Michael Stutchbury interviews Brett Stevenson about his new CIS paper The Discipline of Profit, which tests the claim that Woolworths and Coles have been raking in megaprofits at the expense of shoppers, suppliers and staff. Stevenson goes to the only place the argument can actually be settled: the companies’ own audited accounts.

👉 Support CIS Research: 🔹 Become a member: https://www.cis.org.au/membership-2-step-1/ 🔹 Make a donation: https://www.cis.org.au/support/donate/today/ 🔹 Learn more: https://www.cis.org.au/

👉 Further reading: https://www.cis.org.au/publication/the-discipline-of-profit-what-supermarket-accounts-reveal-about-profiteering-debate/

This is the audio version of Wrong Way – Go Back: How Australia’s Workplace Relations System is Holding Back Growth, Wages and Opportunity, a Centre for Independent Studies paper by former Fair Work Commission vice-president Graeme Watson. For the full paper, go to: https://www.cis.org.au/publication/wrong-way-go-back-how-australias-workplace-relations-system-is-holding-back-growth-wages-and-opportunity/

Watson argues that Australia’s workplace system is uniquely prescriptive and uniquely complex — National Employment Standards, 122 modern awards, and a bargaining regime stacked on top of one of the world’s highest minimum wages. The 1990s consensus of Hawke, Keating and Howard put a fair safety net under enterprise-level deals that lifted productivity and real wages. From 2022 to 2025 that rationale was reversed: more prescription, revived multi-employer and pattern bargaining, expanded arbitration, and individual claims that reward speculation over merit. Productivity dropped out of workplace policy even as growth slumped and real wages flattened.

The paper’s answer is to go back: regulation as a guardrail, not a handbrake. Watson sets out 16 first-step reforms, including a simplified small-business award, annual salaries instead of overtime complexity, employer consent for multi-enterprise bargaining, a productivity test for agreements, tighter unfair-dismissal and general-protections rules, and cost orders against unreasonable claims. Australia cannot regulate its way to prosperity. Read the paper at the link above.

Watch here: https://youtu.be/8PZDxDVb1_o

Michael Stutchbury interviews CIS Education Director Blaise Joseph about his new paper: Classrooms in Crisis: Australian teacher views on student behaviour.

A national survey of more than 370 teachers finds classroom disruption is costing students an average of 12 weeks of learning a year — roughly one-third of instructional time

👉 Support CIS Research: 🔹 Become a member: https://www.cis.org.au/membership-2-step-1/ 🔹 Make a donation: https://www.cis.org.au/support/donate/today/ 🔹 Learn more: https://www.cis.org.au/

👉 Further reading: https://www.cis.org.au/publication/classrooms-in-crisis-australian-teachers-perspectives-on-student-behaviour/