But in recent years more and more Australians have abandoned voting on polling day, missing out on sausage sandwiches and – more importantly – the final days of the election campaign.
Work for justice and liberation requires the inclusion of arts and culture. The Haas Institute’s Notes on A Cultural Strategy report outlines a cultural strategy for belonging that centers the leadership, voices, storytelling, practices, and knowledge of people and communities who are marginalized in our society.
It offers resources, evidence, case studies, and a workshop module for cultural strategies that are rooted in the Haas Institute’s Othering & Belonging framework as well as in many successful models of activism and organizing.
Aimed at storytellers, artists, organizers, cultural strategists, funders, and other collaborators who are working to develop cultural strategies alone or as part of organizations and movements, this report offers notes and ideas on how cultural strategies can be developed for the greatest impact.
Like many cultural strategy practices, Notes on a Cultural Strategy for Belonging doesn’t fit well into one box–it is a bit theory, a bit case study, a bit recommendation, and a bit workshop. It outlines a what, how, and why of a cultural strategy for belonging, while also looking to next steps.
As early voting for the federal election opens today, rival claims of misleading advertising from both sides of politics are the inevitable consequence of the absence of Truth in Political Advertising laws – because, in this election, it is still perfectly legal to lie in a political ad at a federal level.
Key Points:
Nine in 10 Australians (89%) support Truth in Political Advertising laws, including two in three who strongly support such laws (64%).
There is overwhelming and consistent support for Truth in Political Advertising laws from Labor (93%), Coalition (88%), Greens (87%), One Nation (92%) and Independent/Other voters (79%).
Truth in political advertising laws have operated successfully in South Australia for 40 years.
At the end of 2024, the Albanese Government introduced legislation to Parliament to implement Truth in Political Advertising laws federally – but this legislation was not passed.
Independent MP Zali Steggall introduced a private member’s bill for truth in political advertising laws.
South Australia has had truth in political advertising laws since the 1980s; the ACT Legislative Assembly passed similar laws prior to the 2020 ACT election with tri-partisan support.
“At a federal level, it is perfectly legal to lie in a political ad, and it shouldn’t be,” said Bill Browne, Director of The Australia Institute’s Democracy & Accountability Program.
The Barossa offshore gas project, operated by gas giant Santos, was today given the green light by Australia’s National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA).
Barossa is one of the most polluting new gas projects under development in Australia and will pay no royalties on the gas it extracts.
However, its approval during the election campaign provides an opportunity for Peter Dutton to strengthen the Coalition’s gas policy.
“Barossa should not go ahead because of its impact on the climate,” said Mark Ogge, Principal Advisor at The Australia Institute.
“But today’s approval is an opportunity for Peter Dutton to demonstrate his policy of Australian gas for Australians first.
“If a small amount of Barossa’s gas was reserved for use in Australia, there would be absolutely no need to frack for gas in the Northern Territory.
“Fracking in the Territory is deeply unpopular because of the risks to groundwater that almost all Territorians rely on.
“Securing the NT’s gas supply without fracking could find significant support in the two NT seats, Solomon and Lingiari.
“More votes still could be delivered by committing to make Santos and other gas companies pay for the gas they extract.
“Most gas exporters pay zero royalties, and none have ever paid Petroleum Resource Rent Tax.
“Big gas is taking the piss and now is the time to do something about it.”
If Elon Musk didn’t have other priorities at the moment, he might want to consider adding Reddit to his free speech portfolio. Such a feat would take away one of the largest and most powerful social media platforms the Left uses to spread propaganda and organize at the local, state, and national levels. This would give conservatives a new, massive platform to drive politics and change culture, especially among younger Americans.
Conservatives missed the opportunity to dominate on Tumblr, which counts Gen Z and Millennials as a substantial portion of its active users—to the tune of 135 million per month. Given TikTok’s relationship with its Beijing-based ownership, conservatives have largely avoided the app in good conscience. But the opportunity with Reddit is different.
A lot of gas is exported from Australia. To demonstrate this, the chart above compares the amount of gas that is used in all of NSW, Victoria and South Australia with the gas that is exported by just one company, the Japanese giant INPEX.
The Australian Energy Statistics estimate the gas consumption of each state – Victoria 215 PJ, NSW 134 PJ and South Australia 75 PJ, a total of 424 in 2022-23.
INPEX is just one of many multinational companies that export Australian gas. The fact that INPEX alone exports more gas than is used by all households and businesses (including electricity generators) in three states demonstrates that there is no gas shortage in Australia. Instead, Australia has a gas export problem.
