Tag Archives: productivity

UQ student’s Treasury prize winning essay highlights benefits of competition & free trade

Posted on September 27, 2017 by Gene Tunny

The Australian Treasury yesterday announced the winner of its inaugural essay competition, and the award went to University of Queensland Economics student Elizabeth Baldwin, who incidentally also won the RBA/Economic Society of Australia essay prize last year. The essay question … Continue reading →

Posted in Productivity, Trade, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

CEDA report highlights AI & cloud threat to traditional accountants, with Xero and Bean Ninjas thriving

Posted on June 24, 2017 by Gene Tunny

A new CEDA report I attended the Brisbane launch of at BCEC yesterday, Improving Service Sector Productivity, highlights the threat to accountants from machine learning, a type of artificial intelligence (AI), a topic that I posted on last year (see … Continue reading →

Posted in Tourism, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Treasury dumps wellbeing framework & defines principal objectives around Budget, productivity and globalisation

Posted on September 22, 2016 by Gene Tunny

Of the many outstanding contributions that former Treasury Secretary Ken Henry made to public policy in Australia, one of my favourites was the wellbeing framework. This framework established Treasury’s goal as improving the wellbeing of Australians, and identified five elements … Continue reading →

Posted in Industry policy, Labour market, Macroeconomy, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Targeting infrastructure spending as a % of GSP won’t work – Guest post by Joe Branigan

Posted on May 12, 2016 by Gene Tunny

Again, I am delighted to publish a guest post from my good friend and former Treasury colleague Joe Branigan. The usual disclaimer applies, that the views expressed in this article are Joe’s and should not necessarily be attributed to me. … Continue reading →

Posted in Infrastructure, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

FACCI thriving in time of greater French-Australian economic cooperation

Posted on May 11, 2016 by Gene Tunny

The recent awarding of the $50 billion submarine contract to French firm DCNS was greeted enthusiastically by members of the French-Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FACCI), which is doing terrific things around town and running some excellent events. For … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Mining, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Long-run benefits of privatisation are undeniable

Posted on April 17, 2016 by Gene Tunny

Last Friday, in an opinion piece in the Courier-Mail (see image above) that was consistent with its current “Go Queensland” campaign, I re-entered the debate on privatisation: Privatisation, legalising Uber and deregulating trading hours are first steps towards boosting the … Continue reading →

Posted in Energy, Infrastructure, Productivity, Queensland Government, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Farm robots good for economy, but may mean downward trend in agricultural jobs continues

Posted on September 21, 2015 by Gene Tunny

Queensland’s former Premier Campbell Newman is chairman of a company Swarm Farm that is developing robots for on-farm use, in tasks such as weeding (as reported in the Brisbane Times). This is fantastic technology and will be good for agricultural … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Stamp duty has to go – time to consider greater reliance on land tax & GST

Posted on June 16, 2015 by Gene Tunny

It is lamentable that our State Governments are so reliant on a source of revenue, stamp duty, that is very costly to the economy and has no defenders outside of State Treasuries who would greatly miss the money if it … Continue reading →

Posted in Housing, Tax | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Better off allocating all lease proceeds to debt reduction

Posted on January 12, 2015 by Gene Tunny

John Quiggin’s interesting new paper on the budgetary impact of asset leases, reported in the Brisbane Times today (Strong Choices will have ‘adverse impact’), correctly points out the adverse budgetary impact of the Queensland Government allocating around one-third of asset … Continue reading →

Posted in Budget, Infrastructure, Queensland Government | Tagged , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Over 255,000 regulatory requirements imposed on Queenslanders

Posted on November 26, 2014 by Gene Tunny

I was reminded the other day about the massive counting exercise the Queensland Competition Authority (QCA) has commission regarding the burden of regulation – an exercise that has found over 255,000 regulatory requirements imposed on Queenslanders across State Government portfolios … Continue reading →

Posted in Productivity | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments