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Michael Stutchbury

Michael Stutchbury

Financial Review

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Australia is becoming a second-rate country again

Australia is becoming a second-rate country again

Bigger government, higher taxes, more expensive energy, more regulated workplaces and closing off natural growth options will make Australia second...

latest 10

Financial Review

Michael Stutchbury

Labor should clean up tobacco tax mess

The pandemic confirmed that the public health lobby should not be left to determine the policy trade-offs, incentives and costs of seeking to...

11.09.2026 30

Financial Review

Michael Stutchbury

Labor’s workplace regulation fails workers

The political success of the ACTU’s “workers’ rights” ambit claims has not translated into gains for employees.

29.08.2026 30

Financial Review

Michael Stutchbury

Why not tame inflation by giving everyone a pay rise?

Talk of pay rises is emboldened by American Democratic Socialists such as New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Britain’s Andy Burnham and even by Anthony...

14.08.2026 60

Financial Review

Michael Stutchbury

Victorian disaster could bring Albanese undone

The attempted sharp break from absolute Labor-Left rule in the state confirms that “something is wrong with the place”, as former ACTU secretary...

31.07.2026 40

Financial Review

Michael Stutchbury

Max Walsh would recognise this poor, little rich country

Rather than shoring up Australian prosperity, politicians have squabbled over how to redistribute it.

17.07.2026 20

Financial Review

Michael Stutchbury

World Cup made Europeans fall for America

Hosting soccer’s global party is boosting American patriotism just as Trump’s narcissism is souring the 250th anniversary of America’s...

03.07.2026 30

Financial Review

Michael Stutchbury

Chalmers’ latest bout of regulatory harassment will help no one

There is no evidence Coles and Woolworths have ripped off shoppers. But that – and a warning from the Productivity Commission chairwoman – will...

19.06.2026 40

Financial Review

Michael Stutchbury

Labor’s ‘pro-worker’ agenda is making workers poorer

Surely, it’s time to recognise that Labor’s union-dominated party structure and its policy model will not lift living standards, even for employees.

05.06.2026 50

Financial Review

Michael Stutchbury

The budget punishes people for trying to get ahead

The backlash has come from the very Australians whom the budget’s “intergenerational equity” tax slug is supposed to help.

22.05.2026 40

Financial Review

Michael Stutchbury

Keating once warned of a 'banana republic'. Chalmers is slowly taking us there

Forty years ago this week, ambitious 42-year-old Labor treasurer Paul Keating warned that Australia risked becoming a "banana republic"....

16.05.2026 60

The Examiner

Michael Stutchbury

Keating once warned of a 'banana republic'. Chalmers is slowly taking us there

Forty years ago this week, ambitious 42-year-old Labor treasurer Paul Keating warned that Australia risked becoming a "banana republic"....

16.05.2026 60

Canberra Times

Michael Stutchbury

The NDIS became a grifters’ paradise – and you’re paying

The flaw in the NDIS lies in the same haloed human rights principles on which the entitlement monument has been built.

09.05.2026 50

Financial Review

Michael Stutchbury

Rinehart’s riches show why we shouldn’t slap windfall tax on gas

Nations can become wealthier and more secure by profitably supplying more of what the world wants most from them.

23.04.2026 50

Financial Review

Michael Stutchbury

Subsidies, safety nets and stagnation: Australia’s new economic model

Protecting one industry imposes a burden on the competitive sectors that actually prop up our prosperity, such as mining, energy and agriculture.

11.04.2026 50

Financial Review

Michael Stutchbury

Economic exceptionalism is dead – and rate cuts died with it

Jim Chalmers doesn’t have a central bank governor to blame for his forward misguidance or for his complaint that monetary policy may be “smashing...

30.01.2026 60

Financial Review

Michael Stutchbury

The real reason Australia’s economy is underperforming

Michael Stutchbury started reporting on industrial relations 50 years ago. He says Australia’s high-wage economy is unsustainable unless business is...

21.11.2025 50

Financial Review

Michael Stutchbury

Productivity Commission piles in to Labor’s populist war on big business

The cash-flow tax proposal suggests we’re a utopia for oligopoly capitalists, presumably led by the big miners, the big banks and the big...

07.11.2025 40

Financial Review

Michael Stutchbury

Why the renewables romance is headed for divorce

07.10.2025 40

The Australian

Michael Stutchbury

Summit must end national complacency about Australia’s prosperity

The Economic Reform Roundtable should commit to making Australia an aspirational and enterprise-driven high-growth nation bursting with investment...

18.08.2025 50

Financial Review

Michael Stutchbury

This is the most striking generational change in 40 years

The property boom has made older Australians rich and turned housing into the standout generational issue that Jim Chalmers must tackle with his...

06.07.2025 50

Financial Review

Michael Stutchbury

Chainsaw rent controls to escape from New York’s housing crisis

The less politically polarised Australian debate has recognised that easing restrictions on supply is the key to fixing the housing stress on young...

01.07.2025 40

Financial Review

Michael Stutchbury

First TACO, now TWIT: Trump will inevitably tank the economy

The president’s bold strikes on Iran disproved the TACO theory, but it remains hard to figure how higher tariffs and inflation and a wider budget...

27.06.2025 70

Financial Review

Michael Stutchbury