Essays

Dick Smith wants to cap Australia's population at 30 million over concerns about a lack of resources and housing costs. In doing so he falls for the 'lump of labour' fallacy, and fails Econ 101: it's poor planning, not immigrants, that erodes housing affordability in Australia.

Here are a few short takes for you to chew over on the weekend, from the week’s happenings that probably didn’t need a full post.

We desperately need tax reform in this country and fixing bracket creep for good would be an excellent feather for Chalmers to put in his rather empty reformist cap.

Queensland's Premier Steven Miles appears to be out of his depth. Last week he called for RBA rate cuts, and announced reviews into supermarket pricing and homelessness. On Sunday he released a rental package that risks making the situation worse.

Here are a few short takes for you to chew over on the weekend, from the week’s happenings that probably didn’t need a full post._

NSW, WA and SA have all announced steps that will increase housing supply. But to improve housing affordability for good, we need to ensure it's politically sustainable. That means communicating with locals and lifting density across entire cities, not just in 'well-located' areas.

The vaping crackdown will impose huge costs on users, drive some to the black market and force others to smoke more cigarettes, despite vapes being far less harmful than smoking. Instead of prohibition, regulate vapes like alcohol.

As a replacement for last Friday’s missing Fodder courtesy of the long weekend, here are a few short takes for you to muse over to start your week, from last week’s happenings that probably didn’t need a full post._

I'm honestly not sure why Albo was willing to risk so much political capital on a relatively small distributional change just to get his very own Oprah moment. But the whole stage 3 tax cut song and dance is a recurring sideshow to a much, much deeper issue: bracket creep.

I fired up my crystal ball and took a bit of a punt on this one. Well, not really, but if you're interested in my thinking on when the RBA might start cutting rates (hint: not anytime soon) then you should check it out.