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On Thursday Josh Frydenberg broke with the past, adopting a platform far more radical than an Australian government, Labor or Coalition, in the past 50 years.
He pledged to drive the unemployment rate down to between 4% and 5%, so that, as Michelle Grattan put it, the rate would have “a four in front of it”.
This morning The Conversation publishes the results of an exclusive poll of 60 leading economists selected by the Economic Society for their expertise and breadth of experience.
47 back the government’s move. 13 would like it to go further.
The new target of an unemployment rate between 4% and 5% will mean about 200,000 more Australians in work than the old target adopted in last year’s budget of an unemployment rate “comfortably below 6%”.
The Treasurer says he won’t begin to tighten the budget settings until that happens. If unemployment does get that low and is sustained, it would be the first time since the governments of Robert Menzies, Harold Holt, John Gorton and William McMahon in the 1960s and early 1970s.
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Peter Martin
Section Editor, Business and Economy
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MIA Studio/Shutterstock
Peter Martin, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
47 of the 60 leading economists surveyed by the Economic Society and The Conversation back the Treasurer's decision to aim for an unemployment rate of less than 5%.
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Shutterstock/Jason Benz Bennee
Corey J. A. Bradshaw, Flinders University; Alan N Williams, UNSW; Frédérik Saltré, Flinders University; Kasih Norman, University of Wollongong; Sean Ulm, James Cook University
It took just 5,000 years for large and well-organised groups of people to populate all corners of the continent.
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Author provided/The Conversation
Stefani Crabtree, Santa Fe Institute; Alan N Williams, UNSW; Corey J. A. Bradshaw, Flinders University; Devin White, University of Tennessee; Frédérik Saltré, Flinders University; Sean Ulm, James Cook University
We now have a glimpse into where early Indigenous Australians likely travelled all those tens of thousands of years ago.
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Piyal Adhikary/AAP
Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra
Getting the right “balance” is one of the main challenges when framing and executing policies. The difficulties of achieving this are being exposed currently on two fronts – the repatriation of Australians and relations with China.
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Taiwan’s military has been on alert amid large numbers of Chinese war plane incursions in its air space.
Chiang Ying-ying/AP
Tony Walker, La Trobe University
The likelihood of open conflict is low, given the risks to China and the US. With the Biden administration treading carefully over Taiwan, why is there so much loose talk of war in Canberra?
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Shutterstock
Simon Sawyer, Australian Catholic University
The public deserves an ambulance service that advocates for their staff and their patients, not the needs of politicians who want a simple number to demonstrate their effectiveness.
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Nikki Short/AAP
Maïa Ponsonnet, The University of Western Australia
Australian Indigenous languages use a fascinating array of expressions drawing on body parts to describe emotions. Here is a guide to some of the most intriguing ones.
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Education
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Sharon Goldfeld, Murdoch Children's Research Institute; Hannah Bryson, Murdoch Children's Research Institute; Jodie Smith, La Trobe University
By the age of five, most children can name at least ten letters. In our study, 58.6% of children living with disadvantage could not name the expected number of alphabet letters.
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Environment + Energy
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Erick Lundgren, University of Technology Sydney; Arian Wallach, University of Technology Sydney; Daniel Ramp, University of Technology Sydney
Incredibly, once the wells dried up some became nurseries for the germination and establishment of wetland trees.
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Sukhbir Sandhu, University of South Australia
Businesses have long been a big part of the climate problem. They shouldn't scale back environmental initiatives when it all feels too hard.
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Celeste Young, Victoria University; Roger Jones, Victoria University
First the fires, then the pandemic. It’s not just the damage to infrastructure, houses, environment and farmland that makes recovery difficult; the emotional and physical toll is often gruelling too.
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Arts + Culture
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Joanna McIntyre, Swinburne University of Technology
Drag Down Under airs this Saturday. It will be intriguing to see how this slick TV show — built on US histories of drag — approaches the Australian drag tradition.
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Duncan Keenan-Jones, The University of Queensland
In a recent episode of Lego Masters, contestants were asked to build a castle in the style of the Spartans. It had white city walls — but the real Spartans famously refused to build a wall.
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Politics + Society
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Usha M. Rodrigues, Deakin University
As India's COVID crisis deepens, the government is taking a harder line with any social media content it finds objectionable.
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Barbara Pocock, University of South Australia
Victoria Police recently won the rights not to be contacted out of work hours. They are not the only employees who need a proper break from work.
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Health + Medicine
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Diego S. Silva, University of Sydney
It's easy to call Australian Olympians who receive their COVID shot early 'queue jumpers'. But the argument for them having early access to the vaccine is more nuanced. Here's why.
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Alison Poulton, University of Sydney
Impulsiveness, a key characteristic of ADHD, might help us understand some of Laming's behaviour. None of this excuses his actions, though.
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Meera Atkinson, University of Notre Dame Australia
Now, for the first time in Australian history, trauma is trending in the wider public discourse. What does this shift in public consciousness mean, and where is it taking us?
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Emma Calgaro, University of Sydney; Dale Dominey-Howes, University of Sydney; Leyla Craig, University of Sydney
Those with disaster experience said they hadn't received proper warnings, which led to confusion, helplessness and panic. There was a sense that 'we always come last'.
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Featured jobs
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Featured Events & Courses
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Level 21, 15 Broadway, Ultimo, New South Wales, 2007, Australia — University of Technology Sydney
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Online, Free webinar, Victoria, 3067, Australia — Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG)
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