From the Desk of the Executive Director

The offer by Japan Post to purchase Toll Holdings looks like a smart move by the Japanese as explained by Robert Gottliebsen earlier this week (The Toll takeover exposes our institutions' ignorance, February 18)

Over the last eight years, Toll has built a logistics footprint into Asia that the Japanese clearly value, as is reflected in the significant premium they’re prepared to pay. More...

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has promised to do away with corporate welfare. Thank goodness!

Corporate welfare is effectively a business prop, most frequently for big businesses that aren’t well run. In the last 16 years $30 billion has been given to car manufacturers. What’s that achieved?  Mostly wasted money and painful delays to the ultimate closures of Ford and Holden! More...

Thank goodness Holden is finally leaving Australia. The pain is over and no longer will ordinary Australian taxpayers and small business people have to pay to keep Holden going.

Yes, unions are crying ''What about the poor workers!'' Poor workers? These are privileged workers. More...

It was only the middle of last year that Ford announced it was closing. Now Holden is making the same threat, not directly but through what it seems is its chief lobbyist, the South Australian Labor government. This time, Holden is saying it wants another $275 million from government or it closes. More...

There's more to the Ford closure story than at first appears.

In fact, there's a monster truck crashing over the bonnets of the car manufacturing industry in Australia.  Unfortunately, no one seems capable of stopping its destructive progress. Sitting in the driver's seat are Australia's manufacturing unions shouting loud about 'workers' rights'.  These unions share a big part of the blame for the industry's progressive decline and job losses. More...