The ideal business is one that earns very high returns on capital and that keeps on using capital at those very high returns. That becomes a compounding machine. So if you had your choice, if you could put a hundred million dollars into a business that earns twenty per cent on that capital - twenty million - ideally, it would be able to earn twenty per cent on a hundred and twenty million the following year and on a hundred and forty million the following year and so on. You could keep redeploying that capital at those same returns over time. But there are very, very few businesses like that... we can move that money around from those business to buy more businesses.

Warren Buffet

Latest Papers

The working papers collection comprises historical papers as well as current ideas and works in progress on some of the major issues and topics of our times.

When the World Turns Upside Down (released 5 May 2015)
A Glimpse of the Impact of Cyclones Lam and Nathan on Remote Aboriginal Homelands
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Co-Mingling: An Interview with Ernst & Young's Les Hems (released 19 April 2015)
Co-Mingling public grants and re-current funding with private and philanthropic investments is the name of the game for next generation social change organisations.
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Born to Run: Hillary Rodham Clinton's New Agenda (released 13 April 2015)
If ever a person was born to run for the White House then it is Hillary Rodham Clinton.
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"Barangaroo Had the Measure of the Invaders": An Interview with Linda Burney Her Vision of the Barangaroo Indigenous Cultural Centre, Labor’s Pledge of $100 million and land and the hand back of Me-Mel (Goat Island) (released 23 March 2015)
Linda Burney’s announcement of Labor’s plan to build a $100 million plus Indigenous Cultural Centre at Barangaroo incorporating the hand back of the eye of the Harbour Me-Mel (Goat Island) on Saturday sent a wave through the NSW election. It was an act of leadership whose reverberations go beyond the NSW State election. The Labor plan is a blue print to guide the city of Sydney, the corporate sector and the gateway of Australia. It has the potential to enliven the whole city and nation by acknowledging our national wrongs and re-harnessing the creative spirit of the land and its first peoples.
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"There is no one to raise the voices anymore": An Interview with Linda Burney (released 27 February 2015)
“The Labor party is changing. It had no choice but to change.”
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The Woman who Changed Our Hearts and Minds: The Style and Grace of Faith Bandler (September 27, 1918 - February 13, 2015) (released 14 February 2015)
“…change can be achieved if the people are taken along also. The ordinary people. We who are ordinary have helped save the world...”
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Stolen Generation II? (released 10 February 2015)
Aboriginal children in NSW are 9.8 times more likely than non-Aboriginal children to be in out-of-home care. It's a big issue in Aboriginal communities. Some are talking about Stolen Generation II. In this interview Lorraine Brown, Sue Leppan, Royden Butler and Gerry Moore talk about the issues.
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2015: Crunch Year for Indigenous Affairs An Interview with Warren Mundine 4 February 2015 (released 5 February 2015)
Warren Mundine describes 2015 as the crunch year for his Indigenous Advisory Council and the Abbott Government's Indigenous policy. Unless substantial progress is made in four key areas: educational participation, women and children's safety, employment and Indigenous incarceration rates then he judges that he and the Abbott government will have failed
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Vale Tom Uren (released 26 January 2015)
Vale Tom Uren (28 May 1921 – 26 January 2015)
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The Art of Aboriginal Saltwater Fishing: An Interview with the Legendary Ron Ardler and family (released 8 December 2014)
At one time there were 16 Aboriginal fishing companies supplying the Sydney fish markets from Wreck Bay south of Sydney. Now there is only one. All up and down the NSW coast we must ensure for environmental, cultural and economic reasons that Aboriginal fishing enterprises prosper into the 21st century and beyond.
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