This is to announce that the Past & Present Reading Group will be meeting to discuss, on a weekly basis and starting in June 2026, our next text which is:
Karl Marx, Theories of Surplus Value, Part I (Progress Publishers, 1975).
Home ownership is simply beyond the reach of many, rent is surging, and homelessness continues rising. It seems likely the Treasurer Jim Chalmers will implement changes to the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount and negative gearing in Tuesday’s budget, two policies which have worked together to push house prices up and up and up.
Which means for the first time in decades, this federal budget may stop making Australia’s housing affordability worse.
If Australia doesn’t do something to fix the problem, we will only become more unequal and more divided between the haves and have-nots.
As Alan Kohler said in his brilliant Quarterly Essay piece on the housing divide: “Education and hard work are no longer the main determinants of how wealthy you are; now it comes down to where you live and what sort of house you inherit from your parents. It means Australia is less of an egalitarian meritocracy. Material success is now largely a function of geography, not accomplishment.”
If working hard isn’t enough to buy you a stable roof over your head, what next?
Australia will be a poorer and less stable nation if home ownership becomes unaffordable for ordinary people.
We don’t want to become a society where the only way young people can dream of owning a home is if they are fortunate enough to inherit one. That’s why these tax reforms are so important.
Everybody’s Home said the federal government must make social housing central to its push to boost supply in this year’s budget, after it announced critical infrastructure funding to support building homes.
The federal government will allocate $2 billion for councils and utility providers to deliver infrastructure like water and sewerage, which is meant to unlock 65,000 new homes.
Everybody’s Home spokesperson Maiy Azize said public and community housing must not be overlooked in this year’s budget.
“Funding for pipes and wires is all well and good but it means little if it doesn’t deliver homes people can actually afford,” Ms Azize said.
“This infrastructure funding is meant to unlock 65,000 homes but there’s no guarantee they will be affordable. More homes won’t end the housing crisis if people can’t afford them.
“Australia has a public and community housing shortfall of 640,000 homes. A funding boost that delivers 65,000 of those in this federal budget would be transformative.
“If the government is serious about housing supply in this budget, it cannot overlook social housing. These are affordable rentals that house those who are priced out of the private market.
“We need this federal budget to go big and bold on housing by scrapping investor tax breaks and building more social housing, the type of supply Australia desperately needs.
As the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence approaches, Spencer Klavan invites us to reflect on the origins of that document and its fate. He asks us to consider an array of questions: Are the principles of the Declaration the final truth at the end of history? Is the end of history lamentable? Does the war in Iran refute the end of history? Is the Declaration informed by a rational view of the universe or by revealed religion?
I have access neither to the world-historical spirit nor to prophetic signs, so I’ll begin with what has become a necessary task: to establish that the Declaration marks the founding of the American nation, to explain what it means, and to defend it against popular criticisms.
Some have tried to define America by the year 1619, because that is when slavery was established. Others opine that 1607 is the beginning of the United States, because that is when the English first settled in Jamestown. However, these are not true national origins, in part, because they do not recognize the independence of the United States from Great Britain. More importantly, they are wrong because neither of these events recognizes the fundamental principles of right that define the United States.
On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Greg and Elinor discuss the rationale for the Reserve Bank’s third interest rate hike for 2026 and how changing the way trusts are taxed could reduce inequality.
This discussion was recorded on Thursday 7 May 2026.
Visit The Point for research, analysis, explainers and factchecks from experts at the Australia Institute and beyond.
Host: Greg Jericho, Chief Economist, the Australia Institute // @grogsgamut
Host: Elinor Johnston-Leek, Senior Content Producer, the Australia Institute // @elinorjohnstonleek
White House lawn speeches greeting foreign heads of state are usually sleepy pro-forma affairs, filled out with the clichés of long-standing ties and mutual interests. But President Trump’s speech welcoming King Charles was no mere boilerplate. It was a masterpiece of ironic and subtle mischief on multiple levels—triggering the Left, offering a ground of unity for the Right as we draw near to the 250th anniversary of the American Founding, and, for those who listened closely, a rebuke both to Britain and the rest of Europe for their supine and rapidly declining civilizations. Making all the “No Kings” protestors look silly was just a bonus.
