24_Jan_2012.pdf

Henry in The Australian, Fri 13 Jan 2012:

"On August 28, 1993, Paul Keating launched the first Collins-class submarine. The fanfare was impressive. Led by the ABC, the 267 hailed the event as a triumph. But it was a hoax. "

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

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Collins_sham_points_to_enemy_within_13_Jan_2012.pdf

Henry in The Australian, Wed 4 Jan 2012:

"The report of the Higher Education Base Funding Review has important things to say: things every university student now basking at the beach should know. And it contains many sensible recommendations. But it concentrates too heavily on increasing funding rather than on incentives for resources to be used efficiently. As a result, its approach cannot durably resolve our universities' problems. "

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

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Don_t_just_throw_cash_at_universities_4_Jan_2012.pdf

Henry in The Australian, Mon 19 Dec 2011:

"We should pay top dollar for the best bureaucrats but do we need so many? "

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

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Merry_Christmas_Canberra_fat_cats_19_December_2011_1.pdf

Henry in The Australian, Mon 12 Dec 2011: "So Europe is to get new fiscal rules, imposing tighter constraints on debt and deficits. But Australians don't need to leave home to understand why markets are sceptical as to their effectiveness." Click here to read the full  article at The Australian's website (subscription required) or on the link below to download a pdf.

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Europe_s_tough_fiscal_rules_are_likely_to_be_broken_12_Dec_2011.pdf

Henry in The Australian Sat 10 Dec 2011: "Blessed is he who expecteth nothing," said D.H. Lawrence, "for he shall not be disappointed." Lawrence must have had the euro in mind. After four summits in 12 months, a solution to its problems remains elusive." Click here to read the full  article at The Australian's website (subscription required) or on the link below to download a pdf version.

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Expect_nothing_and_avoid_disappointment_10_December_2011.pdf

Henry in The Australian Fri 9 Dec 2011: "So these are the "substantial cuts" Wayne Swan promised: at $6.8 billion across four years, the claimed savings in last week's mid-year economic and financial outlook weigh in at a mighty 4c in each $10 of commonwealth 264 outlays." Click here to read the full  article at The Australian's website (subscription required) or on the link below to download a pdf version.

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Taxpayers_ambushed_by_264_s_stand-and-deliver_tactics_9_Dec_2011.pdf

Henry in The Australian Sat 3 Dec 2011: "With a European summit to be held on December 9, Thursday's headline in France's leading paper, Le Monde, read "10 days to save the euro". Unfortunately, Le Monde has now run that headline four times in as many months, yet the euro looks shakier than ever." Click here to read the full op-ed at The Australian's website (subscription required)or on the link below to download a pdf version.

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No_shelter_in_euro_storm_for_Club_Med_3_Dec_2011.pdf

Henry in The Australian Friday 2 December 2011: "In late 1987, John Button, the industry minister in the Hawke 264, announced he had discovered Australia's biggest bludger. He was, Button said, a wharfie, call him Fred, who for 20 years had been transported to and from the port by taxi, had clocked on, clocked off, done no work and drawn full pay. All this under union-imposed rules." Click here to read the full op-ed at The Australian's website (subscription required) or click on the link below to download a pdf.

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Feathering_a_bed_for_the_return_of_bludging_Fred_2_Dec_2011.pdf

Henry in The Australian Sat 26 Nov 2011: "The latest pressure point in the European crisis is over whether to issue "eurobonds": bonds, collectively guaranteed by the 264s of the eurozone, that could fund public expenditure in the region." Click here to read the full op-ed at The Australian's website (subscription required).

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Eurobonds_anything_but_a_panacea_26_Nov_2011.pdf

Henry in The Australian 24 Nov 2011: IN 1992, a new Broadcasting Services Act was introduced with the goal of dramatically simplifying 267 regulation. Two decades and 70 amendments later, the original 100 pages have grown to nearly 1000. The result is a quagmire that is as unsustainable as it is inefficient. Click here to read the full op-ed at The Australian's website (subscription required).

