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.

We are all consumers. Every one of us.

The first week of the 48th Parliament was very revealing.

It is odd that many who talk about wanting more tax revenue to come from the GST would balk at the easiest services to broaden it to like private schools and private health insurance.

The Federal Government has released a new report that includes projections of how much gas Australia is set to use over the coming decades. There is no ambiguity in its message: Australia reached peak gas years ago, and it’s all downhill from here:

For decades, the populous eastern states of Australia had an abundant supply of low-cost gas.

University leaders are keeping their institutions in the news for all the wrong reasons. Yesterday, it was University of Technology Sydney’s (UTS) turn for a round of bad press.

When the medical world hosts a conference on quitting smoking, they don’t invite Phillip Morris, or British American Tobacco along to help “be part of the solution”.

The Macquarie Point stadium proposal is controversial. It’s also painfully expensive.

A veil of secrecy hangs over the conditions that will apply to Woodside Energy’s massive gas export project on the Burrup Peninsula in WA – the kind of secrecy that corporate power can command.

July 1 marked a dramatic change in how political parties and candidates are funded in South Australia.

Former Labor Prime Minister Ben Chifley famously didn’t own a dinner suit.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has formally nominated United States President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. He says the president is “forging peace as we speak, in one country, in one region after the other”. Trump, who has craved the award for years, sees himself as a global peacemaker in a raft of

This week, press gallery doyenne Michelle Grattan wrote about political and news cycles and how the two work.

Taxes are the price we pay for civilisation, but they are also a tool we can use to change the shape of our economy, not just its size.

It is time for the Australian government to admit we can’t insure our way out of the climate crisis our fossil fuel exports do so much to cause.

Taxpayers are being asked to hand over billions to multinational mining giant Rio Tinto to help keep its Tomago aluminium smelter open – again.

It’s a big week for Australian culture, with announcement of the shortlist for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, one of the country’s top writing prizes.

Australia, like Little Sir Echo, whimpers after the world’s premier bully bombs the ‘bully of the Middle East’.