The Abbott government can’t decide if it wants to tell people how to live their lives or free them to make their own decisions.
The Coalition’s education policy, for example, reveals the contradictions between the world views of libertarianism and conservatism that the Coalition claims to represent. For many years, the balancing act has worked. But as the divestment furore over the past two weeks has shown, the seams are starting to show.
Related documents
Between the Lines Newsletter
The biggest stories and the best analysis from the team at the Australia Institute, delivered to your inbox every fortnight.
You might also like
Gender parity closer after federal election but “sufficiently assertive” Liberal women are still outnumbered two to one
Now that the dust has settled on the 2025 federal election, what does it mean for the representation of women in Australian parliaments? In short, there has been a significant improvement at the national level. When we last wrote on this topic, the Australian Senate was majority female but only 40% of House of Representatives
There is no such thing as a safe seat | Fact sheet
A notable trend in Australian politics has been the decline of the share of the vote won by both major parties at federal elections. One effect of this is that there are no longer any safe seats in Australian politics: minor parties and independents win more “safe” seats than they do “marginal” ones. The declining
Eight things you need to know about the Government’s plan to change Australian elections
And eight ideas to improve it