In this chapter, we compare the experience of Australia and New Zealand over the period of microeconomic reform that began in the early 1980s. Of particular concern is the question of how New Zealand, with what were seen at the time as the ‘best’ set of economic policies in the OECD,...

Australia is the world's driest continent and the intensity of conflict over water and water management has been increasing , especially in rural areas. By focussing on the recent federalist compact, National Wa ter Initiative (NWI), we explore the use of market and property rights instruments...

The mining industry in Australia, and in most other countries, pay special taxes for the use of community owned resources in additional to taxes levied on businesses in general. General taxes include the corporate income tax, payroll and transaction taxes, and labour pay personal income taxes....

‘Risk’ has become a central theme in 21st-century policy thinking. In particular, there has been considerable discussion of the ‘Great Risk Shift’, that is, the process by which the burden of risk has been shifted away from governments and employers and on to workers and households. The...

A number of major policy documents and academic research have informed a renewed push in recent years to develop northern Australia, which comprises all of the Northern Territory and those parts of Western Australia and Queensland above the Tropic of Capricorn (the ‘north’). Recent debate...

Disturbance to groundwater systems by the Coal Seam Gas industry pose a potential threat to irrigators particularly in New South Wales and Queensland, Australia. Analysing legislation from several different perspectives, including that of CSG mining and water rights, finds that the regulatory...