This paper looks at the extent of differences in the accessibility, quality and price of telecommunications services between remote, rural and urban areas in Australia and other comparable countries. It finds that users experience some disadvantages compared with urban users, but generally no...

The Council of Australian Governments, as part of its review of national whole-of-government frameworks for the prevention, preparedness for, and management of a major animal disease emergency such as an FMD outbreak, asked the Productivity Commission to report on the impact of a foot and mouth...

The Productivity Commission's final research report, released December 2004, responds to a request by the Australian Government to examine the contribution that national reform of building regulation has made and further reform could make to the performance of the building and construction...

This paper finds that private sector, which can play an important role in the conservation of biodiversity, is being constrained from doing so by a range of institutional factors. Commonwealth, State and Territory institutional and regulatory arrangements ¡X particularly relating to land...

Australian manufacturing is a picture of diversity and contrasts. This is the main finding of this paper which examines trends in the Australian manufacturing sector over the last two decades. Manufacturing output has quadrupled since the mid-1950s. The fastest growing activities have been those...

Rules of origin arrangements under the Australia–New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement (CER) were referred to the Commission for examination and report by May 2004. The request stemmed from concerns that Australian and New Zealand firms were having difficulty achieving the...

The terms of reference for this public inquiry into the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 asked the Commission to look at how effective the Act had been been in achieving its objectives, and to assess the costs and benefits of the Act. In its final assessment, the Commission identified ways in...

This study is part of a continuing program of research into the performance of economic infrastructure industries, which was commenced by the Bureau of Industry Economics. It is the third Waterfront Benchmarking report in the cycle. The study builds on the two previous waterfront studies by...

The increased use of information and communications technology (ICT) has helped to raise Australia’s productivity growth, according to a new Commission study. It has enabled firms to innovate in what they do and how they do it. ICT Use and Productivity: A Synthesis from Studies of Australian...

On 9 July 1997 the Treasurer referred the international competitiveness of the Australian black coal industry to the Commission for inquiry and report within 12 months. The Commission is to identify ways of improving the international competitiveness of the Australian black coal industry which...