Opinions
Ensuring workers’ safety in the climate crisis
As I watched the fires in Los Angeles unfold in January this year, my mind of course reflected on the 1999-2000 Black Summer bushfires in Australia. Both these seasons have wrought significant damage to humans and other animals, and to land, infrastructure and property. There has been a huge personal, collective and financial toll involved.
Productivity is often mistaken for wages. What does it really mean? How does it work?
Australia’s productivity growth has reverted to the same stagnant pattern as before the pandemic, according to the Productivity Commission’s latest quarterly report. Productivity is complex and often misunderstood in media and policy debates. So before we read too much into this latest data, here are six key things to understand about productivity. 1. It’s about quantities,
January 2025
The hands of the Doomsday Clock show the world is ignoring a potential three-headed catastrophe
The apocalyptic “the end is nigh” was a popular meme for the image of despair and exclusion from the accelerating prosperity of America and the West.
The sad phenomenon of Australia’s unfunded excellence
In Australia, prize-winning artists, writers and musicians pay more tax than some multinational fossil fuel companies with turnover in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Ten years of Adani scandals and how to fix them
In 2025 it will be 10 years since most Australian news consumers first heard the name Adani.
December 2024
There’s nothing naughty about being poor. Why Christmas is a horrible time for kids living in poverty
The busiest shopping weekend of the year is upon us, where shopping malls become a desperate frenzy of overindulgence and waste. But spare a thought for those who can’t afford even the trimmest of trimmings this Christmas.
Secret research undermines democracy
This month, the Australian economic debate was hijacked by a report from the world’s most powerful consulting firm: McKinsey & Co. The consulting firm apparently found that declining living standards represent a “national emergency” – and the care economy, regulations and Australia’s corporate tax rate are to blame for low productivity growth. The only problem?
Is it any wonder we’re so distrustful of politicians?
The Albanese government’s attempt to rush through major changes to Australian elections has been delayed in the Senate – at least until February, perhaps forever. As Australia Institute research identified serious flaws, risks and loopholes in the legislation, delay is welcome – but bittersweet, because electoral reform is needed to increase confidence in politics and democracy. Good
Just what I’ve always wanted! How pretending to like gifts will cost Australians over $1 billion this Christmas
Do you relish the look of joy and surprise on the faces of loved ones when they open your Christmas presents?
Another hold likely. So, what was the point of the RBA review?
Will the RBA cut interest rates tomorrow? Probably not. It’s Groundhog Day and they’re locked into repeatedly making to same mistake over and over again. A mistake that the recent RBA review criticised them for making just before the pandemic.
Our crisis of integrity looms in the Pacific
“An Albanese Labor government will restore Australia’s climate leadership, and listen and act on Pacific island warnings of the existential threat of climate change.” Despite a clear election campaign commitment to listen to Pacific Island nations and act on climate change, the Australian government continues to enable and encourage new and expanded fossil fuel projects. When it
Can you imagine any other climate research group asking for less money?
Getting coal for Christmas is supposed to be a bad thing. But for Australia’s coal mines, all their Christmases seem to have come at once!
Salmon spin and pollution all a bit fishy
Salmon companies are ripping off Tasmania and trying to pass it off as yet another ‘jobs vs environment’ fight. This is the kind of fight that Tasmanian politicians love to have, and like performing seals, the Tasmanian government and opposition have lined up to bark and do their tricks. But the fight over salmon farming
If MPs want more public money, they should do their jobs first
‘Tis the season for poor process, rushed law-making and railroaded parliaments. With the end of the year rapidly approaching, governments have lost patience for democratic niceties like consultation, parliamentary reviews and public hearings.
November 2024
Two new housing policies, both doomed to fail
The government’s latest housing affordability policies, “help to buy” and “build to rent” are the latest in a long line of policies from both major parties that will do nothing to ease the housing crisis.
How to fix Australia’s broken childcare system so everybody wins
The potential social and economic benefits of early childhood education and care are huge.
Private health insurance is a dud. That’s why a majority of Australians don’t have it
Right now, final submissions are being made by private health insurers to the government for an increase in insurance premiums next year.
Toxic Trump ambitions could easily take hold in Australia
Strap yourselves in. Convicted felon Donald Trump has been re-elected president of the United States.
A big day for democracy … in Tasmania
While voters in the United States of America await the results of the 2024 Presidential election race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, researchers from The Australia Institute will appear before a parliamentary committee to recommend improvements to Tasmania’s electoral system.
What to expect on Election Day: history could be made, or we’re in for a long wait
As Americans vote in one of the most important presidential elections in generations, the country teeters on a knife edge. In the battleground states that will likely decide the result, the polling margins between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump are razor thin.
There are no safe seats. Major parties have to get used to independent thinking
Since the 2022 election, commentators and reporters have debated whether the wave of new independents was part of a broader movement or just the reflection of a moment.
October 2024
Ozymandias Revisited – The doomed conceit of AUKUS
Three years on, there is still no compelling argument, strategic or otherwise, for Australia’s acquiring eight Virginia class nuclear-propelled submarines (SSNs). Nor is there any compelling calculation of the large lick of funding – $368 billion and more – that the program will soak up. Only Defence seems able to command such stupendous outlays when
Federal Labor’s lesson from Qld defeat: bold progressive policies provide a pathway to a second term
There’s a lesson for the federal government from Labor’s narrower than expected defeat in the Queensland election: voters embrace progressive policies that address cost of living pressures.
The US election will change the world. Will we let it change Australia?
How has it come to this? The United States presidential election is a fight between a prosecutor and a convicted felon and the felon might win.
Government is ‘nature positive’ in the same way asbestos is lung positive
It’s like an episode of Utopia or Yes Minister – just a week out from the government’s Global Nature Positive Summit, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek approved three whopping coal mine extensions in NSW.
Finding peace is hard, but unending mutual destruction is in no one’s interest
Like most of the US allies, Australia is caught between a rock and a hard place.
September 2024
Tanya believe this government’s environmental hypocrisy?
Shortly after the Minerals Council warned the government to undermine mining “at your peril”, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek approved three new coal mine extensions. This nature-destroying decision has come just a few weeks before the government is set to host the Global Nature Positive Summit. The government is clearly pursuing a small target strategy but,
The report the Prime Minister cites against changes to negative gearing actually shows housing would be more affordable and rents barely affected.
Rather than show negative gearing changes are bad, a Deloitte report cited by the Prime Minister concludes they would improve housing affordability and home ownership.
We don’t need nuclear power – the path to cheaper electricity is renewables
The last thing Australia energy market needs is nuclear power. The data is clear – more renewables will lead to cheaper electricity.
The gas industry is gaslighting us
Barely a week goes by without another shrill headline about a supposed gas shortage and alarmist claims that the lights will go out unless multinational companies are allowed to extract more gas.
Whenever you see these headlines or hear scary claims from the gas lobby, there are two things you need to know.
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