In April 2005, the research paper into ‘Assistance to Tourism: Exploratory Estimates’ was released. It is the first comprehensive attempt to quantify the extent of assistance to tourism on a comparable basis to that for other industries in Australia. While care is needed in interpreting the...

This report is the latest scorecard on the financial performance of 86 government trading enterprises (GTEs). The report examines the impact on capital management of inadequate compensation for community service obligations and of the persistent poor performance of some GTEs. The 86 GTEs...

The Australian community places significant importance on older people having access to high quality and cost effective aged care services. This is reflected in current institutional and regulatory arrangements, which give considerable weight to achieving equity of access and a minimum...

This research paper which investigated the potential economic and revenue impacts of a National Reform Agenda (NRA) found that the NRA has the potential to significantly raise national output and incomes in Australia. The main purpose of the study was to help governments better understand the...

Australia is largely a nation of immigrants. From the First Fleet to the post-war wave of assisted passages, to the present day, migration has always been at the centre of this country’s development. As time has passed, however, and our population has grown and spread, it is natural that the...

The Productivity Commission was asked to examine the effects of bilateral and regional trade agreements, including on trade and investment barriers, regional integration and Australia's economy generally. The Commission concluded the benefits of these agreements have been oversold and the...

This Productivity Commission Report – Annual Review of Regulatory Burdens on Business: Business and Consumer Services Sector – identifies ways to reduce the regulatory burdens on businesses in the finance and insurance, accommodation and food services, professional, scientific and technical...

As part of the National Reform Agenda, COAG agreed to benchmark and report on the regulatory burden across all levels of government, with the aim of identifying unnecessary compliance costs, enhancing regulatory consistency across jurisdictions and reducing regulatory duplication and overlap....

The Productivity Commission's research report into 'Performance Benchmarking of Australian Business Regulation' was released in March 2007. The Australian Government asked the Commission to develop a framework to benchmark regulatory regimes and their cost burdens across all levels of government...

Extract from the key points: The Australian anti-dumping system, which is based on agreed WTO rules and procedures, benefits a small number of import competing firms, but imposes greater costs on the rest of the economy. However, this net economic cost is likely to be very small. And the ability...