As everyone knows—especially Pope Leo XIV—Trump is not typically known for subtle rebukes, so kudos are deserved for his speechwriting staff for crafting a succinct and enthymematic message worthy of Aristotle, though it was fully in accord with Trump’s main instincts and central purposes.
In 1964, the Supreme Court of the United States revolutionized our country’s understanding of the First Amendment. More specifically, the Court’s ruling in New York Timesv.Sullivan caused a fundamental change in how we think about the relationship of the First Amendment’s protection for freedom of the press, on the one hand, and the problem of libel, on the other.
According to the traditional view swept aside by the Sullivan Court, libel—or publication of defamatory falsehood—was simply outside the scope of the freedom of the press, a licentious abuse that the Founders never intended to enjoy constitutional or legal protection. During the lengthy period that this view prevailed, those who published false and defamatory matter were open to being sued successfully for damages, whether the victim of the libel was a private or a public person.
Why the rich don’t pay taxes Lars Syll Beneath the civic ideal of taxation as a collective, equitable endeavour lies an entrenched hypocrisy: the architecture…
Neoclassical economics vs MMT on the status of savings Jim Byrne The following link – https://www.linkedin.com/feed [1 ] – which appeared on 1 Apr 2026…
Comparative economic evolution of three countries – and how to improve New Zealand’s mismanaged economy Steven Hail Steven Hail argues that New Zealand is enduring…
While the policy provides clear proof that Australia never had a ‘gas shortage’ and has been suffering from excessive gas exports, a gas reservation policy won’t change the sad fact that Australia is giving away more than half of the gas it exports for free.
Dr Richard Denniss, co-CEO of The Australia Institute, says the policy is a distraction after the government caved into the gas lobby and appeared to rule out a gas export tax in next week’s federal budget.
“The government is trying to shift attention away from its determination to keep giving more than half the gas Australia exports away for free,” Dr Denniss said.
“The Albanese Government wants Australians to think it’s doing something about gas, but instead of collecting $350 million per week from a gas export tax, it is pursuing a new policy that won’t raise a cent.”
“Labor has the numbers in parliament. It has the support of unions, crossbenchers and, most importantly, voters. One nation voters want a gas export tax. Clive Palmer supporters want a gas export tax. Labor voters want a gas export tax.”
Dr Denniss has branded a gas reservation as the “wrong solution” to a problem which has been deliberately engineered by the gas industry, which has created fake fears of shortages in Australia while it was exporting vast quantities of Australian gas overseas.
On this episode of Follow the Money, journalist and writer Nick Feik joins Ebony Bennett to discuss the NACC’s handling of its Robodebt investigation, its decision not to hold public hearings so far, and concerns about the legal experience required of some senior leaders.
This episode was recorded on Tuesday 5 May and some things may have changed.
Between 2016 and 2021, Canada admitted over 1.3 million immigrants of whom approximately 51% were women. Nearly 60% of newcomer women arrived in Canada through economic immigration pathways programs that select applicants based on skills, work experience, and education to fill labour market gaps. Although most immigrants arrive with the desire, qualifications, and skills needed to work in different sectors of the Canadian economy, many fail to find secure, appropriate, or meaningful jobs. In 2021, racialized immigrant women aged 25 to 54 had the lowest labour force participation and employment rates, and the highest unemployment rates of any group in Canada.
The American Mind’s ‘Editorial Roundtable’ 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.
The YouGov poll of 1502 people found more than more than twice as many (59%) Australians now believe Australia’s interests are better served by a more independent foreign policy rather than a closer alliance with the United States (23%). Just one in eight (13%) Australians believe the US is a “very reliable” security ally.
