Bernard Keane

If Labor is to be believed, only government intervention and spending billions of taxpayer dollars will enable Australia to “compete” in the new global protectionism race to build local manufacturing. But what if Australia was already competing effectively in manufacturing?

The discussion around the Stage 3 tax cuts continues to overlook the ongoing and significant feminisation of the workforce.

One aspect of Labor’s amendments to the Stage 3 tax cuts that has received limited coverage so far is the differing effects for workers by gender.

The reaction of business groups and the Coalition to the government securing passage of its same job, same pay bill on Thursday — legislation that will prevent employers from outsourcing jobs to labour-hire firms that pay contracted workers less than award rates — was apoplectic, writes Bernard Keane.

The government is currently consulting on moves to strengthen competition laws, with big company mergers and acquisitions in the firing line.

Bernard Keane and Glenn Dyer argue that Qantas is the latest indicator of the rot at the soul of Australian businesses.

Bernard Keane explains why the Business Council’s (BCA) “Seize the moment” report is so heavily laden with irony.

Any company or government that sticks with PwC is signalling its approval of sins too numerous to count, writes Bernard Keane.

Was the retail data released yesterday really bad enough to justify comparisons to the financial crisis?

The rapidly changing nature of Australia’s workforce is an issue policymakers and the economic commentariat are going to have to get their heads around.

Labor has also allowed the ACCC’s airline monitoring brief to lapse, meaning there is no regular oversight of the kind that identified Qantas’s price-gouging.

Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) governor Philip Lowe has retreated back into full-scale denialism about the central role of profit-gouging in inflation.