Features
14 November 2011 | Jane-Frances Kelly | Cities
Grattan's new report, Getting the housing we want, proposes a new approach to city planning that allows our cities to grow while giving residents a real say in the future of their neighbourhoods.
29 Jan 2012 | Andrew Norton | Higher Education
Australia's higher education system is entering one of its most significant years in recent history. To meet a government goal to increase the number of young adults holding a degree, restrictions on undergraduate student numbers have been lifted. Yet despite the system's importance to Australia's economy and society, it is often hard to know what is going on inside it.
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Australian higher education: trends, policies, performance
9 February 2012 | Higher Education
What is going on in Australian higher education? Andrew Norton, Grattan Institute's Higher Education Program Director, discusses the program's first report with Julie Hare, Higher Education editor at The Australian, at this public event in Sydney.
Technology choices: no quick fixes,no easy choices
15 February 2012 | Energy
SYDNEY event - In early February, Grattan Institute will release the first of a two-part report on the technology choices that will frame Australia's energy future. The report explores in detail the seven technologies that might enable Australia to achieve the targets set out in the Federal Government's Clean Energy Legislation for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Summer reading list for the Prime Minister
5 December 2011 | Australian Perspectives
Every year, Grattan Institute produces a Reading List for the Prime Minister; the books and articles we recommend Australia's leaders read over the summer break.
Getting the housing we want
21 November 2011 | Cities
Former Victorian Premier, John Brumby, spoke with Grattan's Cities Program Director, Jane-Frances Kelly, at the launch of Grattan's latest report, Getting the housing we want. Our big cities are deadlocked. They continue to grow yet the market is not providing the housing that Australians say they want. Residents feel they have little say in how their neighbourhoods change: developers point to a range of barriers to building housing in established areas. Change is urgently needed. Grattan's new report offers a plan to make it happen.
The Future of Solar Power in Australia
16 November 2011 | Energy
Ultimately, all our power comes from the sun, but converting solar radiation to electricity directly using photovoltaics, or less directly through solar thermal power is still relatively expensive compared with the processes that convert the solar energy stored in coal and natural gas into electricity. But the cost is rapidly dropping. What are the prospects for photovoltaics and solar thermal? At what point do they become competitive and what might be the implications for the broader energy generation system?
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Recent Publications
The Rights of International Students
24 January 2012 | Andrew Norton | Higher Education
Public hospitals refusing to admit pregnant international students. Government schools charging fees to the children of international students. International students having to pay full public transport fares. These international student entitlement issues made the news last year. They are all aspects of a much bigger issue: what rights and entitlements should be available to non-citizens with long-term but temporary residence rights?
The Right Way to Value Solar
21 December 2011 | Helen Morrow | Energy
Now is the time to resolve confusion about the value of solar power, "grid parity" and the role of support mechanisms for solar PV. How do we decide what solar PV is worth? What does this mean for feed-in tariffs and the concept of grid parity?
The Future of Gas Power
15 December 2011 | Tony Wood | Energy
The past few years have seen the rapid expansion of the coal seam and shale gas industry. Combine this expansion with the recent introduction of a price on carbon here in Australia, and you end up with a bunch of intriguing questions.
Subsidy review plan neither fair nor enticing.
14 December 2011 | Andrew Norton | Higher Education
The latest review of university funding has not come up with a convincing basis for allocating higher education tuition subsidies.
Filling the university information gap
8 November 2011 | Andrew Norton | Higher Education
The Ombudsman claims that international students are being admitted with inadequate English proficiency and sometimes passed when they should fail. More independent information on students' prospects and performance would help protect international students and their future employers.
International carbon markets: what are the implications for Australia?
19 October 2011 | Tony Wood | Energy
Don't be misled by the local debate: Australia is not going it alone in establishing a carbon market. From the European Union to parts of the United States, China, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand, emissions trading schemes are either underway or planned. The reason is not surprising: these markets work. Australia's carbon trading scheme would do well to link to them.
Pricing carbon - the money and the myths
12 October 2011 | Tony Wood | Energy
The hardest task in climate change is designing effective policy to address it. The forces for change are so weak and the headwinds so strong that there is simply no correlation between the challenge and what is being put into place. Market mechanisms remain the most effective means of meeting the challenge. The biggest risk in the market mechanism is that governments will listen to vested interests and fail to set emissions constraints that ensure their targets are met.
The Rise of University Rankings
12 October 2011 | Andrew Norton | Higher Education
Australian universities hope to improve their positions in world university rankings. But students may pay the price.
Good Jobs Begin in School
10 October 2011 | John Daley | Australian Perspectives
The Prime Minister's Future Jobs forum was missing the one minister who would make the most difference to future jobs, the School Education Minister. The economy and the workplace are changing all the time. Government's task is not to dictate their shape or to protect industries. It is to equip Australians to be able to innovate and manage change. The best way to do that is to raise the quality of school education.
New Protectionism Under Carbon Pricing
30 August 2011 | Tony Wood and Tristan Edis | Energy
The Government's unduly generous assistance to industry under its carbon emissions package may create a new protectionism. The whole community will pay for unjustified subsidies to the LNG and coal industries.