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On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Greg and Elinor discuss why superannuation could be a better way to control inflation than interest rates, the continued hand-wringing about house prices falling a tiny bit after skyrocketing for years, and why Andrew Bragg has communism on the brain.

This discussion was recorded on Wednesday 12 August 2026.

Pre-order More Fool Me: How the gas industry tricked Australia by Richard Denniss, the latest Vantage Point essay from Australia Institute Press. Use the code ‘FOOLME’ on a four-edition Vantage Point subscription to receive a free copy of Richard’s book, Econobabble.

Host: Greg Jericho, Chief Economist, the Australia Institute // @grogsgamut

Host: Elinor Johnston-Leek, Senior Content Producer, the Australia Institute // @elinorjohnstonleek

Show notes:

Isn’t it amazing what a policy that actually tackles the cause of outrageous house prices can do? by Greg Jericho, Guardian Australia (August 2026)

The Right should pursue politically feasible policies that will help create a better environment for family formation. Producing more marriageable men and women includes cultivating the former’s virtue and confidence and encouraging the latter to make marriage and motherhood a higher priority.

These policies should appeal to reliable Republican voters without worrying whether they offend reliable Democratic voters. They should also help advance the broader MAGA agenda, defined by defending those putting down roots in America, encouraging republican virtues and self-government, and raising children to responsible adulthood.

In short, this agenda should form self-governing men and women who can become the backbone of an electoral coalition capable of ruling.

The American Mind Podcast is a weekly conversation with Ryan Williams, Spencer Klavan, and Mike Sabo devoted to uncovering the ideas and principles that drive American political life. Stream here or download from your favorite podcast host.

AOC Goes from Woke 1 to Woke 2: A New Left Coalition Forms | The American Mind Podcast

“Woke One was crazy.” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, questioned this week on ABC about a fellow Democratic Socialist’s call to cancel Thanksgiving in 2020, rolled out a new messaging strategy for the Left. Woke 2 will try to distance itself from COVID-era messaging while still demanding that America be transformed to suit its latest grievance coalition. Plus: inflation of the racial oppression narrative, and the purge of liberal arts colleges.

‘Nice forest you’ve got there. It’d be a shame if somebody messed with it.’

This isn’t a line from a mobster movie, it’s effectively what the NSW government is saying to the koalas and people of NSW.

The NSW government is proposing to make a Great Koala National Park to protect forests in the north east of the state. In fact, making the Park has been NSW Labor policy for more than a decade, but it has recently taken on a new twist.

The Minns government now says that the koala park will happen if, and only if, it can take the rights to the carbon in the trees to sell on the carbon market.

If this sounds dodgy, that’s because it is. The NSW Labor government first promised to make this national park as far back as 2015, without selling carbon offsets. They promised it again in 2023. Now they say they will need some protection money for those trees.

Demanding payment to do something you had already promised to do is not good public policy. In the language of the carbon market, it does not provide “additionality”.

It is, in plain language, a shakedown.

And while the person doing the standover work is the NSW Premier, the mob bosses are the big polluters – coal and gas mines.

It is these industries that need, not only carbon offsets, but specifically carbon offsets in NSW.

Federal Parliament should disallow a controversial new method for making carbon credits, according to a working paper released by the Australia Institute today.

The working paper by University College London Associate Professor Fergus Green takes aim at a  proposal by the NSW government to sell carbon credits in return for creating a national park to protect koala habitat.

The Senate will vote on a disallowance motion on the “Improved Native Forest Management” (INFM) on August 18, put forward by the National Party.

The Australia Institute has also released new polling showing overwhelming public support to protect koala habitat regardless of whether carbon credits are involved.

Australians overwhelmingly (82%) say that governments have an obligation to protect koala habitats (3% think governments have this obligation only if they are paid to do so)

• This includes three in four Liberal (77%) and One Nation (73%) voters.
• Most Australians (59%) agree that protecting forests should not be used to justify continued fossil fuel pollution. (25% disagree; 17% don’t know)
• Most Australians (57%) support the Minns Government’s decision to ban coal and gas companies from buying carbon offsets from the Great Koala National Park. (23% oppose; 20% don’t know)

“Australia’s carbon offset system is already plagued with integrity problems, and this method takes it from bad to worse,” said Louise Morris, Head of Fossil Fuel Transition at The Australia Institute.

Andrew Wilkie MP, Independent Member for Clark, joins the Australia Institute’s Noah Schultz-Byard to reflect on the government’s gambling reforms, making polluters pay for the damage they do to the climate, and the state of Australian politics.

This episode was recorded live as part of the Australia Institute’s webinar series on Wednesday 5 August.

If this episode raised issues for you, you can call the National Gambling Helpline on 1800 858 858 for free, professional and confidential support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Or visit Gambling Help Online at www.gamblinghelponline.org.au.

If you or anyone you know needs help, you can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or online at www.lifeline.org.au.

We know the tactics that have been deployed to undermine our democracies. But who is behind them?

David Adler is the Co-General Coordinator of the Progressive International, a left-wing political international with over 70 member groups, including trade unions, political parties, peasant organisations, and social movements, that mobilizes progressive forces around the world. The Progressive International is a relatively new organization, developed to counter the so-called ‘Reactionary International’: the decades-old networks of right-wing institutions, organizations, money, and political power that have sought to undermine working-class democratic power.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who exemplifies the growing red-green alliance in the United States—he is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and a follower of Twelver Shiism, the apocalyptic state religion of Iran—has been in office for little more than seven months. But he’s already made it clear what this confluence of radical ideologies means in practice: manufacturing scapegoats and fomenting class, racial, and religious hatreds. In this, Mamdani is following a political playbook used by both Communist and Islamist regimes to advance revolutionary aims.

This is a Premium piece of Notes on the Crises.

With the 52nd anniversary of Richard Nixon’s resignation, his reputation is experiencing a resurgence—especially among younger generations.

For example, in just the past month and a half, at least a half-dozen articles have examined Nixon’s legacy. There was Tim Rice’s Daily Wire article, “How The Kids Learned To Love Richard Nixon,” which ends with this sentence: “Maybe Nixon wasn’t a relic come too late, but a visionary come too early. Maybe his time is now.” Frontier Magazine published a cover story by Blaze Media Editor-in-Chief Christopher Bedford, “The Once and Future Nixon.” Then there was Philip Wegmann’s full-page Wall Street Journal feature, “Young Conservatives Have an Unlikely New Icon: Richard Nixon,” which characterizes me as “the main architect of modern Watergate revisionism.”

Human rights lawyer Chris Sidoti joins Dr Emma Shortis to discuss the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry’s findings of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the Trump administration’s attacks on the institutions of international law, and how the Australian government could act in support of a genuinely rules-based international system.

This episode was recorded Friday 7 August.

More Fool Me: How the gas industry tricked Australia by Richard Denniss, the latest Vantage Point essay from Australia Institute Press, is available now. Use the code ‘FOOLME’ on a four-edition Vantage Point subscription to receive a free copy of Richard’s book, Econobabble.

Guest: Chris Sidoti, Commissioner, UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel

Host: Emma Shortis, Director, International & Security Affairs, the Australia Institute // @emmashortis

Show notes: