Debunking a private health scare campaign
The private health insurance industry likes to warn Australians of a doomsday scenario. Don’t believe it.
Articles from Grattan Blog
Primary tabs
What’s driving the rebound in house prices since the election?
Looser macro-prudential rules and successive interest rate cuts, rather than the federal election result, appear to be driving a rebound in house prices in Sydney and Melbourne.
read more What’s driving the rebound in house prices since the election?
McKell makes unsupportable claims about superannuation and wages
A recent McKell Institute report makes unsupportable claims about how superannuation interacts with wages to justify higher compulsory super contributions. McKell’s analysis doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Here’s why.
read more McKell makes unsupportable claims about superannuation and wages
The case for redefining low socioeconomic status in higher education
Since the early 1990s, higher education statistics have defined someone as of low socio-economic status if they are from a region classified in the lowest 25 per cent in Australia according to the ABS Index of Education and Occupation. Wouldn't it be better to pay more attention to areas that for whatever reason have low university participation rates, even if quirks of the Index of Education and Occupation formula give them SES ratings that disqualify them from low-SES rewards?
Learning from past mistakes: lessons from the National Rental Affordability Scheme
Low income earners are struggling with high housing costs and there are widespread calls for governments to help. But the last major effort, the National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS), was fundamentally flawed.
Most people will pay less under the new HELP thresholds
The Federal Government has introduced new repayment thresholds for people with HELP debt. The new thresholds mean that most people with HELP debt will pay less each year, and the Government will recoup less debt each year than they would have under the previous system.
Deaths of despair in Australia
'Deaths of despair' are rising in Australia, particularly among middle-aged men.
Young Australians continue to turn away from private health insurance
About 65,000 fewer Australians had health insurance in December 2018 compared to December 2017.
read more Young Australians continue to turn away from private health insurance
The gender divide at university
In 1987, for the first time in Australia’s history, more women than men were enrolled in higher education. Many things have changed in Australian higher education since but, as the figure below shows, the gender make-up of our university classrooms is not one of them. In 1989 – the first year for which reliable data were available – 71 per cent of teaching students were women; in 2016, the figure was 73 per cent. In nursing, it was 89 per cent in 1989 and 87 per cent three decades later.
More compulsory super hurts Middle Australia — however you look at it
Our latest research shows that lifting compulsory super contributions to 12 per cent would leave workers in Middle Australia poorer over their entire lifetimes – and that remains true under any plausible assumptions.
read more More compulsory super hurts Middle Australia — however you look at it