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.
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, TheNew 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.
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.
Haaretz, Israel’s oldest and most widely known newspaper, has just published a long, roughly 8,000 word feature article, about the work of Lee Mordechai, the Associate Professor of History at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He has compiled on line a massive report entitled “Bearing Witness to the Israel-Gaza War.” The English translation of the […]
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.
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.
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.
Ever since the October 7 2023 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, the Albanese government has consistently said Australia respects Israel’s right to defend itself, but how it does so matters. To an international lawyer, those words are code for simultaneously exercising the right of self defence and respecting international humanitarian law. In effect, remaining compliant […]
Protesting students occupy an area of the quadrangle at the University of Sydney in Sydney, Friday, May 3, 2024. Encampments have sprung up at colleges in major Australian cities as participants protest over the Israel-Hamas war in solidarity with student demonstrators in the United States. Image:AAP/AP/Rick Rycroft In a number of countries, universities are now […]
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.
The Albanese government has often – and rightly – been criticised for lacking policy boldness in areas such as climate change and the need to address inequality and poverty through measures such as increasing Jobseeker. But with regards to industrial relations, the government has shown that bold policy is not just possible, but also successful.
Prior to the election in 2022, enterprise bargaining was on life support. Over a decade of efforts by business groups had led to a record low share of 14.8% of employees being covered by enterprise bargaining agreements (EBAs). Enterprise agreements have long been disliked by companies and business groups because, as a general rule, they deliver better wage growth because they enable workers to combine their bargaining power – often and most effectively through representation by a union.
In 2023, the government introduced changes to workplace relations laws which strengthened the ability of workers to bargain in enterprise agreements and also to ensure more workers can be covered by such agreements. One significant policy reform was the introduction of the ability for multi-employer agreements to cover low-paid employees who often have little individual bargaining power.
The latest figures from the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations show that there has been a very strong increase in the number of workers covered by EBAs – up to 21.3%. This is the first time more than 20% of workers have been covered by EBAs since June 2020.
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.
Mixed Signals | The Roundtable Ep. 260
Atlantic reporter Jeff Goldberg was mistakenly added to a national security group chat, leading to a DC media feeding frenzy—is there anything of substance to be gleaned from this goof? Meanwhile, Jay Bhattacharya—an early opponent of the 2020 lockdowns—was confirmed by the Senate to direct the National Institutes of Health, hopefully marking a turn back to sound health policy. This week, the guys talk through messaging and operations security, Biden-era censorship, plummeting egg prices, and more! Plus: a round of reading recommendations.
Last night’s passing of amendments to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act weakens the protection of our natural treasures, rammed through by a government which promised greater protection.
The amendments increase the likelihood that Australian native species will become extinct, driven by a government which promised no extinctions under its watch.
The amendments are designed to protect the destructive, foreign-owned commercial salmon industry in Tasmania.
But the changes could stop anyone – from local community groups to Federal Government Ministers – from reviewing projects like coal mines, gas exploration, land clearing or other destructive practices.
“This bill has ramifications for industries that goes well beyond salmon. It will affect all industries governed by this legislation,” said Eloise Carr, Director, The Australia Institute Tasmania.
“Labor and Coalition MPs described what they were trying to achieve as ‘fixing a flaw’ in the EPBC Act. There was no flaw in the law.
“For once, just as our nature law was about to do what it is supposed to – protect world heritage and species threatened with extinction – the major parties have changed the law.
“We have a parliamentary process to scrutinise laws before they pass. But not this time.”
Ten years ago, Anthony Albanese described similar changes proposed by the coalition government as an act of environmental vandalism.
On this episode of Follow the Money, Ebony Bennett discusses the Government’s efforts to weaken the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act with Australia Institute Executive Director Dr Richard Denniss and Strategy Director Leanne Minshull.
This discussion was recorded on Tuesday 25 March 2025 and things may have changed.
Sign our petition calling on the Government not to gut Australia’s environment laws.
ODOT’s real financial problem isn’t revenue. ODOT’s financial crisis isn’t a result of falling revenue, instead it has been caused by massive cost overruns on highway expansion megaprojects, extravagant funding for consultants, and no effective management oversight despite persistent problems, all compounded by increased debt.
My friend, mentor, and former professor Jed Rubenfeld published an article last week in The Free Press titled “Why MAGA is Furious with Amy Coney Barrett.” In addition to discussing the particulars of the Right’s recent spat with Justice Barrett due to her vote in Department of State v. AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, Rubenfeld explores “a civil war now being waged within legal conservatism, a war that will determine its future.” He contends that, like his progressive students a decade ago, many young conservatives are beginning to “turn against the constitution.”
