Category: All News

Indonesia’s government has made the development of the country’s special economic zones (SEZ) a priority policy with the aim of attracting over US$50 billion in foreign investment over the next decade, particularly for SEZ-oriented manufacturing. As of 2022, there are 19 SEZs of which 12 are in operation and the remainder are in the construction phase. Eight are designated for tourism with the rest for manufacturing and processing. This policy is a recent development in Indonesia.

Red and green tape is “strangling” WA’s farming future, with the State’s environmental bureaucracy more than quadrupling since the year 2000 while employment in agriculture has declined by one-third. Mr Wild said despite pledges from successive State and Federal governments to relieve farmers of burdensome regulation, the evidence was clear red and green tape — and the bureaucrats that administered it — continued to increase. For context, he said the number of people employed in environmental departments and agencies nationwide — the “green tape army” — was now 20 per cent greater than the number of soldiers serving in Australia’s “regular army”. “There are now a staggering 34,600 people employed by environmental bureaucracies around Australia; Australia’s actual army is just over 29,000,” Mr Wild said.“The size of that green tape army has more than doubled since 2000, but our actual army has increased by a fifth.”

Overall, income tax cuts create faster economic growth, which creates a bigger base for government revenue. This helps offset the direct initial revenue lost from the tax cuts. This is why tax cuts drive not just a healthier hip pocket for workers, but enhances community wellbeing and living standards across the board. Punishing the long-suffering taxpayer of Australia with even higher taxes will not reduce debt. Higher taxes means slower economic growth, which means a smaller economic base for the government to tax, leading to less revenue over the long term.No nation has ever taxed its way to prosperity and no nation has ever taxed its way out of debt.

Australians are less likely to start companies or switch jobs than in the past, reflecting a drop in economic dynamism over the past decade that has underpinned the nation’s worst productivity performance in history. The increasing concentration of power among a dwindling number of big firms in key industries – “from banks, to beer, to baby food” – has also robbed the economy of vitality, Competition Minister Andrew Leigh told The Australian.“It constrains the ability of the budget to build infrastructure and help poor people here and overseas. Whether your priority is paying down debt or boosting teacher quality, you should be worried about the drop in productivity,” he will say.