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Suicide is a growing public health crisis in the United States.

In 2023, approximately 49,300 Americans died by suicide, with an age-adjusted rate of 14.1-14.7 per 100,000 people. The rate for men was 22.8 per 100,000, which is roughly four times higher than that of women, at 5.9 per 100,000. Suicide rates among young men have been rising steadily since 2010, with men ages 15-34 being the fastest-growing segment. In 2023, the suicide rate for men ages 15-24 was 21 per 100,000, compared with 5 per 100,000 for women of the same age.

Today’s suicide prevention efforts must focus more on men, yet public awareness and policy attention remain limited. Unsurprisingly, mainstream media coverage often fails to report these age- and gender-specific trends accurately, making it harder to direct resources and interventions where they are most urgently needed.

With his lead symposium essay, Jesse Merriam revisits the constructive criticism he offered of “A Better Originalism,” the manifesto I, Hadley Arkes, Josh Hammer, and Matthew Peterson co-authored in these pages at the advent of the Biden presidency. As Merriam wrote in 2021, “The failure of legal conservatism is principally a product of how it is structured, not the product of an inadequate legal theory.” By structured, he meant not only the institutions that dominate the conservative legal movement, but also the aims at which those institutions pull oars together to achieve.

Legal conservatism needs substantive goals to which the movement can orient its activities, a point on which Merriam is correct. Indeed, a hyperfocus on the methodologies of the prevailing form of originalism, the original public meaning variety, masks the ultimate ends of a legal conservatism worth pursuing in the first place.

The Australia Institute’s Chief Economist Greg Jericho says if the RBA had hiked rates today in response to the most recent inflation data, it would have been a brutal knee-jerk reaction, especially with real wage growth slowing.

He says the slight uptick in inflation is likely to be short-term, due to the ending of government power bill subsidies.

“The inflation increase in October, from 3.6% to 3.8%, was largely a one-off response to the ending of power bill subsidies. That isn’t a trend,” said Greg Jericho, Chief Economist at The Australia Institute.

“The truth is, market predictions of rate hikes and cuts will swing with new data on inflation, economic growth, real wages and unemployment.

“The RBA has chosen to wait and see. That’s at least a small mercy for mortgage holders a fortnight out from Christmas.”

The post Rate hold shows RBA uncertainty appeared first on The Australia Institute.

On this episode of After America, Allan Behm and Angus Blackman discuss the American ‘double-tap’ strike on an alleged drug boat, Pete Hegseth’s use of Signal to share sensitive military information, and why Trump spent a night posting 160 times on Truth Social.

This discussion was recorded on Friday 5 December 2025.

A time for Bravery: what happens when Australia chooses courage is available now via Australia Institute Press. Use the code ‘POD5’ to get $5 off.

Aiming Higher: Universities and Australia’s future by Professor George Williams is also available now.

Guest: Allan Behm, Advisor, International & Security Affairs, the Australia Institute

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

Show notes:

War Crimes: Where do Responsibility and Accountability Start and End? By Allan Behm, the Australia Institute (May 2025)

Given the generation-defining AI race that’s currently moving at breakneck speed, one would think Congress might have a productive thought about it by now. But this assumption would unfortunately be a mistake. Instead, federal legislators have chosen to mostly ignore a crucial issue that has deep ramifications for our nation. By the time they step up and see the bigger picture, it might just be too late.

Recently on Truth Social, President Donald Trump slammed the “patchwork” of state regulations Congress has allowed to flourish. AI policy is being drafted not in Washington but in states like California. It’s being crafted not by sensible, informed actors but by out-of-touch lawmakers who few people know, who won’t be held accountable, and whose motivation lies in appeasing their constituents rather than strengthening U.S. national security.

Subject: Please support mandatory inclusionary zoning in Victoria

Dear [MP Name],
I’m writing to express my concern that the current planning reforms do not include any mechanism to secure affordable housing. Victoria urgently needs mandatory inclusionary zoning to ensure new developments contribute to addressing our housing crisis.

Why this matters

• Victoria is planning huge housing growth, including 60 new Activity Centres, but none of this requires affordable housing.
• Voluntary agreements have produced almost no affordable homes since introduced.
• Developers, planners and councillors prefer mandatory inclusionary zoning because it gives certainty and consistency.

What inclusionary zoning is

A proven planning tool used worldwide that requires or incentivises developers to include affordable or social housing in new developments.

Jesse Merriam persuasively argues that legal conservatives are no longer committed to maintaining the essential features of the American legal and political order. They are instead obsessed with matters of constitutional interpretation, emphasizing the related doctrines of originalism and textualism. So they consider it something of a victory when progressive justices such as Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson embrace those doctrines, even though it’s perfectly clear they will use them for progressive ends. Indeed, even Justice Neil Gorsuch, an avowed textualist, did so in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020) when he insisted, absurdly and ahistorically, that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects individuals from employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. His pretextual textualism is as lawless as anything that has animated judicial supremacists since at least the 1950s.

Furthermore, making originalism and its variants the core of legal “conservatism” is a fool’s errand. It does not give conservatives a positive legal language in which to express, or a legal agenda with which to fight, the substantive evils that non-originalist decisions represent. And this assumes that originalism even provides the tools to overturn such decisions, which is hardly clear.

With the federal government seeking a new way to fix Australia’s self-inflicted “gas crisis”, Australia Institute research shows a 25% tax on gas exports would solve the problem.

The research shows a tax, proposed by the ACTU and supported by the Greens, would increase supply and cut energy bills for Australians.

It would also raise around $17 billion for Australians annually, bringing Australia closer to other gas exporting countries like Norway and Qatar.

Gas giants Origin and Shell, which both have surplus gas, are lobbying to continue exporting as much uncontracted gas to the global spot market as possible, ahead of supplying Australians. Santos, which doesn’t have enough gas, wants to continue taking gas out of the Australian market for export.

“A 25% tax on gas exports would solve the gas crisis. It would cut energy bills, ensure there is enough gas for Australians. It would also provide $17 billion annually for better housing, health care, education and childcare,” said Mark Ogge, Principal Advisor to The Australia Institute.

“A 25% tax on gas exports would solve the problem immediately and provide a huge financial benefit the Australian community.”