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‘Tax burden’, ‘tax relief’, ‘tax breaks’… the very way we talk about it implies tax is something inherently onerous. An unreasonable imposition. Even an unfair one. This is of course a great shame. It holds us back from pursuing all manner of important and exciting ventures together. Exactly how we arrived at this aversion is …

  Two trillion dollars That’s the value of global fossil fuel subsidies, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Yes, TRILLION – $2,000,000,000,000   Twenty-six trillion dollars That’s the value of global pension funds (superannuation), a high proportion of which is currently invested in high-carbon industries Again, twenty-six TRILLION – $26,000,000,000,000   Eighty percent That’s …

After years on the increase, food prices in Australia have recently been falling, according to New Limited analysis published on 7 January. Among the key factors, researchers cited the ‘nomalising’ of fruit prices after their sudden rise following natural disasters in Queensland and Victoria. Sadly, this reassuring news came before the record heat wave claimed …

So what I thought would be a quiet week of tying up loose ends and taking stock of the Doha climate conference became altogether more interesting. And maddening. As tired delegates were boarding their flights home, a certain newspaper, which had shown almost no interest in the negotiations up to that point, suddenly sniffed that …

When George W. Bush, then president of the most powerful country on earth, began using the word “evildoers” in supposedly serious foreign policy speeches, I wondered if the world could possibly become any more insane. While Mitt Romney may have a marginally less idiotic turn of phrase, that same divisive, polarising, good-versus-evil mentality lives on. …