Incoming Feed Items

Jeremiah Gridley, leader of the Massachusetts bar when John Adams joined it, said that “a Lawyer ought never to be without a Book of Moral Philosophy on his Table.” In the founding era, moral philosophy was itself part of common law reasoning, as was political philosophy.

This sets the Founders apart not only from the modern academy, with its separate departments for government, philosophy, and law, but even from their British contemporaries of the late 18th century such as the jurist William Blackstone. As James Wilson noted of Blackstone, “He should be read and studied. He deserves to be much admired; but he ought not to be implicitly followed.”

Contra Blackstone, the Founders maintained that if one does not think about common law precedents in particular, and legal reasoning in general, in light of the moral/legal reasoning behind them, one will misread them. The reasoning that justified them was inseparable from the law itself, and informed the scope and limitations of any precedent that followed.

In this election campaign, opposition leader Peter Dutton has set out to defy the weight of his party’s recent history.

Dutton began the year by announcing plans to make the instant asset write-off scheme permanent and to introduce a $20,000 tax deduction for small business meal and entertainment expenses. In his budget reply speech on Thursday night, Dutton promised to temporarily halve the petrol excise, a move which he claimed would save motorists $14 per week.

That’s the extent of the Liberal Party’s tax agenda so far. Shadow ministers have told the media there are no discussions or plans for personal tax relief. When the government unveiled its budget-night proposal to cut the lowest tax rate (from 16 per cent to 14 per cent by mid-2027), Dutton dismissed the measure as a “cruel hoax” and promised to repeal the legislation if elected.

The opposition’s pledge to oppose that measure is truly historic.

Since the Menzies era, there have only been two out of 22 federal elections where the Liberal Party did not offer either personal income tax cuts, family tax relief or company tax cuts.

In elections where the Liberal Party did not make income tax cuts a centrepiece of its policy offering, it still offered proposals such as income tax indexation or half-indexation (particularly under Malcolm Fraser), income tax-splitting (under Andrew Peacock), child tax rebates (under Peacock and John Howard) or changes to the tax-free threshold (particularly under the Howard government) as a form of personal tax relief.

The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT’) has a big management problem:  huge cost overruns on highway mega-projects.  Just three Portland area highway projects—The Interstate Bridge Replacement, the I-5 Rose Quarter freeway widening and the I-205 Abernethy Bridge have chalked up cost overruns totaling $4.8 billion in just the past five years.

ODOT commissioned a “strategic review” which failed to identify the scale or frequency of these cost overruns as a major problem.

The consultant team ODOT hired to perform the strategic review comes from a firm largely dependent on ODOT for consulting work on these same mega-projects.  The consultants are conflicted because they make more money when ODOT has cost-overruns, and stand to lose business if they’re publicly critical of a big client.

These conflicts are accentuated by the revolving door between top state DOT management positions and highly paid consulting gigs. The strategic review was led by ODOT director Kris Strickler’s former boss—who now works for a firm billing $80 million for its work on the IBR.

An independent study published by the Brookings Institution shows that excessive reliance on consultants is a major contributor to high costs, and Oregon’s costs are double the national average.

Just as in 2016, prior to the last big transportation package, ODOT hired a consultant to whitewash its management credibility to convince the legislature to increase its funding.

It looks like in this election there is going to be a lot of talk about how immigration impacts house prices. This topic can very quickly become charged with emotion, so instead let’s look at the facts.

Despite what you may have been told, over the past 10 years, housing supply has actually grown faster than the population. The number of dwellings has increased by 19%, while the population has grown by just 16%.

If supply were the only reason for the increase in house prices and the decline in affordability over the past decade, you would expect that during this time house prices would have either fallen or at least risen slower than average incomes. However, house prices have increased by 70% – well beyond household incomes. This clearly suggests that population growth is not the major factor driving house prices.

Even more clearly, during the pandemic the government closed the boarders and net overseas migration fell. That meant for one of the very few times, more people left the country than entered it. In the 18 months from March 2020 until September 2021, over 100,000 more people left Australia than entered it. That was the largest fall ever recorded.

If lowering migration made housing more affordable, then you would have expected that during this period, Australians would have experienced a great improvement in housing affordability. Alas, the complete opposite occurred. Instead of becoming more affordable. House prices rose an astonishing 20% in just 18 months.

Mr Dutton said a Coalition government would force gas exporters to divert uncontracted gas to Australian customers, demonstrating that there is no gas shortage in Australia.

