by Richard Denniss[Originally published on Guardian Australia, 12 June 2019] If renewables weren’t getting cheaper, would Australia still want to tackle climate change? And if world demand for coal wasn’t declining, would we still want to stop the Adani coalmine being built? After 30 years of democratic failures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, in the

by Richard Denniss[Originally Published on Guardian Australia, 29 May 2019] While Australian political debate has never seemed more sharply divided, the philosophical lines between left and right have never seemed more blurred. The economy is always in transition, and people are always losing and finding jobs, but – after decades of the right being contemptuous

by Richard Denniss[Originally published in the Australian Financial Review, 27 May 2019] There’s no doubt the Adani coal mine helped the Liberal National Party win votes in North Queensland but there’s also no doubt it helped them lose a lot of votes – and economic credibility – in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. And while the triumphalism of

by Ebony Bennett[Originally published in the Canberra Times, 17 May 2019] Bob Hawke is perhaps credited most often for his economic reforms, but he also leaves a tremendous legacy of protecting Earth’s wilderness. Without Bob Hawke, Antarctica would be a quarry, Tasmania’s iconic Franklin River would be flooded and Queensland’s Daintree rainforest would be a

by Richard Denniss[Originally published on The Guardian Australia, 15 May 2019] It’s now 12 years (and seven prime ministers) since John Howard promised to introduce a price on carbon and – despite emissions having increased to a new high and a number of big coal fired power stations having shut down – Australia still doesn’t

by Richard Denniss[Originally published in the Australian Financial Review, 16 April 2019] Scott Morrison hopes he can make voters as scared of electric cars as he made them of refugees. It’s a tough ask but credit where it’s due: given his party managed to make a swath of voters afraid of wind turbines and fibre

by Richard Denniss[Originally published in the Australian Financial Review, 01 April 2019] The one thing that unites the major parties on climate change is that neither of them still believe carbon pricing is central to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Indeed, the party sticking to the proposition that a carbon price is the most efficient way

by Richard Denniss[Originally published on Guardian Australia, 20 March 2019] Conservatives love subsidies because they know that they work. It’s why they spend $11bn subsidising private schools and $6bn subsidising private health insurance. It’s why they’re so keen to subsidise new coal mines and coal-fired power stations. And of course, it’s the reason that they are so obsessed

by Richard Denniss[Originally published in The Australian Financial Review, 5 March 2019] Cultural symbols have replaced price signals at the heart of conservative politics. There’s now no better way for Australian conservatives to virtue signal than to support the construction of new coal mines. The Coalition is no longer neo, nor liberal – it simply

by Ebony Bennett[Originally published in the Canberra Times, 23 Febuary 2019] These last two weeks of Parliament may prove a turning point for the 2019 election, but only time will tell if they mark the moment the Coalition got back in the game or the point at which voters wrote them off entirely. At their

by Richard Denniss[Originally published in the Financial Review, 19 Feb 2019] Millions of people in developing countries jumped straight from having no phone to having a mobile phone and so too will thousands of villages in developing countries jump from having no grid electricity to their own renewable energy. Leapfrogging old technologies can save billions.

by Richard Denniss[Originally published in the Australian Financial Review, 4 Feb 2019] Few people think carbon pricing is as important as Tony Abbott does. Not only was repealing the carbon tax his biggest achievement as prime minister, nearly five years later, he still can’t stop talking about it. Nothing would excite him more than the

by Ebony Bennett[Originally published in The Canberra Times, 26.01.19] Australians all let us rejoice, for we are young and forcing 537 councils to conduct citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day. And it’s stinking hot. What could be more Australian than a nationwide ban on shorts and thongs as we confer citizenship on our newest Aussies during

by Richard Denniss [This article originally appeared in the Australian Financial Review 18.09.18] As the Wentworth byelection will show, the desire of Coalition MPs to micro-target their “base” is a terrible way to develop national policy or win federal elections. Take energy policy: should the Coalition compete with Pauline Hanson for the climate sceptic vote in

