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Editor's note
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It’s one of the most hotly debated questions in Australian politics today, one that might still have a bearing on the next election: will a proposed 5% cut to company taxes for businesses with a turnover of more than $50 million really lead to higher wages?
In February, ABC chief economics correspondent Emma Alberici tried to answer this question and the Turnbull Government didn’t appreciate the effort. It kicked up an almighty fuss, backed by might of the Financial Review, which slammed Alberici over alleged factual errors. In response to the hoha the ABC took down Alberici’s analysis, rewrote it, and reposted it as a delightfully breezy social column: “The Prime Minister has invited a who’s who of Australian business to accompany him this week on his trip to meet President Donald Trump.”
Undeterred, last month the activist group GetUp! had a go at providing an answer, producing a graph for social media which suggested that real wages actually fell in the US following a corporate tax cut. The graph neatly reinforced the Opposition line that tax cuts for the big end of town are bad for workers. But as everyone knows, correlation doesn’t always equal causation. Today The Conversation FactChecks that GetUp! claim using our unique approach of getting an academic to review the evidence then submit their findings to blind review by a second academic.
To put it kindly, the graph supplied by GetUp! doesn’t prove that the tax cut in the US caused a decline in real wages. If you want to know why, read Fabrizio Carmignani’s terrific FactCheck. (Warning: graphic material, of the X and Y axis variety.)
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Top story
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GetUp! national director Paul Oosting.
GetUp!
Fabrizio Carmignani, Griffith University
A social media post shared by GetUp! Australia suggested US real wages had dropped significantly following the enactment of Trump's corporate tax cuts in January. We asked the experts to check it out.
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Arts + Culture
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Stephanie Trigg, University of Melbourne
Reading the poem Eurydice to her students unleashed surprising emotions for Stephanie Trigg. But literature works in mysterious, unpredictable ways - highlighting the impossibility of trigger warnings.
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Ana Puchau de Lecea, University of Melbourne
Plagued by production woes for 25 years, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote embraces the spirit of its 17th-century source material. But unlike de Cervantes, Gilliam uses the female characters as props for the hero’s story.
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Health + Medicine
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Yvonne Zurynski, Macquarie University
Parents, carers and doctors need to be aware of button batteries in toys and household devices and ensure they can't be ingested.
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Meru Sheel, University of Sydney; Kristine Macartney, University of Sydney
International outbreaks of the almost-forgotten disease diphtheria and pockets of low immunisation coverage put Australians at risk of catching the disease.
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Environment + Energy
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Jacki Schirmer, University of Canberra; Dominic Peel, University of Canberra; Ivan Charles Hanigan, University of Sydney; Kimberly Brown, University of Canberra
The government has offered emergency payments to drought-stricken farmers. But if we really care about them, we'll also invest in long-term drought resilience measures to reduce impacts.
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Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra
Victoria has again shifted the goal posts in the battle over the NEG suggesting parliament should pass the federal government's emissions reduction legislation ahead of states signing onto the NEG.
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Jonatan A Lassa, Charles Darwin University
As Indonesia reels from two deadly earthquakes, it's time to rebuild smarter and stronger.
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Science + Technology
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Lynda Lawson, The University of Queensland
Sapphires and rubies are both crystals of the mineral corundum - but with different impurities to create blue and red hues. Australian sapphires are renowned for being inky blue.
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David Hunter, Flinders University
If we want My Health Record data to be made available for medical research we need to make it opt in, not opt out. We'll have a smaller dataset, but at least it will be ethically defensible.
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John Long, Flinders University
We know of about 900 valid dinosaur species that existed. 'Valid' means scientists know the dinosaur from enough of the skeleton bones to feel pretty sure that it differs from other known dinosaurs.
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Education
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Andrew Harvey, La Trobe University; Lisa Andrewartha, La Trobe University
While many military veterans do well on campus, not everyone feels welcome or their views matter. Here's what universities can do better.
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Business + Economy
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Libby Sander
Many of our offices are filthy, which doesn't just trigger a sense of disgust but can make us sick.
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Vicky Comino, The University of Queensland
Putting regulators inside corporations isn't new, and the US experience highlights risks of regulatory capture, but the move could make a difference if ASIC is shifting to more robust enforcement.
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Politics + Society
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Ian Crawford, Birkbeck, University of London
At a time when nationalism and religious ideologies are dividing humanity, it is important to find unifying perspectives on our 'origin story.'
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Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra
Labor MP Emma Husar has bowed to the inevitable and announced she will not contest next year's election – although she plans to stay in parliament until then.
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Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra
Barnaby Joyce has confirmed he could cross the floor on the federal legislation associated with the National Energy Guarantee. “Of course I could,” he says.
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Sally Gainsbury, University of Sydney; Alex Blaszczynski, University of Sydney; Brett Abarbanel, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
For online gamblers, there are many attractions to offshore sights, so governments must focus on arming consumers with better knowledge about its risk.
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