Humankind and the infinite resource base
This paper examines the human ability to expand our resource base into infinity. Given human ingenuity and the free markets, …
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Why We Should Not Increase Capital Gains Tax
Debate about capital gains tax rarely occurs in isolation. It typically emerges during periods of fiscal pressure, housing market stress, or broader dissatisfaction with economic performance or income and wealth distribution.
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10 CGT Myths Busted
The criticisms and characterisation of the 50% capital gains tax discount over many years have been full of misunderstandings, myths …
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Growth that Builds: Beyond the immigration blame game
This paper argues that Australia’s housing crisis is primarily a supply failure, not simply a headcount problem.
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Reform of Heritage Legislation
Introduction Several states have recently overhauled their planning legislation. However, the flaws in their heritage legislation put clearer and more …
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Hours, Not Dollars: Rethinking the cost-of-living debate
Executive Summary Public debate about the ‘cost-of-living crisis’ often confuses nominal price increases with declining affordability. This paper argues that …
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Drowning in a Sea of Diagnoses. How medicalising distress is overwhelming Australia’s mental health system and failing those most in need
Executive Summary At the centre of Australia’s mental health system lies a paradox. Government spending has soared, doubling and redoubling …
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Future No Longer Made in Australia: How we lost our low-cost electricity advantage
Trouble has been brewing in Australia’s smelting paradise over the last two decades, as rising energy prices, carbon charges and foreign competition have taken their toll
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Politics of Pressure: how government intervention left us short of gas
Introduction Australia’s natural gas sector has transformed dramatically between 1975 and 2025. What began as a series of isolated gas …
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Taxing Tobacco into Illegality: how split responsibilities and high excise created Australia’s tobacco wars
Executive Summary Australia’s tobacco control policy has reached a breaking point. For decades, bans on advertising and steady excise increases …
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Subsidies, safety nets and stagnation: Australia’s new economic model
Protecting one industry imposes a burden on the competitive sectors that actually prop up our prosperity, such as mining, energy and agriculture.
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The mental health system may be making us sicker
Australia has a mental health crisis, but not the one we think. Despite decades of soaring expenditure, our national mental …
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Reducing the discount would likely not have any lasting impact in lowering house prices
Anyone watching the smoke signals from Canberra knows that moves are afoot to try and increase capital gains tax (aka …
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Alarm bells ringing on more interest rate pain
Australians were losing faith that the combination of Labor’s economic policies and the RBA monetary policy would tame inflation even before Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu started bombing Iran’s theocratic dictators.
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Labor’s capital gains tax myths need busting
Labor has long held an axe over the capital gains tax 50% discount and negative gearing; campaigning on it in …
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Measuring affordability in time, not dollars paints a different inflation picture
Even before new Middle East conflict sparked concern about petrol prices, Australia’s latest CPI release had reignited familiar anxieties about …
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Blame diagnostic inflation for the NDIS’ $10b Autism bill
As recently reported in The Australian Financial Review, autism costs the National Disability Insurance Scheme more than $10 billion annually. A record 62,500 people …
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This Millennial moved to regional Australia to own a home
A brief glance at the past fortnight’s headlines is revealing. High-speed rail is connecting Sydney to Newcastle. A Regional Australia Institute poll shows Gen Z is interested in moving …
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The RBA had no choice but to tighten the screws
The government has been rightly blamed for fuelling the inflation flames with too rapid growth of its own spending. This has come not just from the federal government but from several state governments as well.
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The only things going up now are the prices
The decisions that made higher rates unavoidable were taken in Canberra. If inflation is the fire, interest rates are the fire brigade. Labor lit the match.
