Monthly Archives: October 2005

I have an oped in the Canberra Times today, arguing that most government advertising – not just the WorkChoices ads – would fail a robust cost-benefit test. Update: Andrew Norton takes umbrage at my sideswipe at conservative think-tanks. * The … Continue reading →

For the satirising that "intelligent" design so richly deserves, check out the New Yorker and the new Guinness ad.

NSW teachers just won a substantial pay rise: The 12 per cent increase over three years will lift the salary of a beginning teacher to $50,522 by January 2008. Classroom teachers will be paid $75,352 and high school principals $129,506. … Continue reading →

A friend recently gave me a handful of Penguin 70s – little 50-page Penguin books produced to mark Penguin Publishing’s 70th birthday. I particularly enjoyed three of them: Gustave Flaubert’s The Desert and the Dancing Girls is a hedonistic portrayal … Continue reading →

Three of my ANU colleagues point out that if you cut the taxes of high income earners, they’ll work more. So the estimated income changes flowing from the 2005 tax cuts put around by myself (for households) and the government … Continue reading →

Gilles Serra, a mate of mine at Harvard, had a theory that if you sat at a dinner party with a bunch of Harvard students, and asked everyone at the table where they were in the birth order (excluding the … Continue reading →

The SMH must be flying close to the Press Council guidelines on suicide with its reporting today on goth-suicides. The Council believes that most papers are aware of the desirability of treating suicide with restraint, and of avoiding: Adding to … Continue reading →