This discussion paper was presented at a roundtable on the future of Australian Official Development Assistance (ODA), arguing that Australia has long had deep national interests in the provision of development assistance in the Asia-Pacific region, regional security concerns being not the least of them. If Australia is to “step-up” its aid in the Pacific

In Australia, trust in Parliament and government is low and generally declining, and dissatisfaction with government and democracy is rising – apart from a COVID-19 related boost in public trust in government over the last few months. Events over the past 12 months – including police raids on journalists and the secret prosecution of intelligence

The ANZUS treaty has not passed its use-by date. Why? Because it never had one. While, at the time it was negotiated and signed, it had political and strategic moment, events in Asia and the Pacific quickly eroded its strategic significance – an erosion that was as much aided by the compounding nature of extended Asian

It is easy for governments to disguise their inability to manage complex relationships by resorting to finger-pointing and name-calling. But the over-investment in emotion usually masks an under-investment in thinking. The stridency that distinguishes contemporary government pronouncements on China and Australia’s relationship with China is alarmist and alarming. We need a more considered and deliberate

‘Securitisation’ is a post-WW2 phenomenon. It began as part of the expanding struggle between the US and the Soviet Union for pre-eminence during the Cold War, where the US, as a matter of policy, leveraged the full panoply of its state power to prevail over the Soviet Union. As used in contemporary security policy texts,

The Australia institute is pleased to make the present submission to the Senate Economics Committee Inquiry into foreign investment proposals. This submission begins with some general thoughts based on earlier work at The Australia Institute. We note that Australia’s history has included rigorous debates about foreign ownership of the Australian economy. Sometimes that debate has taken

The Australia Institute’s International & Security Affairs Program surveyed nationally representative samples of people in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States, Italy and South Korea about the COVID-19 pandemic. The government and friends and family are the most trusted sources of advice about the COVID-19 pandemic, and the more trusted a government the higher

At a superficial level, Australia’s interests in the Middle East seem to be little more than providing military ballast to support the imperial or global ambitions of great powers. It is for that reason that, for 80 of the past 100 years, Australia has maintained some form of defence presence in the Middle East. As

New research from The Australia Institute has found that two thirds of Australians believe the country is facing a climate emergency and that the Government should mobilise all of society to tackle the issue, like they did during the World Wars.

The proposed Mulga Rock uranium mine is unlikely to be in the WA community interest. Aside from the environmental risks inherent in uranium mining, the feasibility study for the proposal uses improbable market scenarios and does not illustrate a credible range of project outcomes.

Australia’s use of controversial Kyoto carbon credits to cut its Paris Agreement target in half completely undermines Pacific climate action.

$18 billion dollar gamble on climate action loophole The Government’s reliance on dated carbon credits to extinguish over half of its Paris Agreement target might not be authorised, forcing it to purchase last-minute international permits or drastically reduce emissions to cover huge gap.    New analysis by the Australia Institute identified numerous legal, diplomatic and

The Australian public supports stronger gun control and stricter restrictions and laws on firearms. Despite this, there is a real danger of our firearm laws being watered down. Successive inquiries have found that no state or territory has ever fully complied with the National Firearms Agreement. The public will on firearms is being circumvented because

The Australia Institute made a submission on the proposed amendments to the Climate Change (State Action) Act 2008. The Australia Institute recommends that: 1) The title of the Climate Change (State Action) Act 2008 be renamed to the Climate Change Emergency Response Act 2018 2) A preamble be added to the Act that includes: Tasmania recognises that,

Australia is off-track and looks set to miss its Paris emission reduction target. National emissions are rising and the government seems unwilling or unable to agree on credible policies to reduce emissions. The Commonwealth Government has shelved its centrepiece new climate and energy policy, the National Energy Guarantee (NEG). The Large-Scale Renewable Energy Target (RET)

Conservation SA commissioned economic think tank The Australia Institute to examine more closely the Federal Government’s claims of an economic windfall for the communities under consideration for a National Radioactive Waste Management Facility (NRWMF) – the Flinders Ranges and Kimba on the Eyre Peninsula. TAI examined the claimed economic benefits to regional communities associated with

The continuing decline of Australia’s official development assistance Reports suggest that Australia’s aid spending, already at record lows, could be cut further to 0.18% of Australia’s Gross National Income. This would make Australia’s aid contribution proportionately lower than that of Greece. 

‘Blue carbon’ refers to the carbon storage potential of coastal ecosystems such as mangroves, tidal marshes and seagrass beds. These ecosystems can sequester carbon at higher rates than many terrestrial ecosystems and also play an important role in biodiversity conservation, protecting coastlines and coastal economies. Australia founded the International Partnership for Blue Carbon at the 2015 Paris climate

The Australian government appears to be actively soliciting financing from foreign governments and investors towards Adani’s coal mine and rail line, projects it plans to subsidise.

This paper, by Dr Andrew Carr of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University, looks at where this sense of bipartisanship came from, how it operates and assesses its impact. While seemingly an innocuous idea — that our two major parties should seek agreement or cooperate in a spirit of unity —