Australia wastes 7.6m tonnes of food each year, costing households $19.3 billion.

The Australia Institute’s annual Climate of the Nation report provides a comprehensive account of Australian attitudes towards climate change, its causes and impacts, and the integrity of Australia’s current and proposed climate solutions.

The problems attached to over-use of consultants are becoming clearer. The experience in New South Wales accords with the national experience: dependency on consultants hollows out public sector capacity and leads to bad government decisions.

The Australia Institute welcomes the opportunity to make a submission on the Syngas and Power Generation, Stage 1 Commercial Development, NeuRizer Urea Project, which is currently open for public comment under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act Public Portal.

FOI is a crucial part of the beneficial information feedback loop between the government and the people. However, our FOI system is broken and cultural and legal changes are needed to fix it.

Education has long been recognised as a vital determinant of both personal life chances and broader economic and social performance.

The Reserve Bank of Australia’s decisions on interest rate increases rely on the concept of balancing inflation and unemployment.

Tasmania has not published a State of the Environment Report since 2009. Nationally, alarming declines of natural and cultural values are underway. Without a state-focused analysis, Tasmanians are in the dark about the scale and detail of concerns and government decision-makers are flying blind.

The NT LNG facility aims to produce up 20 million tonnes of LNG per year for export using gas fracked from the Northern Territory’s Beetaloo Basin.

A submission made by the Australia Institute to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security on the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (Prohibited Hate Symbols and Other Measures) Bill 2023.

The Australia-America economic relationship is one of the world’s most consequential relationships, worth over $2 trillion, yet few understand its depth and scale.

The Australia Institute made a submission to the Northern Territory Government’s Consultation for designing an ad valorem mineral royalty scheme. In our view, It is unclear that there is a need to change the NT mining royalty system. Following reforms in 2018, royalty revenue has increased substantially, and mining exploration investment is at a 10-year

Constructive and non-partisan political finance reform could improve trust in politics and reduce the influence of vested interests.

But if political finance reform is done poorly, it could make Australian elections less fair, and conceal rather than expose the undue influence moneyed interests enjoy over our politicians and parties.

This Bill appears primarily aimed at facilitating the Santos Barossa Project, its related Bayu-Undan carbon capture and storage (CCS) project and other fossil fuel projects off Australia’s northern shores. CCS is a technology that has failed for decades, a fact omitted by public agency submissions relating to this Bill.

Australia needs to respond quickly to powerful new incentives for sustainable manufacturing now on offer in the U.S. and several other industrial countries, or risk being cut out of lucrative new markets for manufactured products linked to renewable energy systems.

Public interest journalism from the ABC has placed scrutiny on issues that governments would prefer to ignore, prompting numerous government inquiries and investigations – what Josh Taylor, writing in Crikey, called “The Four Corners effect”.

The Australia Institute’s Centre for Responsible Technology made a submission to the Federal Government’s consultation on Safe and responsible AI (artificial intelligence) in Australia. To make AI safer and more responsible, the Australia Institute recommends:

The Australia Institute made a submission to the senate inquiry into greenwashing. 

Stronger public universities are vital to the success of dynamic, innovative economies, and more inclusive labour markets. But decades of fiscal restraint and corporatization have eroded the democratic governance and equitable delivery of public higher education in Australia. There are widespread concerns among both university staff and the broader Australian community regarding many higher education issues: including funding, governance, the insecurity of work in universities, the quality of education, and the affordability of attending university.

The Australia Institute surveyed a representative sample of 604 South Australians about advertising at sporting events and in sporting broadcasts. Respondents were told that promoting tobacco products in sport is banned in South Australia and were asked whether they agree or disagree with a policy of extending that ban to prohibit the advertising of other goods and services.

The Australia Institute surveyed a nationally representative sample of 1,002 Australians about their attitude toward the Federal Government providing new work to the consulting firm PwC. The results show that: • Four in five Australians (79%) think that PwC should be banned from receiving new government work, while just 2% think there should not be

The Australian Government has proposed that Australia host the 2026 UN Climate Conference, in “partnership” with Pacific nations.

Sitting politicians receive millions in public funding that support re-election.

After decades of ignoring evidence of overfishing, the Tasmanian Government is finally playing catch-up on the state’s depleted fish stocks, resetting fishery rules in the context of out-of-date legislation and the absence of relevant policies.

The Australia Institute made a submission to the Senate Standing Committees on Environment and Communications’ inquiry into the Nature Repair Market Bill 2023. The Australian Government has provided no economic or environmental justification for the proposed Nature Repair Market (NRM). Instead, it has repeatedly referred to, and quoted figures from, a report by consultants PwC

Native bird hunting benefits few South Australians and imposes costs on many. Only 5% have ever shot ducks or quail, and of those people, just 40% intend to do so again. 76% of South Australians support a ban, including 48% who “strongly” support the idea. The economic impact of ending native bird hunting would be

The gigification of care is creating insecure work, undermining gender inequality and damaging workforce sustainability.

The South-east Commonwealth Marine Parks Network is a patchwork of poor protection that provides minimal conservation benefits.

The economic assessment of the Lake Vermont project heavily understates its costs and overstates its benefits. At the USA Environmental Protection Agency’s central social cost of carbon estimate, the cost of the direct emissions alone is $4.1 billion, greater than the estimated royalty revenue – $1.1 billion.

The Australia Institute surveyed a nationally representative sample of 1,002 Australians about their attitudes towards the Federal Government’s use of external consultants. The results show that: Four in five Australians (79%) agree that the public service should have the skills and capacity to do work currently outsourced to consultants. Three in four Australians (72%) think