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Joshua Lawrence is a research fellow at Notes on the Crises and graduate of Sarah Lawrence College. Find him on Bluesky here.

Juan Hanes is a research fellow at Notes on the Crises and a Journalism student at NYU. Find him on Bluesky here.

25 June 2026 – Equality Australia says it’s bitterly disappointing the Federal Government has declined to accept a single LGBTIQ+ recommendation in a United Nations (UN) human rights peer review of Australia. 

Australia was reviewed by other member states at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in January as part of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process.

The UPR provides a comprehensive peer review of each UN member state’s human rights record every four and a half years.

As part of Australia’s fourth UPR, more than 120 countries delivered around 332 recommendations to improve Australia’s human rights protections, including nine recommendations on LGBTIQ+ rights.

These included removing the exemption that allows religious schools to legally discriminate against LGBTIQ+ students and staff, recommended by Belgium, Iceland and Mexico.

Other LGBTIQ+ specific recommendations included public education campaigns to address stigma, a national ban on conversion practices, banning medically unnecessary surgeries on intersex children and more general recommendations about protecting our communities from discrimination and violence.

National housing campaign Everybody’s Home has hailed the passing of investor tax break reform as a huge win for housing fairness, and said the focus must now turn to building our way out of the crisis with social housing.

The Senate has passed reforms that limit negative gearing and end the CGT Discount for investment properties.  

Everybody’s Home spokesperson Maiy Azzie said tax reform will not end the housing crisis on its own but is a crucial part of the solution.

“Winding back tax perks that pad investors’ pockets is a major win for housing fairness for our country,” Ms Azize said.

“This reform puts people before profits, and prioritises making homes an essential need for everyone instead of a cash grab for some. These changes dilute the fuel that’s been feeding our housing crisis for decades. 

“Investor tax break reform marks a decisive shift in the national interest, and we commend the Parliament for having the courage to see it through.

“Now that the federal government has moved to make the housing system fairer, it must now work to make it affordable for everybody.

On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Greg and Elinor discuss Pauline Hanson’s comments on paid parental leave and childcare, the latest inflation data, the passage of the government’s capital gains tax and negative gearing changes, and the new ‘no Gregs’ club.

This discussion was recorded on Thursday 25 June 2026.

Support the research powerful interests fear. Make a tax-deductible donation to the Australia Institute’s End of Financial Year Appeal before 30 June.

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

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

Show notes:

Capital gains tax changes are already having an impact on wealth inequality – and vested interests are running scared by Greg Jericho, Guardian Australia (June 2026)

This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

In this episode of The Chris Hedges Report, Chris Hedges speaks with Kshama Sawant, a revolutionary socialist based in Seattle, Washington, who is challenging long-time incumbent Democrat Adam Smith for Congress. Sawant served in the Seattle City Council for more than a decade during which she and her supporters won unprecedented victories for higher wages, affordable housing, taxing Amazon, LGBTQ rights and more. She then went on to organize a national working-class movement, Workers Strike Back.

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.

60 Days to End the War | The Roundtable Ep. 323

The United States and the Iranian regime have signed a 14-point memo of understanding, establishing a 60-day window to negotiate the war’s end. To work out the details—which include an end to sanctions and international monitoring of Iran’s uranium—J.D. Vance met with Iran’s diplomats in Switzerland, while Secretary Marco Rubio is slated to confer with Middle Eastern allies this week. Meanwhile, U.K. prime minister Keir Starmer has resigned amid a breakdown of government trust, sparked by the Labour government’s failure to take immigration and related crime seriously.

The post The American Mind Podcast: The Roundtable Episode 323 appeared first on The American Mind.

The 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence has reignited an old debate on the Right between the immoderate defenders of “creed” and the equally immoderate advocates of “culture.” The either/or nature of this argument was already stale 50 years ago in the lead-up to the Bicentennial, and it hasn’t improved with age.