Key points – Australia Institute research has shown:

• Excessive gas exports have caused domestic gas and electricity prices to triple. Limiting exports is the only way to reverse this price increase.
• Gas exporters such as Santos have stated that part of their goal for export gas projects was increasing domestic gas prices.
• This policy would not significantly affect government budgets or the economy because the gas industry pays little tax and employs few people.
• No gas exporter has ever paid petroleum tax, most gas exports are royalty-free and most pay little company tax.

“It is good to see the Opposition identify the key problem in Australian energy policy – excessive gas exports,” said Mark Ogge, Principal Advisor at The Australia Institute.

“A decade ago, Santos told investors that their gas projects were ‘as much about raising the domestic gas price as about gas exports’ and finally some of Australia’s leaders may be ready to push back on gas corporations.

“Gas exports have tripled prices for Australians and the only way to stop that is to restrict exports and to switch Australia’s energy demand to cleaner sources.

By Fernando Monge | This blog post was originally published on the Datapolis substack.

I just came back from a short trip to the city of Venice. No matter how many stories one has heard, nor how many pictures one has seen, Venice — and the creativity that sustained this Mediterranean superpower and cultural marvel on top of a million nailed trees in a marshy lagoon — stands as one of history’s most captivating urban success stories.

A sense of fear is rippling through higher education—the fear that the Trump Administration will hold it accountable for violating federal law. As President Trump withholds millions in grants to Ivy League institutions, The New York Times’s Thomas Edsall innocently asks, “The American university system commands worldwide respect. What would prompt a call for its abolition?”

Like so many institutions, the American university system used to enjoy bipartisan trust and support. It once commanded broad-based respect, a respect that has been in freefall as the Left systematically dropped objective standards of excellence and the canon of Western civilization, replacing them with ever-evolving departments of grievance studies and activism. The majority of Republicans view American universities as a net negative. Independents are trending the same way, with just one-third saying they have “quite a lot” of trust in our universities.

On the basis of once high levels of trust, the universities secured enormous taxpayer benefits not given to any other sector. Now, they are shocked to find themselves in the process of losing their special carve-outs, which make up a substantial portion of their budgets. Losing these perks is a serious threat to their entire business model. In other words, as the kids say, FAFO.

On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Greg and Elinor discuss the Government’s tax cuts, the big missed opportunities in this Budget, and what it’s like inside ‘the lock-up’.

This discussion was recorded on Thursday 27 March 2025 and things may have changed since recording.

Order What’s the Big Idea? 32 Big Ideas for a Better Australia now, via the Australia Institute website.

Host: Greg Jericho, Chief Economist, the Australia Institute and Centre for Future Work // @grogsgamut

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

Show notes:

‘Labor’s budget tax cuts make good economic sense – and have backed Dutton and Taylor into a political corner’ by Greg Jericho, Guardian Australia (March 2025)

Jon Durfee, Michael Junho Lee, Joseph Torregrossa, and Sarah Yu Wang

By Ruth Puttick

The Public Sector Capabilities Index will assess city governments and compare their comparative strengths in adapting to solve problems and take advantage of new opportunities. Data and evidence are central to the entire process of identifying, assessing, and comparing dynamic capabilities. But what does good evidence look like, how can we gather it, and how can we ensure it influences decision making to support city governments to develop and improve their problem-solving abilities?

It is worth stating up front that evidence is not the same as data. Data is essential to our work and will take many forms, such as interview transcripts and budget data. But data is raw and uninterpreted, whereas evidence is data that has been analysed and used to support or refute a hypothesis or claim. Evidence is what we need to understand impacts and outcomes. In other words, how can we convince city governments, finance ministers, and others, to invest in the development of dynamic capabilities and deliver positive change for residents?

For the Public Sector Capabilities Index, we are thinking about evidence in six categories:

National housing campaign Everybody’s Home said the Coalition’s budget reply fails to fix the housing crisis and instead proposes policies that would make it worse.

Everybody’s Home spokesperson Maiy Azize said: “The Coalition’s budget reply fails to offer solutions that will ease the housing crisis and fails to help everyday people who are struggling with housing stress. 

“The Coalition’s housing plans are a step backwards that would push up the cost of housing. The Opposition has no plan to help the majority of renters and the growing number of people who’re being pushed into homelessness.

“The Coalition’s plan to encourage people to raid their superannuation to buy a home would make the deepening housing crisis even worse. It will drive house prices up, lock more people out of housing, and lower people’s retirement savings. 

“It is unfair to ask the next generation to make sacrifices that their parents never had to think about. We should be bringing the cost of homes down, not pushing up costs and asking people to sacrifice their retirement savings.