With the utmost respect, Professor Rubenfeld is wrong. The rejection of our constitutional order remains a fringe view among right-wing law students and young lawyers. The most potent challenge to actually-practiced legal conservatism comes not from “right wing anti-constitutionalism”—it comes from originalism itself. But ours is not the same critique of originalism as Harvard Law School professor Adrian Vermeule, who has been something of a bogeyman for legal liberals and FedSoc types. Yet for all the wailing and gnashing of teeth from the FedSoc establishment, it’s not clear Vermeule has much sway among young lawyers on the Right.
There is less than a week until the publication of my new book, The Last American Road Trip, which you can preorder here! Preorders are VERY important, so if you like my writing, and want it to continue, please preorder today.
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He also wants to introduce a National Interest Test for major projects seeking environmental approval. The test would take into account economic and social benefits.
Woodside’s proposed 50-year NWS gas expansion should be subject to a National Interest Test.
The Centre for Future Work’s research team has analysed the Commonwealth Government’s budget, focusing on key areas for workers, working lives, and labour markets.
As expected with a Federal election looming, the budget is not a horror one of austerity. However, the 2025-2026 budget is characterised by the absence of any significant initiatives.
There is very little in this budget that is new, other than some surprise tax cuts, which are welcome given they mostly benefit people on low incomes
There are continuing investments in some key areas supporting wages growth where it is solely needed and for rebuilding important areas of public good. However, there remains much that needs to be done in the next parliament, whoever is in government.
“The budget does deliver a welcome tax cut targeted towards those on low incomes” Chief Economist Greg Jericho notes, “but the lack of new spending and initiatives highlights the need for policies from all political parties in the coming election campaign that address inequality and the needs of people who have been most hurt by cost of living rises over the past three years.”
Read our full budget briefing paper for more information
Here are resources from the Reset Reading Group which was a bookclub set up by the Commons Library during the time of COVID lockdowns. This reading group was an opportunity to develop shared ideas and visions for a just future together. It ran from April – July 2020.
Everything is being Reset… How things unfold from here is up to us.
Each fortnight leading progressive thinkers shared materials for reflection, discussion, and potential action on key themes central to a just future. The program consisted of readings, films and podcasts draw from philosophers, political theorists, educators, agitators and artists as well as the collective wisdom of participants. The discussions focused on how we can build a better world, and what that better world would look like.
The readings from different curators are still available for you to read.
Reset Reading Group resources for discussion curated and introduced by Karrina Nolan from Original Power. Includes Indigenous Principles for Just Transition, interviews, videos, podcasts, campaign links and prompts for discussions.
National housing campaign Everybody’s Home has acknowledged the federal government’s housing measures in tonight’s budget but warns they fail to tackle the scale of the crisis.
With housing stress and homelessness deepening as sky-high rents continue to price Australians out, Everybody’s Home is urging all parties to deliver bold, ambitious commitments ahead of the election.
Everybody’s Home spokesperson Maiy Azize said: “This federal budget has measures that may make housing more affordable for a small number of people but it doesn’t deliver solutions that will make housing more affordable for everybody.
“Expanding the Help to Buy scheme may help some, but it will not move the needle on the housing crisis which is affecting millions of Australians.
“The housing crisis is deepening and hurting more and more Australians. We need a response that matches the scale of the crisis. We need leaders that will take bold leaps forward.
“The election is an opportunity for the federal government to offer the ambitious, visionary, and transformative solutions that voters are crying out for.
Well, everyone who earns more than $18,200. Everyone gets a tax cut – up to $268 in 2026-27 and another one in 2027-28. It’s a smart tax cut – mostly benefitting those earning less than $45,000.
People who go to the doctor/use the PBS – as was previously announced – cheaper PBS medicine, cheaper GP visits (hopefully) and the energy rebate is extended for another 6 months (tune back in 6 months to see if it gets extended again).
Beer drinkers – the Government will pause indexation on draught beer excise and excise equivalent customs duty rates for a two‑year period, from August 2025 – also previously announced.
Gas companies who are projected to pay less PRRT over the next 4 years – $1.95bn than $1.8bn then $1.65bn then $1.45bn. As a result, beer drinkers – even with the pause of excise indexation will still pay $4.8bn more than gas companies do on PRRT over the next 4 years.
Wealthy people who live using the superannuation system to avoid paying tax – no changes to the super tax concessions.