The poll shows a further erosion of confidence in the US under President Trump. A year ago, a similar poll found that 31% of Australians believed Trump was a greater threat to world peace than Putin (27%) and Xi (27%).
Now, 52% feel that Trump is a bigger threat than Putin (17%) and Xi (16%).
Key findings:
More One Nation voters (35%) believe Trump is a bigger threat to world peace than Putin (18%), and about the same number think Xi is the biggest threat (32%).
One third (33%) of Australians now believe the AUKUS security agreement is not in Australia’s best interests.
68% of Australians, including 53% of One Nation voters, oppose Australia’s involvement in the US and Israel’s war on Iran.
“This poll represents a seismic shift in the way Australians think about the United States,” said Dr Emma Shortis, Director of The Australia Institute’s International & Security Affairs Program.
At this very moment, humanity is venturing beyond the limits of Earth.
NASA’s Artemis II mission to the far side of the moon was a reminder that this is no longer science fiction. Commercial launches are becoming more frequent, private missions are expanding, and durable off-world habitats—once the stuff of far-flung imaginings—are well within reach. What was once a set of hypothetical word problems has become a collection of real-world challenges to solve.
Those of us who believe in America’s ideals, political structure, and folkways have to start thinking now about how to preserve them in outer space. Human nature is not going to change. But the parameters of human life will—and dramatically. The question is how, in this unprecedented scenario, we can make the American way of life one of the things we carry with us. We are taking our humanity to space. How can we take our freedom too?
To meet this challenge, the University of Austin has initiated the Torchlight Summit. Torchlight convenes astronauts, scientists, engineers, classicists, and political theorists to address a question that is too often ignored: What are the political and institutional consequences of life beyond Earth, and how can we shape them before they solidify?
The summit is structured around three core pillars:
At the 2026 Progress Summit, David Adler highlighted the organized right-right’s network of actors and institutions — what he calls the ‘Reactionary International.’ Adler is the Co-General Coordinator of the Progressive International, an group that unites, organizes and mobilizes the world’s progressive forces to fight for democracy.
Most corporate mission statements are real snoozers. Especially in the case of large public defense companies, they’re designed to present boilerplate language to the public: “We develop science and technology to help people, and we produce some other things (weapons) that we won’t directly mention here, but which you can find on page five of our annual report.”
Palantir recently broke from this mode of anodyne corporate communication in a manifesto-style post titled “The Technological Republic, in brief,” which itself is a summary of a book of the same title by Palantir executives Alex Karp and Nicholas Zamiska.
Here are some paraphrased highlights from the 22-point declaration:
This is the end of the U.S. global monetary system Steve Keen The US-dollar-based international monetary system will not survive this Presidency. There is, of…
Even before I got sick, I’d wonder about people in airplanes. I live in DC, and they’re constantly overhead. Taking off and landing at nearby DCA. Distant blinking lights at cruising altitude, heading for some foreign city.
I love to travel, and no matter the day, time or occasion, a plane passing by always incites a pang of envy. I imagine myself huddled up in my window seat (always window), trying to catch some sleep on a newly-purchased neck pillow (I have about 11, because I never remember to bring them and end up getting ripped off at the airport bookshop again). I’m excited, loopy and dreamy, because I always take benzos to fly; ironically, I’m terrified of flying, even though I know air travel is statistically extremely safe.
But after years of nail biting, whiskey drinking, hyperventilating and panic-attacking my way across the Atlantic, my doctor relented and prescribed me some Ativan. Now flying has an easy, dreamlike quality to it. I actually look forward to being released, not just from the land, but from The Land of Worries. I chat with my seatmates, if they like.
Once, as our flight took off, the woman next to me yelped and grasped my arm in fear.
I looked over at her lazily. “Hey,” I smiled easily, “do you want a xanax?”
The Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Louisiana v. Callais may dramatically alter congressional districts in Southern states. Writing for a 6-3 majority, Justice Samuel Alito unraveled decades of confusing and misguided caselaw construing the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) to hold that states may not engage in racial gerrymandering—or be forced to do so by federal courts—when drawing congressional districts. The Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause forbids race-based discrimination, Alito pointedly declared, preventing Section 2 of the VRA from being interpreted to require the creation of “majority-black” districts to comply with the VRA.
New revelations seem to emerge every day of yet another program being stuck in the mud of critical theory. A University of Minnesota K-12 model curriculum includes lesson plans about “settler colonialism” and creating protest art. Harvard’s Graduate School of Education offers dozens of courses explicitly rooted in social justice themes, with one issuing a call to “liberate” youth. Many of Stanford’s general education courses have students respond to drag ballet troupes, ICE incidents, and the war in Gaza.
The Statement on Monetary Policy sets out the Bank's assessment of current economic conditions, both domestic and international, along with the outlook for Australian inflation and output growth. A number of boxes on topics of special interest are also published. The Statement is issued four times a year.
The RBA today lifted the cash rate from 4.1% to 4.35%, back to its highest point in 15 years, effectively undoing the three rate cuts which were delivered last year.
“Today the RBA made the wrong decision,” said Matt Grudnoff, Senior Economist at The Australia Institute.
“Higher interest rates will do nothing to open the Strait of Hormuz. Higher interest rates cannot change the world price of oil and bring down fuel prices.
“All this does is heap more pain on already stretched households.
“The only tool the RBA has to fight inflation is to change interest rates. But interest rates are ineffective at stopping inflation caused by supply shocks.
“It has chosen to do something, even if that will make things worse, rather than risk being accused of doing nothing.
“Higher fuel costs and now a third interest rate increase this year is likely to impact economic growth and push unemployment higher. This will have real negative impacts on Australian households and businesses.
“If the RBA goes too hard with interest rate increases, it risks pushing the Australian economy into recession. It will then be forced to rapidly lower interest rates to stimulate the economy, which would be a humiliating backflip.
A remarkably strong claim for the form of rights-based law, as not simply homologous with the commodity form, but as internal to the dynamics of value under capitalism, lies at the heart of Evgeny Pashukanis’s book Law and Marxism. As the text indicates:
Man as a moral subject, that is as a personality of equal worth, is indeed no more than a necessary condition for exchange according to the law of value. Man as a legal subject, or as a property-owner, is a further necessary condition. Finally, these two stipulations are extremely closely connected with a third, in which man figures as a subject operating egoistically. All three of these seemingly incompatible stipulations which are not reducible to one and the same thing, express the totality of conditions necessary for the realisation of the value relation.
Read in the light of Christopher Arthur’s reframing Introduction, Pashukanis is making the argument that the contract, and all that goes with it, is internal to the wage-labour relation as a key relation of production and to commodity exchange as a key moment in the realisation of value in the reproduction of capital.
I was five miles in the woods, looking for the Last Incorruptible Thing.
“Aren’t you a brave soul,” a woman said when I emerged. She wore jogging clothes and a knowing smile. I looked like the Unabomber’s little sister.
“Not brave,” I said. “Just walking round the river. Get that springtime weather while it lasts! I went in the woods to watch birds. Plants and birds and rocks and things.”
America lyrics, the last refuge of an American mycological liar.
“Mmm-hmmm,” she said. “You find any mushrooms?”
“If I did, I’d tell you no. And if I didn’t, I’d tell you yes,” I said, since she knew my game. She laughed and jogged away.
I had a pocket full of Missouri Gold: morels, the most elusive of mushrooms. A successful morel hunt is a victory. But the search is the real reward.
The morel is the Last Incorruptible Thing. You cannot plant them. You cannot buy them in stores. You can only spot them in the wild. Morels demand complete surrender to nature’s whims. They grow for three to four weeks each spring, and no one knows when or where. They pop up like middle fingers to corporate control.