Harry V. Jaffa, whose students founded the Claremont Institute, was a key figure in the intellectual wrangling over the meaning of America in 1976, and his name is still invoked today—wrongly—as a champion of the extreme “creedalism” position. Though his argument has often been misinterpreted, Jaffa demonstrated that American republicanism requires both creed and culture and showed why both are necessary. What both the creedalists and the culturists miss is that American constitutionalism was a moral and intellectual solution to a set of problems that had been afflicting Western civilization for more than a thousand years.

What Shakespeare Almost Saw

Episode 1 is coming on June 29.

Richard connects the dots between policy and politics with sharp analysis. By getting straight to the point, Richard helps listeners understand how democracy works and why it matters.

Presented by the Australia Institute.

The post Introducing What’s the Point? with Richard Denniss appeared first on The Australia Institute.

Even those who strongly support the Trump Administration can grow frustrated with the pace of change. Sometimes that frustration is justified. But other times, moving deliberately is essential, particularly when it comes to the law. A shoddy or rushed legal opinion may grab headlines, but if it changes nothing or is overturned in the courts, it’s just a long, noisy out. And judges are fickle and self-regarding creatures, especially on the Supreme Court, the ultimate adjudicator of many of these disputes.

Given that reality, the recent opinion from the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) declaring the vast majority of disparate-impact uses—a cornerstone of the civil rights regime for over half a century—effectively unconstitutional is a legal earthquake. It won’t get the sort of headlines of border walls or banning boys from girls’ sports, but in terms of its potential impact on America, it is vastly more important.

Oratory is out of fashion. The word itself sounds archaic to our ears, denoting something people used to practice in antiquity and at long length in 19th-century America. Even the more down-to-earth sounding “rhetoric” is heard to mean “mere” rhetoric—words false or deceptive by definition. Politicians talk about “messaging,” and the more significant politicians have layers of staff for “communications.” This does not bode well for the forthcoming 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Every politician in America will feel obliged to say something for the occasion. Whoever can—with perhaps some rare exceptions—will deploy a staff member or staff members to draft his remarks. The staff members themselves, products of American universities where American history is frowned upon or given the 1619 treatment, will have to do original research to prepare for the task. A significant percentage of them will rely on A.I. Patriots have reason to wonder whether there is a politician (or comms team) in America today who understands and can articulate for his fellow citizens and the world the meaning of July 4, 1776.

The United States has the largest carceral population in the world. Legislation designed to feed the prison state has produced detrimental outcomes for former prisoners; 70% of returning citizens go back to prison after returning to civilian life. The Return Citizen Support Group in New Jersey has constructed a community that utilizes parallel structures of mutual aid to support formerly incarcerated civilians in their journeys beyond prison. Importantly, this objective was born out of necessity. In modern America, the state and private sector only work to isolate individuals and kneecap their ability to move forward — demonstrating that rehabilitation and strength is cultivated not within the system, but outside of it.

The new cabinet of Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae recently overturned a longstanding national ban on exports of the category of military equipment that the government defines as ‘lethal’. The lifting of the ban only applies at present to a list of 17 allies including Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States though there is a mechanism for further countries to be added in the future at the government’s discretion.

The policy change is another blow to the legal pacifism central to Japan’s post-war constitutional order and represents a significant loss for the liberal political parties that performed so poorly in the general election held earlier this year. However, this political novelty has distracted from the deeply conventional economic logic that underpins this policy change. Since its post-war revival Japan has been an export-oriented economy centered on the high value-added secondary manufacturing sector. Central to this economic model from the 1950s to the 1980s was a generous peg between the US dollar and the Japanese yen, which made the US an ideal final destination for Japanese commodities. As the Cold War wound down, the US became less tolerant of trade deficits with its allies and in the 1985 Plaza Accords it renegotiated its pegs to the German, French and Japanese currencies. The subsequent appreciation of the Yen led to a speculative real estate bubble and, in 1992, a deep recession from which Japan has never fully recovered.

Listen to the full conversation on the Perspectives Journal podcast, available to subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Amazon Music, and all other major podcast platforms.

On this episode of Class & Climate: Perspectives on a Green Economy, Matt Huber, author of Climate Change as Class War, challenges commonly-held assumptions about responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions, debunking the myth of “degrowth” as the sole solution to our planetary climate crisis.

