This is an extract of Lech Blaine’s Quarterly Essay, Bad Cop: Peter Dutton’s Strongman Politics, out now.

The NSW Labor Government took office promising to create a vast koala sanctuary on the state’s mid-north coast – the Great Koala National Park. Despite the threat of koala extinction in the state, more than a year later the Great Koala National Park is yet to be established. 

The Right to Disconnect legislation being passed recently has attracted criticism from Opposition leader Peter Dutton and business groups, who say it’s bad for productivity. They may need to learn some basic maths, because they couldn’t be more wrong. Centre for Future Work Director Dr Jim Stanford explains. Research indicates the average Australian worker performs

Prime ministers need to stop “waving their mandates around” and start negotiating in both houses of parliament if they want to pass more legislation, says Richard Denniss.

A budget surplus doesn’t mean a government is good at running the economy – we should focus on the choices they make instead, says Greg Jericho.

While last year’s robodebt royal commission exposed a shocking lack of ethics among senior ranks of the Australian public service, the systemic condition still largely seems to be regarded as an aberration.

Budget, Julia Gillard rightly said, are about choices. And those choices are a lot more important than whether or not the budget is in surplus or deficit

With unions calling for a five per cent increase to award wages, business groups are crying wolf over the proposal’s impact on inflation and unemployment, says Greg Jericho.

For three years, Meta and Google have paid hundreds of millions of dollars to Australian publishers in exchange for using news content.

Jigsaw Farms, long held up as a shining star of carbon neutral farming, is no longer carbon neutral, although only just. 

Rather than backing cheap and abundant renewable energy, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has gone all in on nuclear.

Nuclear energy really is remarkable.

When AUKUS was announced, the ANU was quick off the mark to cash in.

The Australian Government should be using its unique position to leverage our close relationship with the United States over the ongoing conflict in Gaza, writes Dr Emma Shortis.

As much as $1 billion in taxpayer funding may be being funnelled into the pockets of for-profit academic publishers every year, writes Dr Kristen Scicluna.

2023 has shown us a planet on the brink of collapse. Cyclones, heatwaves, catastrophic floods, fires and landslides have killed people, destroyed ecosystems and decimated communities. And yet Australia is still yet to repair all the homes lost in the Black Summer bushfires of 2020 or the devastating Lismore floods of 2017 and 2022. No

With unemployment tumbling in February, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) should resist the urge to raise interest rates, says Australia Institute Chief Economist Greg Jericho.

Big tech is kicking capitalism to the kerb, former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis tells a sold-out crowd at the State Library of NSW in a special episode of Follow the Money.

“My job was simple, don’t sell our people out – because nothing is worth more than Us.”

Instead of worrying about whether Trump hates us, we should be thinking, together, about how to forge a world which remains free of his demagoguery, writes Dr Emma Shortis.

One of the key things about this whole problem is that the only way to solve it is that we need to rapidly reduce and phase out fossil fuels. That can’t wait a decade. We need to be making substantial reductions this decade.

The Australia Institute will do everything it can to keep fossil fuel expansion, fossil fuel subsidies, dodgy offsets and much more on the agenda ahead of the next federal election.

Why is the Government prosecuting whistleblowers? And how do we tackle the social license of the fossil fuel industry? Our second panel of the Climate Integrity Summit 2024 discussed the communications front of the fight against fossil fuels, how to protect whistleblowers, and more in an insightful discussion. Featuring: Shane Rattenbury MLA, ACT Minister for

Australian agriculture doesn’t have enough capacity to offset its own emissions, according to Mark Wootton from Jigsaw Farms.

What would an evidence-based response from the government to climate change look like? And how can we build integrity back into our democratic system? At the Climate Integrity Summit 2024, our first panel discussed the power of political leadership and evidence-based policy. Featuring: Bernie Fraser, Former Governor, Reserve Bank of Australia Dr Monique Ryan MP,

Removing the fossil fuel industry’s influence on politics and parliament is how we change the story and restore trust in government decisions.

“The growing interest in ESG is driving the biggest change to financial markets and financial reporting and disclosure standards we’ve actually seen in a generation. We’ve got to make sure that we are ready to meet the challenge of that change at every step of its development.”

Words are only as good as the actions that follow. There’s no integrity in climate ambition without commensurate climate action. Having integrity means keeping our word, and that includes countries like Australia and other members of the G20 transitioning away from fossil fuels and doing so now.

Today, we stand at the crossroads of opportunity and crisis.

Tasmanians have been badly served by its government’s exaggerated fears about the condition of the state budget.