Over the past year, U.S. trade policy with China has undergone enormous changes, but with surprisingly little effect on overall trade balances. In fact, the U.S.’s twelve-month trade deficit, while highly volatile due to import front-running early in the year, ended 2025 at $1.2 trillion, almost unchanged from 2024. At the same time, China’s trade surplus with the world actually increased from $1 trillion to $1.2 trillion. However, when looking at changes between individual countries, one sees large shifts in bilateral balances. In this post, we will focus on changing trade flows between the U.S., China, and southeast Asia.
Rising interest rates and a long-running cost-of-living squeeze have left mortgage holders struggling, yet the banks are milking more than ever from their home loan customers.
The research reveals that while home buyers tightened their belts last financial year, the banks’ profits grew to a massive $43 billion, $16.9 billion of which came straight from owner-occupiers with a mortgage.
On this episode of After America, Allan Behm and Dr Emma Shortis discuss the Trump administration’s withdrawal of troops from Germany, why the United States is losing its war on Iran, and the Supreme Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act.
On his way to the State House on the morning of July 4, 1776, Thomas Jefferson would have walked along High (now Market) Street, Philadelphia’s main thoroughfare. Four blocks down, past the open markets, on the southeast corner of Second Street was the printing shop of John Dunlap, an Irish immigrant and publisher of the Pennsylvania Packet, a weekly newspaper reporting on the proceedings of the Continental Congress. In his shop at No. 48 High Street, Dunlap, then only twenty-nine, was about to play a key role in the first hours of American Independence.
Though Congress had adopted the Declaration in the name of the “good People” of the colonies, John Adams would later claim that only one-third of these good people had supported war with Great Britain, while another third had opposed it and a middle third remained undecided. Americans needed to know that the colonies were now a new nation fighting for its existence, and they needed to be inspired to choose the right side. As soon as the delegates voted on the statement, they ordered “That the declaration be authenticated and printed” and “That the committee appointed to prepare the declaration superintend & correct the press.” After that, the record goes silent, and the questions begin.
New analysis shows revenue from reforming investor tax breaks could build tens of thousands of affordable rentals and cut rents for everyone by hundreds of dollars a year.
The report from Everybody’s Home models what happens when you stop pouring billions into investor tax breaks and start directing the revenue to build homes instead.
The $19 billion saving over five years is based on replacing the CGT discount with indexation and ending negative gearing including phasing it out for existing investors.
The findings show this reform could:
Build approximately 29,000 to 42,000 public and community homes
House around 12,000 to 17,000 households experiencing homelessness
Reduce the national median rent by 0.7% to 1%
In dollar terms, that means renters could save between $230 and $330 a year.
“The Federal Budget is the government’s chance to finally make housing work for all Australians, not just those who profit from it,” Everybody’s Home spokesperson Maiy Azize said.
“Every year, billions of dollars line investors’ pockets and it’s pushing up the cost of housing for everyone else. These tax breaks give the wealthy a hand up while locking out first home buyers and leaving renters worse off.
The new AppliedMMT dashboard is live this week — head to the beta dashboard link on the site to check it out. All the daily Treasury data, the flow phase model, vol shift, flow sentiment, and a handful of new model upgrades are now in one cleaned-up spot. I'll walk through what changed and how to use it.
On markets: April was a heck of a run, and we're now showing classic signs of technical exhaustion, we may need a pause here but I'm not convinced, with some caveats, that a big selloff is needed.
But here's the bigger story. While building out the dashboard, I came across a margin debt chart that genuinely jumped off the page. We're now seeing a divergence between price returns and margin debt growth that has only shown up at two other points in the last 50 years — and both times it preceded a major recession. Combined with what the deficit impulse is telling us about late 2026, the picture is getting clearer about where we are in this cycle. We're at least in the seventh-inning stretch.
Full breakdown below — including why I think the next leg higher is still on the table, and what the actual end-of-cycle trigger I'm watching for looks like.
With the government proposing to de-corporatise SA Water, this post tracks what happened to water prices in Adelaide under SA Water and raises some issues for whatever regulatory regime will replace SA Water.
