Matthew O'Donnell

Tax and cut: a very modern oxymoron

14 May 2018 1:01 pm

For a week now our newspapers have been ablaze with news stories and poll analysis celebrating the government’s announcement of…

Tax by stealth – the art of plucking the golden goose

24 April 2018 1:22 pm

The art of taxation consists of plucking the goose so as to obtain the most feathers with the least hissing.…

A sugar tax is “Do Something” Economics 101

16 April 2018 11:05 am

Britain’s recent implementation of a sugar tax has reignited the push for an Australian sugar tax, pointing to ‘science’. Often,…

Do ice cream sales increase shark attacks?

3 April 2018 12:48 pm

Labor MP Andrew Leigh’s study on data around effective company tax rates and employment shows incomplete analysis that mistakes correlation for…

Economics in one lesson

28 February 2018 1:12 pm

Just over 70 years ago, economist Henry Hazlitt wrote an economics textbook, Economics in One Lesson, which is still regarded…

Why not tax obesity instead of sugar?

16 January 2018 1:30 pm

Once upon a time, New Year’s resolutions were the purview of the individual. You made an unwritten pact with yourself…