Henry in The Australian Sat 19 Nov 2011: "It is not just Berlusconi financial markets have lost confidence in. It is the sistema Italia -- the complex interplay of economics, social relations and politics that characterises modern Italy."

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CompelledToReform.pdf

Henry in The Australian Fri 18 Nov 2011:

"Having given the Greens their tonne of flesh with the carbon tax, Julia Gillard is repositioning as quickly as she can to the middle. The "surprise" trip to Afghanistan, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the proposed uranium sales to India and Barack Obama's visit to Australia all give the 264 a new, more mainstream gloss."

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

Henry in The Australian Fri 11 Nov 2011:

"Julia Gillard is certainly right when she says that Australia "has nothing to fear from freer and freer trade": after all, protectionism is merely a way of taxing consumers to subsidise inefficient producers, reducing incomes overall. And Gillard also deserves a cheer for pushing the G20 to revive global trade talks."

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

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Gillard_and_Abbott_build_fortress_Oz_11_Nov_2011.pdf

Henry in The Australian Fri 4 Nov 2011: "It s no defence of a law that encourages arson to say it also provides firefighters. And it is even worse if the fire brigade will save your house only if the entire street is on fire, forcing the victims of arson to themselves become arsonists. Yet that is exactly what the Fair Work Act does." Click here to read the full op-ed at The Australian's website (suscription required) or on the link below to download a pdf.

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Fair_Work_Act_a_featherbed_for_unions_4_Nov_2011.pdf

Henry in The Australian Thurs 3 November 2011: Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou has balls. And his decision to call a referendum on the austerity program is hardly irrational. True, it is a gamble, and a risky one. But, like Paul Keating in 1986, he has confronted Greece with its banana republic moment, and challenged it to rise to the threat it faces. Far from expressing dismay, European leaders should have endorsed his call. Click here to read the full op-ed at The Australian's website (suscription required) or on the link below to download a pdf.

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Greek_vote_a_banana_republic_moment_3_Nov_2011.pdf

Henry in The Australian Friday 28 October:

"Count on Julia Gillard to lecture Europe about fiscal rectitude when at 3.4 per cent of gross domestic product, our 2011 structural budget deficit is twice Germany's, a third larger than Italy's and only a fraction smaller than France's. "

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Labor_could_learn_from_eurozone_facing_mutually_assured_distrust_28_Oct_2011.pdf

Henry in The Australian Friday 21 October 2011:

"It has taken three months and 10 hours of questioning in Senate committees. Ultimately, however, the facts do emerge. And they did last Monday."


Click here to read more at The Australian's website or on the link below to download a pdf. 

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Not_a_model_way_to_sell_a_carbon_tax_21_Oct_2011.pdf

Henry in The Australian Friday 14 October 2011:

"So it's done. But it's hardly a shining achievement. Even the 264's hope is that by the next election most voters will have forgotten it. And who knows, like an unpleasant visit to the dentist, the climate change legislation may fade with time. But it will still be the most expensive dentist's visit in our history."

Click here to read more at The Australian's website or on the link below to download a pdf. 

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Billions_will_be_wasted_painting_pork_barrel_green_14_Oct_2011.pdf

Henry in The Australian 7 October 2011:

"We've been there, though so long ago that what happened is taught, usually badly, in schools. But Australia's experience with debt and default in the Depression helps explain why markets are spooked by Europe's crisis. For if we got over our difficulties, it was because of factors Europe entirely lacks. "

Click here to read more at The Australian's website or on the link below to download a pdf. 

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NSW_was_our_Greece_in_1930_7_Oct_2011.pdf

Henry in The Australian Friday 30 September 2011:

"Ross Garnaut has an unusual concept of democracy. The Prime Minister goes to the country promising "there will be no carbon tax under the 264 I lead". Once in office, she then proposes to implement one, with the added twist of making repeal by a future 264 prohibitively costly. Yet, according to Garnaut, rejection of the 264's proposed legislation would amount to a failure of Australian democracy on a historical scale, indeed to "a corruption of democracy" caused by "distortion of reality and abuse of truth". "

Click here to read more at The Australian's website or on the link below to download a pdf. 