On this episode of After America, Dr Lindsay Owens joins Dr Emma Shortis to discuss World Cup ticket pricing, the consolidation of corporate power in Trump’s America, the impact of the war on Iran on the US economy, and fighting back against efforts to use misinformation about the economy to demonise migrants.

This episode was recorded live on Thursday 11 June.

Support the research powerful interests fear. Make a tax-deductible donation to the Australia Institute’s End of Financial Year Appeal before 30 June.

Guest: Lindsay Owens, Executive Director, Groundwork Collaborative // @lindsayowens

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

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

Show notes:

Shorter America: America’s best writers; Empire of white supremacy; Empire of toxic masculinity by Emma Shortis, The Point (June 2026)

Practically every school and university in America claims to teach “critical thinking.” It appears in mission statements, accreditation documents, course catalogs, and commencement addresses with the regularity of a loyalty oath. Ask any dean what distinguishes a college education from a YouTube tutorial, and “critical thinking” will come up within the first sentence. It has become the universal binding agent of higher education’s value proposition—the one phrase that justifies tuition, tenure lines, and the institutional architecture.

This is a problem. Critical thinking, as commonly understood and widely practiced, is not enough to form a young mind. And our failure to say so clearly is costing us something we may not be able to rebuild.

25 May 2026 - National LGBTIQ+ group Equality Australia has slammed a private member’s bill that would weaken federal anti-discrimination protections for LGBTIQ+ people and women. 

Nationals MP Alison Penfold on Monday introduced the bill to federal parliament, which includes a narrow definition of sex and seeks to exclude trans women from a range of public spaces and protections. 

Equality Australia Legal Director Heather Corkhill: 

“This bill would give sexism and misogyny a free pass while stripping trans women of basic protections. 

“This bill is legally messy, socially divisive and risks weakening protections for all women. 

“These changes would fundamentally reshape Australia’s sex discrimination laws. 

“Sex discrimination has never been about biology alone — decades of case law make clear it is about gendered stereotypes, assumptions, and the unequal treatment of women and how they ‘should’ act and live. 

“Rather than improving women’s safety or equality, this culture war risks dragging LGBTIQ+ and women’s rights back to the dark ages.” 

15 May 2026 – National LGBTIQ+ group Equality Australia has welcomed a Federal Court judgment that has upheld the right of trans women to live free from discrimination. 

In a judgement handed down in Sydney on Friday, the Full Court of the Federal Court dismissed an appeal by Sall Grover and her app Giggle for Girls, confirming that Roxanne Tickle was discriminated against when she was excluded from the app for being trans. 

The Court found Ms Tickle was directly discriminated against on two grounds because of her gender identity, and increased damages to $20,000 after taking into account Ms Grover’s aggravating conduct. 

Equality Australia Legal Director Heather Corkhill said the ruling was a clear and significant win for equality and fairness. 

“Today’s decision is an important win for everyone protected under the Act, including women and LGBTIQ+ people,” she said. 

“This ruling affirms that all women deserve to live free from discrimination, without being judged on appearance, presentation or perceptions.” 

April 24, 2026 — Equality Australia has welcomed the recommendations of a NSW inquiry that found LGBTIQ+ people are among the communities targeted by right-wing extremism, alongside Jewish communities, women and other minority groups. 

The report, handed down yesterday, found that right-wing extremism is rooted in prejudice, including homophobia and transphobia, as well as antisemitism, racism and misogyny.  

It also notes these forms of hate are not isolated, but are actively promoted, normalised and amplified through online platforms and extremist networks that seek to recruit and radicalise individuals. 

“Importantly, the inquiry makes clear that LGBTIQ+ people are deliberately targeted within extremist narratives that seek to normalise hate in public discourse,” said Equality Australia CEO Anna Brown. 

“It also recognises that addressing extremism requires more than law enforcement — it must include action on the social drivers that enable it.” 

The report emphasises that prevention and early intervention are critical to addressing the rise of extremism in NSW, alongside stronger community-based responses.