David Richardson

3 weeks ago | australiainstitute.org.au | Greg Jericho |David Richardson |Emma Shortis |Allan Behm

Right now, the government and the opposition are moving to increase the amount the government spends on its military aka its defence budget, and this is happening without the public having any say – nor any great choice in the upcoming election. The Trump administration, including Elbridge Colby, who is soon to be confirmed as head of policy at the US Defence Department, is now telling Australia it needs to spend 3% of GDP on the military.

4 weeks ago | australiainstitute.org.au | Greg Jericho |Matt Grudnoff |Matt Saunders |David Richardson

The problem of housing affordability is not too many migrants, but too many tax breaks for investors. It looks like in this election there is going to be a lot of talk about how immigration impacts house prices. This topic can very quickly become charged with emotion, so instead let’s look at the facts. Despite what you may have been told, over the past 10 years, housing supply has actually grown faster than the population.

1 month ago | australiainstitute.org.au | Greg Jericho |David Richardson |Alexia Adhikari |Morgan Harrington

Despite huge profit margins, the big three private health insurers keep higher and higher premiums. While Australians struggled with the cost-of-living crisis, the three largest private health insurers of Medibank Private, BUPA and NIB made pre-tax profits of $1.7 billion in 2023-24, according to APRA data. Even with this these huge profits they continued to ask for more. The private health insurance lobby had been pushing for increases in insurance premiums beyond inflation.

2 months ago | australiainstitute.org.au | Greg Jericho |David Richardson |Matt Grudnoff

If housing affordability keeps going the way it has over the past 20 years, an average dwelling in Sydney will be worth 24 years of an average salary. The latest figures from the Bureau of Statistics today reveal that the size of the average home loan over just the past 5 years has increased by more than $198,000 in Western Australia, South Australia, Queensland and New South Wales. Everyone knows Australian house prices are high and putting home ownership out of reach for many new home buyers.

Dec 10, 2024 | australiainstitute.org.au | David Richardson

AGL and Origin Energy are charge consumers much more than large businesses and beyond any price differential that can be justified by differences in supply costs. In this paper we have presented evidence that points to price gouging on the part of energy companies, AGL and Origin Energy, on their retail operations. The price gouging, or price discrimination, by the energy companies results in a massive cross-subsidisation from consumers to business.