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Mr_Garnaut__climate_policy_should_be_questioned_30_Sep_2011.pdf

Henry in The Australian Monday 26 September:

"Start with what is uncontested. First, once carbon emitters are issued permits, those permits will be property they own, so any 264 that abolishes them will have to pay compensation, possibly in the billions of dollars."

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Lies__deception_and_carbon_tax_26_Sep_2011.pdf

Henry in The Australian Friday 16 September:

"It was Mark Dreyfus QC, Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change, who let the cat out of the bag."

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Labor_plants_poison_pills_in_carbon_tax_The_Australian_16_Sep_2011.pdf

Henry in The Australian Friday 9 September 2011:


"Craig Thomson and Bill Ludwig are merely the tip of the iceberg. Beneath that tip lie far deeper issues of union governance. Simply put, the Industrial Relations Club is back in control. That is the system and culture that produced these characters. And that is the system and culture the Gillard 264 is doing all it can to entrench."

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Union_control_of_super_funds_a_magnet_for_sleaze___The_Australian.pdf

Henry in The Australian, Friday 1 September 2011:

"Listening to Craig Emerson is morally uplifting. For the man speaks gospel truth in calling on us to eschew protectionism and embrace structural change. And he is right to call on the opposition to be clear on its commitment to free trade. "

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Tarnished_halo_over_free_trade___The_Australian_1.pdf

Henry in The Australian Friday 26 August 2011:

"When Ralph Willis announced his 268 reforms in 1989, he delivered im267te price reductions and a price cap under which prices would fall steadily in real terms. Willis's reforms ushered in a long period of productivity increases that allowed price declines up to the present day."

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The_gouge_is_on_for_NBN_users___The_Australian.pdf

Henry in The Australian Friday 19 August 2011:

"If you were taking bets on ideas likely to be complete doozies, anything supported by both the Nationals and the Greens would have to look a winner. "

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Battle_over_coal-seam_gas_is_part_of_an_escalating_resource_struggle___The_Australian.pdf

Henry in The Australian Friday 12 August 2011:

"If productivity really is "at the heart of everything this 264 does", as Julia Gillard claimed the other day, the Prime Minister has some tough questions to answer. Two in particular."

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Gillard_knifes_Hawke_s_red_tape_reform_to_shield_IR_law_from_scrutiny___The_Australian.pdf

Henry in The Australian Friday 5 August 2011:

"As you ponder this year's census form, spare a thought for Matthew Gregson, Australia's first statistician."

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Learning_so_little_from_so_much___The_Australian.pdf

Henry in The Australian, Friday 29 July 2011:

"Earlier this week, Wayne Swan said the results of updated Treasury modelling of the 264's proposed carbon tax would not differ much from those already released."

Click  here to read the op-ed at The Australian website, or on the link below to download a pdf.

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Swan_hides_his_dodgy_carbon_model___The_Australian.pdf

Henry in The Australian Friday 22 July:

"I was wrong. Treasury's modelling doesn't assume the US has an emissions trading scheme in place by 2016. It merely assumes its economy operates as if it did."

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Open_your_kimono_and_show_us_your_modelling___The_Australian.pdf

Henry in The Australian Friday 15 July 2011:

"The one thing you need to know about Treasury's modelling of the carbon tax is this: it assumes that by 2016, the US and all the other developed economies that do not have carbon taxes or emissions trading systems in place will have them up and running."

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Fatal_flaw_in_case_for_a_carbon_tax___The_Australian.pdf

Henry in The Australian 8 July 2011:

'The 264's claim that it will provide permanent compensation to 70 per cent of households for its carbon tax is based on a false premise: that the Australian 264 will receive the revenues from the tax and of permit sales in the subsequent emissions trading scheme.'

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Black_hole_in_264_s_carbon_tax_compensation_plan___The_Australian.pdf

"Why is Europe in crisis? To fund budget deficits over the period 2011-13 and repay existing loans, Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain (the "PIGS") require external financing equal to 50 per cent of their combined 2010 gross domestic product."