FPM Media Report 15.4.2025 WHO says child dies after Israel strike hits Gaza hospital https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/gaza-hospital-hit-as-israel-intensifies-assault/news-story/c0602080d495e74c06bafd9877e41324 AFP An Israeli air strike Sunday hit one of Gaza’s few functioning hospitals, resulting in the death of a child according to the World Health Organization, as Israel warned it would expand its offensive if Hamas does not release hostages. […]
Israel says 30pc of Gaza turned into buffer zone (The Australian, 17/4/2025) ( https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/israel-says-30pc-of-gaza-turned-into-buffer-zone/news-story/eb54c39c1252749b9a0b4ada6ee68983 ) Israel has announced that it had converted 30 per cent of Gaza’s territory into a buffer zone as it pressed its unrelenting military offensive, vowing to maintain its blockade on humanitarian aid to the war-ravaged territory. Israel resumed air and […]
About a week ago, a friend drove me across town to my neurologist’s office. She dropped me at the front door, then went on her way; she couldn’t stay for the appointment. I’d Uber home. I have a car, but since I got sick, I can’t drive anymore. Too much sitting, too vertically, for too long.
Inside, I told the receptionist where I was going. The building has a strange mix of security measures; the front desk has to call the elevator for you and send it up. Visitors who sneak into the elevator without speaking to the front desk will find themselves in an impotent box; no buttons. I discovered this the hard way on my first visit. Now, I do it all by the book.
The place has begun to feel familiar to me the way, in the beforetimes, a local coffee shop might have. I no longer feel uncomfortable and lost in the hallways. I’m becoming a fixture at my specialists’ offices the way I’d once been at my favorite bars. I know the hours. I know where the bathrooms are.
“Neurology,” I say. And the security guard calls the elevator in their modern way.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE MEDIA REPORT 20.4.25 Israeli strikes pound Gaza as Hamas rejects new truce Canberra Times | Nidal Al-Mughrabi, Jaidaa Taha & Alexander Cornwell | 20 April 2025 https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8946355/israeli-strikes-pound-gaza-as-hamas-rejects-new-truce/ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he has instructed the military to intensify pressure on Hamas after the Palestinian militant group rejected an Israeli proposal for another […]
ISRAEL-PALESTINE MEDIA REPORT 16.4.25 US must act on killings The Age | Letters | 16 April 2025 https://edition.theage.com.au/shortcode/THE965/edition/78aeee5a-b151-c9b3-75b7-3e3dd9564559?page=da8fdc97-df47-1e8f-ccfb-9b21b04711dc Since when did children’s playgrounds, schools and places of worship become legitimate military targets for Russian and Israeli drones to kill and maim unsuspecting Ukrainians and Palestinians, many of them women and children? Dismissing such […]
Exactly seven weeks since the first interview Krugman did with me was published, I have another interview to bring readers. It's quite surreal to be something like a regular correspondent for Paul Krugman on what’s happening. Even more so because this interview is not particularly focused on, say, the Treasury’s internal payments system or the technicalities of the Automated Clearing House payments system. Instead it's focused on the bread and butter elements that make up a modern financial crisis.
In the wake of the Government’s announcement of its Cheaper Home Batteries Program, 60 Australian economists, energy analysts and policy specialists have signed a letter comparing the economic consequences of pursuing nuclear energy against those of subsidising distributed clean energy technologies, including batteries. The comparison lays out a stark choice with implications for electricity prices, inflation, sovereign capability, economic diversity, job creation, and public health.
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As economists, energy analysts and policy specialists we strongly support government investment in household clean energy and industrial electrification and not in nuclear energy. Why? Because simple household clean energy upgrades can deliver immediatecost-of-living benefits and reductions in carbon emissions, and electrification can safeguard the future of industrial jobs and the communities that rely on them.
The construction of nuclear power plants would take at least 15 years at a cost of at least $330 billion. It would result in higher household energy costs, drain investment away from renewable energy and energy-intensive manufacturing, and leave the Australian economy precariously over-dependent on increasingly automated mineral extraction.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was the most popular poet in American history. As Dana Gioia writes,
His work commanded a readership that is almost unimaginable today even for best-selling novels. In terms of their reach and influence, Longfellow’s poems resembled studio-era Hollywood films: they were popular works of art enjoyed by huge, diverse audiences that crossed all social classes and age groups.
Longfellow published “Paul Revere’s Ride” in the Atlantic Monthly in January 1861 (when the magazine was still highly respectable). Few Americans remained who had a living memory of the American Revolution. With his poem, he succeeded in preserving part of that heroic memory in verse for many generations to come, the way Homer did for ancient Greeks or Shakespeare for Englishmen in more recent times.
It wasn’t just for future generations that Longfellow wrote. His own generation faced the coming of the country’s great crisis, the Civil War. All his readers would have heard in this poem the appeal to the courage and spirit of the Revolution, on which America must always call when a crisis comes. Millions of Americans still know lines of the poem by heart. It does us good to know them.
New York City is getting all the attention–much deserved–for the breath-taking success of congestion pricing.