PDF of Open Letter can be downloaded in full here. Full text of open letter and list of signatories below. Dear Premier and Ministers of the Government of Western Australia — Unconventional oil and gas development in Western Australia should not go ahead under any circumstances. The consequences of global warming are already extremely serious;

by Ebony Bennett, Deputy Director of The Australia Institute. [This article originally appeared in the Canberra Times 08.09.18] Watching Brazil’s National Museum burn this week was a tragic reminder that, if we don’t take care, we can snap the threads that bind us to our history forever. Over a matter of hours, tens of millions

by Ben Oquist, Executive Director of The Australia Institute. [This article originally appeared in the Australian Financial Review 28.08.18] Scott Morrison is set to make the same mistake as the Business Council of Australia on energy and climate policy. Equating emission reductions with higher prices gets the politics and economics wrong. Australia’s climate and energy debates

By Richie Merzian, Director of The Australia Institute’s Climate & Energy Program.  [Read article in the New Matilda Here] Private and public investment in a safe climate future is growing, despite the best and worst efforts of some of the world’s leading polluters, writes Richie Merzian. On a reclaimed swamp fringing the outskirts of the industrial

By Richard Denniss, Chief Economist at The Australia Institute. [View this article in the Australian Financial Review] Having abandoned the principles of small government, the right of Australian politics are now urging Australia to embrace Donald Trump’s attack on international agreements. Is there any institution these so-called “conservatives” aren’t willing to wreck in pursuit of

By Richard Denniss, Chief Economist at The Australia Institute [Read in the Sydney Morning Herald here] Economic rationalism and neoliberalism are dead in Australia. In an unexpected twist, the idea that markets are good and governments are bad was killed by the right wing of Australian politics, who simply couldn’t resist the desire to shovel

Everyone is saying Tasmania is a becoming a clean energy powerhouse, so how do we make sure ordinary Tasmanians get a piece of the action?

Read a pdf version here

Clean energy technology is becoming competitive with fossil fuels, globally. This provides the basis for a new strategic approach to solving the political aspect of the climate threat.This is a speech given at ‘Imagining a Different Future Conference’, Hobart, on 8 February 2018, hosted by the University of Tasmania, the University of Utrecht Ethics Institute,

Just as many politicians choose to ignore the evidence of criminologists when designing crime prevention policy, the majority of Australian politicians choose to ignore economic evidence in the design of Australian energy policy. That’s OK. There’s no mention of role of evidence in the Australian Constitution and there’s no obligation on parliamentarians to base policy

An open letter, published as a full-page advertisement in today’s Australian Financial Review, calls for a higher emission reduction target for the electricity sector – well above the 26% proposed by the government’s National Energy Guarantee (NEG). — See full letter in pdf below — Signatories to the letter comprise high-profile business leaders, CEOs, academics,

he Adani coal mine is the most divisive resource project since the proposal to dam Tasmania’s Franklin River in 1983. The debate over whether to subsidise it even more so. But thanks to Annastasia Palaszczuk’s last-minute decision to veto any Commonwealth loan to the project, the voters of Queensland are now being offered a full range of policy positions

The Australian gas industry’s best hope is the Turnbull government’s worst nightmare; a big increase in world prices for oil and gas. Santos and Origin executives lost billions of their shareholder’s dollars when they bet $60 billion worth of gas export facilities in Gladstone on a world oil price of around $US100. They lost. The

Australia has plenty of cheap gas. The problem is private companies are selling it all overseas, writes principal adviser at The Australia Institute Mark Ogge. [This article was first published by Crikey – here] Hard to believe, isn’t it? But it’s true: in the last decade, tens of thousands of square kilometers of Queensland farmland has

Given the enormous investment in renewable energy taking place in the US and in Europe, other national governments must be determined to drive up the price of their electricity. [First published by the Australian Financial Review – here] Either that, or everything Malcolm Turnbull has been saying about the need to keep a 50-year-old power station going