From the Desk of the Executive Director

One of the most arrogant aspects of Australia’s industrial relations system is the treatment of workers as if they are stupid and cannot make decisions for themselves.

The existing superannuation system takes this assumption to high levels. It assumes that workers are so dumb that they must not be allowed to decide where their retirement superannuation money is parked. More...

Around 20 years ago, when I was writing for another news outlet, I received out of the blue a large cardboard box in the post. It contained the true financial records, including source documents, of a high-profile union. My suspicion was that it had come from a senior union official who’d just been kicked out of the union. When I checked the real records with the union’s officially declared financial returns, nothing matched. The official returns were a fabrication.  

On Monday the Victorian boss of the construction the CFMEU, John Setka, and his deputy, Shaun Reardon, were arrested and charged with blackmail. The blackmail charges relate to the CFMEU putting pressure on concrete company Boral to stop supplying the CFMEUs hated construction firm Grocon. More...

The big superannuation funds are at it again. They're campaigning against the one million Australians who own and control self-managed super funds.

The big funds have done this before, under the Rudd-Gillard Labor governments.

There's about $1.6 trillion of Australians' retirement money in superannuation. The industry (union-controlled) funds have 26 per cent. The retail funds (controlled by banks and AMP) have 20 per cent. Ordinary Australians with SMSFs have 31 per cent, or $500 billion. More...

Every Australian with money in a big superannuation fund should be concerned about what's happening to their retirement nest egg. They should be worried for one reason: funds don't fully disclose what they're doing with the money. This would probably surprise most Australians. More...

In Canada, 15 per cent of the workforce is self-employed. Australia's rate is 18.5 per cent. Recently I proposed the idea that there's a distinct link between self-employment and entrepreneurial innovation (Ignoring the economics of innovation, January 12). Self-employed people are, by behaviour and motivation, entrepreneurs. The more self-employed people there are the greater the potential for innovation and hence economic development.  More...