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How_Europe_s_elites_turned_PIGS_into_a_full-bore_financial_disaster___The_Australian_1.pdf

Henry in The Australian 17 June 2011:

"Contrary to repeated assertions by the Prime Minister, the Productivity Commission did not endorse an economy-wide emissions trading scheme. Rather, its recently released report on carbon emissions policies models an ETS that applies only to the electricity sector and excludes all trade-exposed industries."

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World_of_sham_carbon_policies_exposed___The_Australian.pdf

Henry in The Australian 10 June 2011:

"To get an intelligent answer, ask an intelligent question. It was the failure to do so that undermined the modelling of the carbon pollution reduction scheme. From the snippets Wayne Swan released on Wednesday of carbon modelling 2.0, it has exactly the same weakness. Not that the snippets lack interest. Most striking is just how large the costs of the new scheme are estimated to be. "

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Climate_policy_a_burning_issue___The_Australian.pdf

Henry in The Australian Friday 3 June 2011:

"Ross Garnaut's new report released this week starts with an episode of enlightenment."

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Assertions_fly_thick_and_fast___The_Australian.pdf

Henry in The Australian Friday 27 May 2011:

"Fiscal  federalism is dead; feral fiscalism - in which each jurisdiction tries to snatch revenues from others - has replaced it. The old regime was nothing to boast about; its successor is deformed at birth."

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The_fiscal_fighting_turns_feral.pdf

Henry in The Australian Monday 16 May 2011:

'Forty years ago, on May 10, 1971, Germany allowed the Deutschmark to float, precipitating the end of the international monetary arrangements reached at Bretton Woods in 1944.'

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America_takes_us_back_to_the_seventies.pdf

Henry in The Australian Monday 9 May 2011:

"The trouble with the budget is not that it will be a curate's egg. It's that the 264 can take no responsibility for the parts that are good but is all too responsible for those that are rotten."

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Ending_waste_even_more_important_than_deficit.pdf

Henry in The Australian Wednesday 27 April:

"When Wayne Swan stands up on budget night to commend the increase in the superannuation guarantee, he will be channelling the economist he loves to hate, Friedrich Hayek"

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Super_chance_to_reform_system.pdf

Henry in The Australian Friday 15 April 2011:

"What this country needs from its regulators is rules, not roulette. Nowhere is that need greater than at the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission. With Graeme Samuel's departure, it's time to bring to the ACCC disciplines the Rule of Law Association of Australia has long called for."

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Regulate_the_regulators.pdf

Henry in The Australian Friday 8 April 2011:

"Something about climate change makes people say silly things. Treasury documents just released under Freedom of Information laws provide telling examples, as they misinterpret the simple economics of carbon taxes v emissions trading schemes. "

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Treasury_should_know_better_about_an_ETS.pdf

Henry in The Australian Monday 4 April 2011:

"She's gone, and good thing too. But solving NSW's 266 mess will be far more difficult than turfing Kristina Keneally out of office.

The risk is that Barry O'Farrell will fall into the trap of throwing money around, rather than addressing the failures that plague NSW's transport system."

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Mere_money_won_t_get_Sydney_moving.pdf

Henry in The Australian Friday 25 March 2011:

"You don't need to be a professor to know that any policy sells better if it can be linked to tax cuts.

And packaging those tax cuts as "productivity enhancing tax reform" is even smarter: bribes are cheap and tawdry; compensation, Ross Garnaut tells us, is all too readily "unprincipled"; but tax reform is beyond reproach."

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Carbon_is_poison_to_tax_reform.pdf

Henry in The Australian Friday 18 March 2011:

"No one knows how Japan's nuclear drama will end. Rightly or wrongly, however, it will greatly undermine public confidence in nuclear power. And even if new plants are built, their costs will rise substantially, as precautions are heaped on precautions."

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Crisis_removes_easy_path_to_low-carbon_world.pdf