HeyJaredMelissa Bray
- Indexed articles, last 90 days
- 5
- Latest publication
- Sep 17, 2026
- Outlet visibility, for AFR
- Top 50K sites
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- Jul 13, 2026
Latest articles
How great high school teachers inspired a generation of top economists (opens the original)
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Danielle Wood enjoyed economics so much that when her school in Adelaide dropped the subject, she organised to study it at a different school. When Catie Bradbear and I sat down with Wood, the first woman to chair Australia’s Productivity Commission, she told us she has always loved economics because it provides tools for improving the lives of Australians. She credits her two high school teachers, Robyn Walters and Di Averis, with sparking her interest in the subject. Gift 5 articles to anyone
What if growing a bigger GST pie cut your income tax? (opens the original)
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With all the recent talk about how we divide up the GST pie among the states, one thing that hasn’t got much airtime is the size of the GST pie. By international standards, our GST has a narrow base and a very low rate. The rate hasn’t changed in the 26 years we’ve had the GST, and at 10 per cent it’s only about half the average OECD rate. Our GST also has many exemptions, including fresh food, health, education, childcare, water, sewerage and drainage, residential rent and financial services. G
No potholes in WA roads thanks to bigger slice of GST pie (opens the original)
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Surely it is counterintuitive if a bushfire in NSW could lead to Western Australia getting a bigger share of the GST pie but, according to the Productivity Commission, that could happen because of the 2018 changes to our distribution system. Fairness is a value Australians hold dear. We believe the quality of schooling, healthcare and other services should not depend on which state you live in, but that every state should be able to provide their residents with comparable services. Gift 5 articl
Time is over for tinkering with how we divide the GST pie (opens the original)
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The Productivity Commission must be getting very close to finalising its draft report on the 2018 GST distribution changes that independent economist Saul Eslake had labelled “the worst public policy decision of the 21st century thus far”. Introduced by the Coalition and retained by Labor, the controversial 2018 changes have seen an increase in the share of the GST going to Western Australia and a “no worse off guarantee” that provides top-ups out of the federal budget to the other states. Gift
Labor has broken the tax reform ice. Now it must keep going (opens the original)
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Two months have passed since the budget and there are three things we learnt from it. First, the government displayed a lot more courage than many of us were expecting. Back in February, I went to an author event hosted by Paul Bongiorno for The First Albanese Government. The book’s editors, John Hawkins, Michelle Grattan and John Halligan, gave the Albanese government’s first term a tick on appointments, keeping promises and being orderly. But they said it didn’t compare with the ambition of pr
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