Buried deep in Australia new emissions data release is this nugget, in the ‘revisions’ section: “Fugitive sector emissions decreased 2.2% over the year to March 2025, mainly driven by reductions in natural gas venting emissions from new carbon capture and storage activities and a decline in production across both surface and underground coal mining. Estimates

August was another busy month at the Australia Institute! With Parliament sitting, the economic roundtable and more, there was already a lot going on! And we were still releasing new research, holding events, press conferences, the list goes on. Watch a select highlight of content and media from the Australia Institute in August 2025.

This shouldn’t be new information to anyone who has been paying attention, but it is now undeniable. The Coalition is a fringe party, and should be treated as such.

A key problem with the economic roundtable is many of those hauled in to fix Australia’s productivity black hole have spent the past 25 years gunning for more privatisation.

A genuine debate about how to boost Australia’s productivity should bring in a wide range of groups to talk about a wide range of options, but, alas, that’s not what happened in Canberra last week.

In the fight against slavery, abolitionists eventually prevailed over slave owners. The long fight was not won in the sensible centre, but by “radical, democratic” absolutists who risked their lives in the fight to save the lives of others. It scares me to think how the ABC, or indeed most of the world’s media, would

The three-day economic roundtable is over. After all the colour and movement, what did we get?

“Prime Minister, how do you get the relationship with Israel back on track from here?”

Labor has never been in a better position to implement its national policy platform.

Business representatives sit down today with government and others to talk about productivity. Who, according to those business representatives, will need to change the way they do things?

Latest decision on salmon farming almost certain to be catastrophic for endangered species, writes Eloise Carr

Recently, we published a video showing a huge new gas drilling rig in Victoria, within sight of the 12 Apostles – a globally recognised tourist hotspot. As Dr Emma Shortis says in the video: “We are putting our coastlines at risk to extract gas we don’t even need. Australia already produces way more gas than

Canberra is in the grip of Abundance fever, a virus that threatens to overwhelm public policy with a diagnosis of overregulation. For those afflicted, the treatment is to maintain the status quo, but with the sheen of progressivism. The Abundance agenda is being presented as a panacea for all of America’s problems, and therefore also Australia’s problems. It’s shaping

Clive Palmer, the billionaire coal miner who funded the Palmer United Party, United Australia Party and Trumpet of Patriots, is considering another political run.

After months of reflection, recriminations and resolute commitments to change, we finally have the first concrete policy position for a government Sussan Ley would lead.

The RBA has cut interest rates – five weeks too late.

US professor and activist Noam Chomsky used to always advise people who wanted to know the truth to read the business press, because their readers needed to know what was really going on.

Most children with Eastern European relatives will learn this lesson young; a scorpion wants to cross a river but it can not swim. It sees a frog about to get into the river and pleads with it for a ride.

Governments work hard to ensure that Australian climate policy seems effective to media and voters, while simultaneously ensuring it does nothing to limit the key thing that is wrecking the climate – fossil fuel expansion.

In an interim report released overnight, Harnessing data and digital technology, the Productivity Commission has floated a text and data mining exception for the Australian Copyright Act. This would make it legal to train artificial intelligence large language models, such as ChatGPT, on copyrighted Australian work. AI training would be added to the list of “fair

In an interim report released overnight, Harnessing data and digital technology, the Productivity Commission has floated a text and data mining exception for the Australian Copyright Act. This would make it legal to train artificial intelligence large language models, such as ChatGPT, on copyrighted Australian work. AI training would be added to the list of

July was a busy month at the Australia Institute, and our research was everywhere!

There is a sickness at the centre of Australia’s childcare system. The profit motive.

There used to be a myth that News Corp could make or break governments.

As the Albanese government prepares to announce Australia’s 2035 climate target, pressure is mounting to show greater ambition.

Like a reanimated corpse from The Walking Dead, carbon capture and storage (CCS) is the boondoggle “technology” that just wont die. As a way for governments to piss public money up the wall, CCS is incredibly effective. On almost every other front, it’s a spectacular failure.

It’s pleasing to see a real competition emerging for government in Tasmania the state election a fortnight ago. The Labor Party is finally off the bench and in the game – making a play for crossbench support to form government after refusing the last two opportunities to do so. So far, negotiations are focusing on

Australia has a proud tradition of impolite, inconvenient protest for worthy causes.

Conspiracy theories are funny things. The most enduring ones usually take hold for two reasons: first, because there’s some grain of truth to them, and second, because they speak to foundational historical divisions. The theories morph and change, distorting the grain of truth at their centre beyond reality. In the process, they reinforce and deepen

The Australia Institute and 30 other organisations from around Tasmania have published an open letter with 10 asks for the environment from whomever forms Tasmania’s next government. When cross-benchers and major parties have struck successful power-sharing agreements elsewhere, they covered policy as well as procedure, making now the ideal time for progress.