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“The 50% discount is unfair” and other CGT myths | Robert Carling & Michael Stutchbury
The criticisms and characterization of the 50% capital gains tax discount over many years have been full of misunderstandings, myths …
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The Case for Optimism: More People, More Ideas, More Wealth | Marian Tupy
Marian Tupy — editor of HumanProgress.org, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, and co-author of Superabundance — makes a data-driven …
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Old buildings and the housing crisis with Peter Tulip
Peter Tulip explains how several states have recently overhauled their planning legislation. However, the flaws in their heritage legislation put …
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Angus Taylor at CIS: Economic Reform, Immigration, and Australia’s Cost of Living Crisis
Speaking at his first address outside Canberra since being elected Leader of the Opposition by the Liberal Party room, Angus …
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Reflecting Back: John Howard and Alexander Downer on Power, Alliances and Australia
Alexander Downer and former Prime Minister John Howard join author Tony Parkinson and CIS Executive Director Michael Stutchbury for a …
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‘NIMBYism is a cancer’: Bragg outlines housing policy vision with Peter Tulip & Michael Stutchbury
Senator Andrew Bragg and economist Peter Tulip join Michael Stutchbury for a wide-ranging conversation on Australia’s housing crisis, the politics …
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From $43B to $70B: The NBN Disaster and Off-Budget Deception
Ever wondered how governments keep massive spending hidden from the public eye? In this eye-opening video, we dive into the …
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Peter Costello on the Legacy of Reform and the Road Ahead
From economic reform and rising government spending to cultural shifts and the decline of liberalism, Costello reflects on the ideas …
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Coalition’s vision for economic & productivity reform | Sussan Ley & Michael Stutchbury
At this Centre for Independent Studies lunch forum on 20 October 2025, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley delivered a major address …
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Consumer Choice, Risk & Safety with Fred Roeder and Michael Stutchbury
Where is the line between risk and regulation? In this episode of The Stutchbury Sessions, Fred Roeder from the Consumer …
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Submission to Senate Inquiry into Illegal Tobacco Crisis in Australia
The federal government should pause increases in tobacco excise to weaken the profit of the black market. Australia’s aggressive policy of continuously hiking tobacco excise has created a multi-billion-dollar illicit market, inadvertently turning a public health initiative into a significant funding stream for criminal organisations.
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Submission to Senate Education and Employment References Committee
Despite good intentions, Australia’s Early Childhood Education and Care system has expanded well beyond its original purpose as a work …
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Submission to Productivity Commission’s Investing in cheaper, cleaner energy and the net zero transformation Interim Report
The Productivity Commission’s statement that careful emissions reduction policy design will enable gains in productivity and living standards is unfounded. …
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Submission to Heritage NSW
This submission argues that NSW’s heritage legislation has serious flaws. In particular, costs of listing are not compared with benefits. …
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Submission to Victorian Legislative Council Select Committee Inquiry
Victoria Planning Provisions Amendments VC257, VC267 and VC274: Submission to Victorian Legislative Council Select Committee Inquiry 1. Introduction Housing in Victoria, …
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Submission to the Inquiry into financial regulation and home ownership
Regulation of the financial system is needed to protect depositors and avoid financial crises. However, current financial regulations go beyond these legitimate objectives to prevent mutually advantageous loans.
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Submission to the inquiry into the Better Targeted Superannuation Concessions and Other Measures Bill
Submission to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee in relation to its inquiry into the Better Targeted Superannuation Concessions and Other Measures Bill.
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Submission to the Inquiry into the Transport Oriented Development Program
Housing policy in NSW has been failing. It has relied on setting targets for local governments and hoping councils would adhere to them. Those targets are too low, out of date and have not been enforced. As a result, the housing affordability crisis is getting worse.
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Submission to the Senate Economics References Committee Inquiry into improving consumer experiences, choice, and outcomes in Australia’s retirement system.
Allowing first home buyers to borrow from their superannuation would transform superannuation from an obstacle to home ownership into a vehicle towards it.
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The Rental Crisis. Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Committee
Rents are too high. This leads to homelessness, rental stress, long commutes, overcrowding, and a host of other social problems. …
Frequently Asked Questions
The Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) structure makes mistakes likely. It concentrates responsibility on one fallible individual, the Governor, answerable to a Board of non-experts, with little requirement to explain or defend decisions in detail. Arguments are subject to little scrutiny, either internally or externally. More fundamentally, the RBA has a culture that places a low priority on getting the answers right. As a result, mistakes are frequent, persistent and costly. Among several examples, the RBA recently placed higher priority on stabilising household debt than on its conventional goals of unemployment and inflation. Previously, it targeted the current account deficit. Read more ...
Inflation is rising around the world, the sting in the tail of the pandemic economic stimulus packages unleashed by governments in 2020. The narrative thus far is that this inflation spike is transitory, even if a little more persistent than first thought. It is expected to moderate as consumer price pressures ease and markets rebalance after the large positive demand shock and surge in consumer spending of the past 18 months. Read more ...