Publication Update

	Issue Analysis 100 Baby Steps Toward Self-funded Parental Leave Jessica Brown Much has been made of the good that could come from giving Australian mothers paid maternity leave. But in the current debate, many of the assumptions about paid maternity leave have gone largely unchallenged. This paper examines some of the complexities involved in implementing a taxpayer- or employer-funded scheme [read more]

	Issue Analysis 99 Government Intervention in Mortgage Finance: The Case Against ‘AussieMac’ Stephen Kirchner It has been suggested that the federal government should sponsor an institution, dubbed ‘AussieMac’, to acquire RMBS to promote the continued functioning of these markets. This paper argues that the AussieMac proposal is unlikely to deliver significant benefits for Australian home buyers and that government intervention in the market for mortgage-backed securities is an inefficient way of promoting housing affordability. [read more]

	Issue Analysis 98 The Bipolar Pacific Helen Hughes and Gaurav Sodhi Australians have become accustomed to bad news from the Pacific islands but there appear to be two Pacifics. One group of islands has managed to grow, while a second group of islands have stagnated at best. [read more]

	Policy Monograph 87 The Faulty Arguments Behind Australia's Corporate Tax Sinclair Davidson While public debate has concentrated on personal income tax, there has been little demand for corporate tax reform. This paper investigates Australian corporate tax and highlights a number of issues that deserve greater public awareness. [read more]

	Issue Analysis 97 Child Care and the Labour Supply Jennifer Buckingham The CIS Issue Analysis Child Care: Who Benefits? found little evidence that formal child care has lasting benefits for the broader population of children. This paper seeks to verify the claims about child care and female labour supply. [read more]

	Policy Monograph 86 CDEP: Help or Hindrance? Sara Hudson The Community Development Employment Projects program was established to help Indigenous Australians move from welfare into work. But despite its good intentions, thirty years of CDEP have proved that it is preventing Indigenous people from getting mainstream jobs. [read more]

	Policy Monograph 85 The False Promise of GP Super Clinics, Part 2: Coordinated Care This is the second of a pair of Policy Monographs that examine the evidence base and assumptions of four key health policy areas. Each of these areas is widely considered to be pertinent to whether the Medicare system will be sustainable into the twenty-first century [read more]

	Issue Analysis 96 A Whiff of Compassion? The Attack on Mutual Obligation Peter Saunders Mutual obligation requires people receiving welfare benefits to undertake a prescribed activity or forfeit some or all of their payment. Changes proposed by the Rudd Government threaten to undermine mutual obligation, resulting in worse outcomes for moving people from welfare into jobs. [read more]

	Issue Analysis 95 Putting Democracy in China on Hold John Lee China’s transformation from the backward, autocratic economy of just three decades ago is probably the most spectacular and rapid in history, but we should reject the blind and deterministic logic that a rising China will inevitably become a democratic one. [read more]

	Issue Analysis 94 KiwiSaver or KiwiSucker? A Critical View Phil Rennie KiwiSaver is a pointless and expensive straitjacket on the New Zealand economy. The incentives added last year have made the scheme expensive, distorting, regressive, unfair, unstable, and unsustainable. [read more]

	Policy Monograph 83 Indigenous Education in the Northern Territory Helen Hughes With the numeracy and literacy skills of five-year-olds, ten thousand indigenous teenagers and young men and women are unemployable because of the educational failures of the last decade. [read more]

	Policy Monograph 82 State Tax Reform: Prospects and Progress Robert Carling This paper identifies major structural flaws in our current taxation system, and develops a set of proposals to put them right. [read more]

	Issue Analysis 93 What Are Low Ability Workers To Do When Unskilled Jobs Disappear? Part 2: Expanding Low-skilled Employment Peter Saunders What is to be done for low-skilled, poorly-qualified Australians who, even in today’s booming economy, seem unable or unwilling to find jobs? [read more]

	Issue Analysis 92 Five Out of Ten: A Performance Report on the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) Gaurav Sodhi The Solomon Islands is the third-largest state in the Pacific, yet living standards are scarcely higher than they were at the time of independence. [read more]

	Issue Analysis 91 What Are Low Ability Workers To Do When Unskilled Jobs Disappear? Peter Saunders The solution to unskilled joblessness lies in generating more unskilled employment [read more]

	Issue Analysis 90 Why is Australia So Much Richer than New Zealand? Phil Rennie Australians are a third richer than New Zealanders. Per capita GDP (adjusted for purchasing power parity) is NZ$48,000 in Australia compared to just NZ$36,400 in New Zealand [read more]

	Policy Monograph 80 Exploring a Carbon Tax for Australia Humphreys compares carbon trading with the alternative of a carbon tax and comes out strongly in favour of the latter. In his words, it is ‘more efficient, effective, simple, flexible and transparent [read more]

	Policy Monograph 79 The Coming Crisis of Medicare: What the Intergenerational Reports should say, but don’t, about health and ageing Jeremy Sammut examines the long-term unsustainability of Medicare due to the ageing of the Australian population and the rising cost of medical technology [read more]