“Super for Housing will largely benefit those already on the property ladder, and leave everyone else worse off.”

Ms Azize also said that Australia needs a major boost to social housing.

“Hundreds of thousands of people are in severe rental stress. They need social housing – but the Coalition is proposing to build even less by getting rid of the Housing Australia Future Fund.

Jon Durfee, Michael Junho Lee, and Joseph Torregrossa

Designing the Public Sector Capabilities Index — testing our approach with city governments

By Bec Chau

What makes a city government adaptable? The answer doesn’t come from theory alone but from the people managing complexity every day. The Public Sector Capabilities Index is taking shape through deep engagement with city governments, ensuring it reflects the challenges, constraints, and opportunities they navigate.

On this episode of After America, Dr Emma Shortis and Angus Blackman discuss Trump administration group chats, Big Pharma’s big whinge, and the history of conservative efforts to dismantle the federal Education department.

This discussion was recorded on Tuesday 25 March 2025 and things may have changed since recording.

Read more from Emma in the latest edition of Australian Foreign Affairs.

Order What’s the Big Idea? 32 Big Ideas for a Better Australia now, via the Australia Institute website.

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

Host: Angus Blackman, Producer, the Australia Institute // @AngusRB

Show notes:

‘The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans’ by Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic (March 2025)

Australia has enough gas to supply the domestic market many times over.

But the gas giants are allowed to export 80% of our gas overseas. That creates fake shortages which, in turn, force domestic prices up.

There is no need to approve any new gas projects in Australia.

Australia Institute research proves this would only make things worse. It would lead to more exports. The manufactured shortages would remain and domestic prices would keep rising. The only winner would be the multinational gas companies.

It’s expected Mr Dutton will use tonight’s Budget Reply speech to announce a domestic gas reservation scheme targeting new projects in exchange for faster environmental approvals.

A reservation scheme is a good idea, but it must be for existing gas, not new gas. Exports should be capped.

The announcement today that the Liberal Party will halve the fuel tax excise for one year if it wins the election in May is, alas, yet another of the many policies put in place over the years that encourage the use of fossil fuels. At a time when all political parties should be working to reduce emissions, this policy does the exact opposite.

But while that is bad enough, the dollar benefit to an “average Australian” would seem to be much less than $750 per year suggested by the opposition leader.

The opposition have told reporters that the $750 figure is based on filling up a 55L tank once a week. Now, if you have a pretty standard petrol car that gets around 8.2l/100km that means driving 670km a week. That is a lot of driving for anyone living in the city.

And so it is not surprising that most surveys estimate that people fill up their car a lot less than once a week.

Budget Direct Car Insurance in 2022 surveyed road users and found that only a quarter of Australians filled up once a week – some more than that, but around two-thirds of drivers filled up only once a fortnight or less. For those drivers, the benefits of this halving of the rebate is much less than $750.

This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

Ever since the first Donald Trump administration, the word “fascism” has dominated discussion around Trump’s policies and ambitions to the extent of semantic satiation. Liberals and leftists often use fascism as a blanket term for anything right-wing politicians represent and Republicans equally use “communism” to denote Democratic or left-wing politics. Jason Stanley, author, American philosopher and Yale professor, joins host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report to give proper context to what fascism means and how the Trump administration’s second term could really mean the completion of the American fascist state.

The federal government last night rammed changes to Australia’s environment law – aimed at protecting salmon farming operations in Tasmania – through the Senate.

The legislation aims to scupper a long-awaited review of salmon farming in Macquarie Harbour, on Tassie’s west coast, by Environment Minister – and Member for Sydney – Tanya Plibersek.

While the legislation was promised and driven by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, this poll suggests voters may punish Ms Plibersek, revealing her first-preference support has fallen to 41.1%, down from 50.82% at the 2022 election.

The Australia Institute commissioned the polling from uComms, which surveyed 860 Australians living in Sydney between 17 and 18 March 2025.

Key Findings:

• 61% support stopping salmon farming in areas where it is putting the endangered Maugean skate at risk of extinction; more than twice as many who oppose (24%).
• 63% have heard about the mass fish deaths currently happening in the salmon industry in Tasmania.
• 68% think the current mass fish deaths are having a negative impact on Tasmania’s ‘clean and green’ brand, including 36% who think it’s having a significant negative impact.

“Voters in Sydney and all around Australia understand and have watched in horror at what’s happening in Tasmania,” said Eloise Carr, Director of The Australia Institute Tasmania.

“That includes voters in the Environment Minister’s own seat.