Wealthy people who like using the tax system to speculate in the housing market. No changes to that nor negative gearing.
This article is read by Eunice Wong, a Juilliard-trained actor, featured on Audible's list of Best Women Narrators. Her work is on the annual Best Audiobooks lists of the New York Times, Audible, AudioFile, & Library Journal. www.eunicewong.actor
Globally, authoritarianism has been on the rise, and political freedoms have been steadily declining. Authoritarianism is not just a threat to democratic governance or a concern for political actors. It is a concern to us all, as it both relies on and fuels violence in order to take root. Authoritarians intentionally sow divisions, cast vulnerable groups as enemies, and stoke feelings of superiority to justify and/or distract from unpopular policies, including those that aggrandize their power. Underlying this is a politics of us versus them: a guilty and threatening “them” that endangers “our physical security,” “our way of life,” and “our women and children;” and a virtuous “us” in need of protection. These narratives also dehumanize marginalized groups, criminalize opponents, and erode accountability for the use of violence in alignment with authoritarian goals, ultimately creating a permissive environment for political and identity-based violence.
Those who control the Democratic Party despise America, our Constitution, and our history. Their goal is a repressive society based on Marxist and intersectional ideologies. Their claim to be champions of democracy is hypocrisy of the highest order. Through subterfuge and force they have moved the United States to the precipice of the abyss. Their radical views, vitriol, and violence are intolerable. Only by the strongest medicine, intravenously administered, can we turn the tide.
Donald Trump’s goal is to restore individual liberties, a constitutional republic, and American exceptionalism. He is fallible, and his flaws have been exacerbated by a decade of political, legal, and financial attacks. Yet, blemishes and some dark impulses aside, there is a broad chasm between the hellscape sought by Democratic activists and leaders and the America Trump seeks.
Two frameworks for assessing the different kinds of policy and political spaces activists can engage in or create to effect change.
These frameworks are explained in Just Power: A Guide for Activists and Changemakers by JASS Just Associates. The excerpt below is from Chapter 6: Power and Strategy – Theme 5: Engaging and Resisting.
Engaging and Resisting
Policy and legal advocacy – focused on visible power – tend to dominate public perceptions about how change happens.
In many contexts, engaging with, reforming, and using the mechanisms of formal decision-making – whether through government, corporate, civil society, trade union, or religious structure (among many other examples) – remains a critical tool for influencing and changing power.
Policy and advocacy efforts may be strategic in specific moments or contexts, but not always.
Some movements choose not to get involved in formal lobbying or advocacy directed at governments and to focus instead on shifting power in other arenas, such as generating new narratives, investing in political education that challenges the dominant norms and beliefs of invisible power, building their own alternatives, creating autonomous communities – self-defined and self-governing groups – or resisting through protests, marches and occupations.
As Donald Trump and his cronies escalate their assault on client representation by attorneys, some lawyers and law firms are standing up to the Republican Fascist bullying and some are capitulating. I am proud of the heroes and utterly disgusted by the knaves.
ODOT and WSDOT are over-estimating future traffic on the I-5 bridge because they’re over stated the willingness to pay for travel time savings
The result will be an under-utilized, over-built I-5 bridge, and congestion on I-205
Over-estimating the willingness to pay for travel time savings causes IBR to underestimate diversion and negative environmental effects from tolling I-5
Metro’s case for a $7.5 billion Interstate Bridge rests on a critical assumption that doesn’t survive serious scrutiny: how much local drivers value their time. This seemingly technical detail has massive implications for the entire project’s justification.
There are currently no tolled roads in the Portland area. Drivers react to tolls in an unsurprising way: if a road is tolled, drivers tend to use it less. That’s a key feature of the IBR project: project proponents count on tolling to manage the flow of traffic over a much expanded I-5 bridge. Without tolls, the phenomenon of induced demand means that a wider bridge would simply generate even more traffic, more pollution and more congestion. Project proponents claim that a tolled, but much larger bridge would attract less traffic. How much less?
When the then-coalition government sought to weaken the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, Mr. Albanese said “the right of citizens with standing to challenge their governments in court is a fundamental pillar of a robust democracy”.
Tomorrow, the Albanese government is planning to do exactly what Mr. Albanese warned against in 2015.
The government will introduce amendments to parliament tomorrow seeking to change subsection 78(3) and subsection 78C(1) of the EPBC Act, which will limit the ability to review decisions and have major consequences for our natural environment.
Science is constantly evolving. Australia needs laws which enable decisions to be reviewed based on the latest evidence. These amendments stop us from doing that.
