I have had lots of different jobs in my career as an economist. The longest lasting was as an academic, a job I fell into because it was the easiest option after I graduated.

Don’t get me wrong here: I largely enjoyed my life at various varsities. Let’s face it, it wasn’t exactly like working down the mine and the content of the work as well as my colleagues made for a satisfying work life even if it wasn’t particularly well paid.

In my early years as an academic, I had pals from a variety of disciplines, most left-leaning but not all of them. There was a true sense of tolerance and collegiality. We would all catch up in the common room, drink appalling coffee and talk about the important topics of the day.

I can’t recall feeling constrained in what I said, even though being an economist always meant that I was a supporter of economic liberty and free markets. Sensible economists always distrust government intervention. I even had a pal in politics who thought – and probably continues to think – that communist Cuba was paradise on earth.

Of course, campus life is now vastly different and academics who don’t run with the progressive zeitgeist are few and far between. The administrative load is overwhelming and academic staff members are now mainly driven by the incentive to publish in top international journals that hardly anyone reads.

Most of them simply keep their heads down lest they be engulfed in some sort of public controversy. Compared with two or so decades ago, relatively few members of the professoriate bother to engage in any form of public debate about important issues facing the country or the world.

But here’s part of the problem – when some of them do stick their heads above the trenches, it’s not a good look. Politically naive, right in theory just impossible in practice, ideology before analysis – these are some of the criticisms that can be levelled at the advice offered up by academics.

Of course, it’s hard to go past the participation of the legal academic fraternity/sorority in the Voice campaign. (If you bump into Jim Allen, it’s probably best to avoid this topic – his health, you understand.) So determined to see the referendum succeed, this gaggle, nay murder, of legal academics deliberately forgot their knowledge of all constitutional legal issues and turned into a cheer squad instead.

Gone was any real discussion of the tricky and complex legal problems of the suggested wording of the constitutional amendment; it was all about the vibe. They became relatives of Dennis Denuto. The stench of their self-righteousness was so overwhelming that it probably dissuaded quite a few ordinary folk from voting Yes.

If I think more of my field of economics, there are some serious clangers when it comes to policy advice from academics. One ANU academic, who has a strong reputation in the analysis of taxation, recently suggested that the way to ensure tax reform takes place – progressive academics are obsessed with ‘tax reform’ which is mainly just code for higher taxes – is to appoint a panel of international experts.

By securing ex ante bipartisan support for whatever plan the panel puts forward, this was the way to achieve tax reform according to the good professor.

Is this guy insane? What political party would sign up to something without even knowing what they are signing up to? And let’s not forget here, it’s not just the federal government but state and local governments that would need to abide by ‘the plan’.

Most of us have been astounded by the bizarre suggestions of Professor Ross Garnaut and ex-head of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Rod Sims.  Sims is comfortably ensconced at the ANU these days.

In order for Australia to become an energy superpower – it sounds a bit like an action hero movie – these learned men recommend that the government impose exorbitant taxes on Australia’s top emitters as well as levy both Australia’s imports and exports according to their fossil fuel content.  According to this cunning plan, around $100 billion can be raised each year.

After sending a few hundred bucks to households, whose living costs would be significantly inflated as a result of the new imposts, a very large pot of money would be left to feed green rent-seekers who will help save the planet through their completely selfless investments. Evidently, Australia could end up contributing maybe 7 to 8 per cent to the task of meeting the world’s net zero challenge, rather than the miserly 1.2 per cent which is our share of world emissions. Could it get any better?

OK, the idea is completely bonkers, impractical and political suicide. But it provides a bit of copy for a few days for the more progressive, green-obsessed mainstream media, including the Fin. Needless to say, even the Labor government didn’t want to enter into any serious discussion of this pie-in-the-sky thought bubble, numbers and charts included.

Then we come to the Centre for Ethics, located at the University of New South Wales and Sydney University. The Centre is currently in the political marketplace for $30 million from taxpayers. Senator David Pocock and Teal member for Curtin, Kate Chaney, are totally on board. ACTU Secretary, Sally McManus, is also supporting the bid publicly. Evidently, if only the ethics of the country could be improved, then the economic bounty would be massive.

Leaving aside the tricky subjective aspect to most ethical positions, Deloitte Access Economics was commissioned to undertake a faux piece of research on the topic, in conjunction with the Centre. We are supposed to believe that, ‘a 10 per cent rise in ethical behaviour by companies and government institutions would add $45 billion to GDP annually’. Pull the other one. What does a 10 per cent rise in ethical behaviour even mean?

But it doesn’t end there. As a result, wages will rise between 2.7 per cent and 6.1 per cent – hint, always be wary of spurious precision – and the return on company assets will increase by 7 per cent. According to the executive director of the Centre, ‘Ethics has a profound impact on the economy. It provides such an easy win’.

So faculty, gaggle or murder – I think murder is the best collective noun for academics. Far too much academic output is biased, faulty and incapable of being replicated. Perhaps it’s just for the best that most of them keep their heads down.