Today, the name of Niccolò Machiavelli is a byword for cynicism and hunger for power, but there was one profession so parasitic and selfish even he could not stomach it.

Transparency, integrity and accountability were buzzwords of the 2024 state election, yet Tasmanians went to the polls without knowing where their politicians get their money, without laws requiring truth in political advertising, and without an anti-corruption body that is fit for purpose.

Who would have thought that the legal and personal travails of Julian Assange, the Australian citizen whom US authorities are invested in prosecuting and jailing for the rest of his life without deep consideration of his fundamental rights, would become a lightning rod for former President Trump’s re-election hopes?

While money can’t buy everything, the Australian Government can ‘buy’ a lower Consumer Price Index (CPI).

In 2019 the Australia Institute identified ambitious, progressive policies from the Australian Capital Territory, most of which are overwhelmingly popular among all Australians. Five years on, we have an update on how these policies have progressed in Canberra and around Australia.

Nobody likes to be hoodwinked, but that’s what big companies are essentially doing when they engage in greenwashing – giving consumers the false impression they have business practices that help the environment instead of harming it.

Former Senator Rex Patrick is on a mission to make freedom of information reform “sexy”.

Watch Dr Emma Shortis’ address to ‘Night Falls In The Evening Lands: The Assange Epic’ at RMIT University, Melbourne, on 9th March 2024.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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,

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

Visionary economist Yanis Varoufakis toured Australia in March as a guest of the Australia Institute, as part of our 30th anniversary celebrations in 2024.

Yanis Varoufakis addressed the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday 13 March, 2024.

The Australia Institute has crunched the data on women’s representation in Australian parliaments.

No modern democracy has shown greater readiness to experiment with various electoral methods than Australia.

“Who in God’s name does he think he is?”

Be it administrative incompetence, secrecy and trickery, the failure of the Morrison government to hand over Cabinet documents about the Iraq War to the National Archives should trigger serious analysis of how Australia enters conflicts, writes Ebony Bennett.

With the federal government announcing a desire to double charitable donations by 2030, Stephen Long examines the potential inefficiency & inequity of relying on charities, rather than governments, to provide essential services.

In the United States, one of the men vying for the presidency faces 91 criminal charges in four concurrent criminal cases.

The Australian politicians pushing for Assange’s release represents a rare crack in the wall of bipartisan support for the sacrosanct alliance.

Last week, Education Minister Jason Clare announced that he was going to remove political interference from the Australian Research Council grants process (except for national security concerns). It is a victory for academic freedom, and a testament to the work of Senator Mehreen Faruqi – who proposed the Ensuring Research Independence Bill back in 2018.