Speeds are up, congestion is down, there are fewer crashes, less noise, more people on the streets and better business.
But congestion pricing also works in much smaller metro areas, and doesn’t depend on big investments in transit to work wonders
Louisville, Kentucky’s pricing of the I-65 bridges has reduced traffic by half on I-65, and lowered total crossings of the Ohio River by 15 percent.
Residents of the suburban county North of Louisville now drive about 18 percent fewer miles per day than before pricing was implemented.
Traffic congestion, and bloated highway construction costs, are result of our failure to manage our roads with pricing
There’s a persistent myth in transportation policy that you can’t do pricing until you provide copious and comprehensive improved transit alternatives. That’s bunk. Pricing makes road systems more efficient by giving people incentives to drive less, particularly at peak hours.
Hello Readers, I have taken the last few days to rest after an intense 80 hour work week last week, having written four pieces totaling 16,000 words. I also felt that that run of pieces have sufficiently prepared readers for events this week that I didn’t need to rush out a follow up piece about the dollar. However, I thought it would be a good prelude to what I want to say to share- for the first time- the written version of a talk I gave at the University of Manchester nearly seven years ago. This talk, entitled “Monetary Sovereigns, Monetary Subjects and Monetary Vassals: A Spectrum Approach to Monetary Sovereignty and Our Dollar World”, lays out the basic building blocks of how I think about the international monetary order. This talk was written for an international public law audience, but I think its core points remain accessible. In any case, it will be an important touchstone to what I have to say in today’s context. For reasons of historical accuracy, I haven’t updated this talk with my current thinking or anything I’ve changed my opinion about. Nevertheless, I think it holds up quite well. Next week I will refocus on the payments crisis, with multiple pieces about what's going on in that Arena.
Israel, both materially and rhetorically, has made their intent to destroy the Palestinian people clear. One of the most renowned and courageous Middle East scholars, Norman Finkelstein, has assiduously documented the Palestinian plight for decades and he joins host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report. Finkelstein and Hedges assess the current state of the genocide in Palestine as well as how the media and the universities have all but abandonded their principles in servitude to the Zionist agenda.
Congestion pricing can work anywhere, even where there isn’t much transit. While New York City garners headlines for its congestion pricing triumph, Louisville, Kentucky demonstrates that pricing works brilliantly in smaller metros too. After implementing a modest $2.61 toll on I-65 bridges crossing the Ohio River, traffic volumes plummeted by half, with total river crossings down 15%.
By the sound of it, the University of Michigan’s seeming about-face on DEI has the potential to be a drastic change for the better—but right now it’s only a distant potential. The university has been obsessed with DEI for a long time, and any serious shift in its approach will require a profound cultural and ideological change.
What we now call wokeness and DEI erupted on the public scene sometime around 2014, perhaps linked to the race riots emanating from Ferguson, Missouri. But for those of us connected to America’s institutions of higher learning, this progressivist view of social life has been around for quite a bit longer, percolating in academia among radical thinkers at least since the 1970s.
I was introduced to the now-familiar conceptual architecture of DEI in the middle of my time as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was at U-M when woke was taking root.
In the fall of 2006, I participated in the university’s Program on Intergroup Relations. I learned about social identities, privilege, intersectionality, marginalized groups, systemic oppression, etc. It was all so faddish and intellectually shallow. Even as an undergraduate, I didn’t find these all-encompassing doctrines compelling. But it was evident many of my peers did.
ABC News reports that both the Government and Opposition have sounded out independent MP Andrew Wilkie and Centre Alliance MP Rebekha Sharkie as potential speakers in the next parliament.
If it is a minority government, losing a government MP to the speaker position could hurt – giving a crossbencher the role helps the government numbers.
But it would also be consistent with longstanding practice in the UK, and more recently in South Australia.
Every Australian parliament – federal, state and territory – has had a speaker from a party other than the one in government at some point.
The speaker is responsible for keeping order in the lower house and defending the house’s rights and privileges. They also share responsibility for the security, upkeep and functioning of the parliament.
The first speaker of the House of Representatives, Sir Frederick Holder, resigned his party membership upon election to the role in 1901, following the British tradition of an independent speakership.
After he died in office, that tradition was abandoned until 2011 when the Gillard government elected Coalition MP Peter Slipper to the speaker’s chair.
Intending to revive the independent tradition, he resigned his party membership – but was replaced as speaker by Labor’s Anna Burke a year later.
On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Greg and Elinor discuss the second leaders’ debate, the major parties’ housing policy announcements, and the two big elephants in the room: negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount.
This discussion was recorded on Thursday 17 April 2025 and things may have changed since recording.
Follow all the action from the federal election on our new politics live blog, Australia Institute Live with Amy Remeikis.
Order ‘After America: Australia and the new world order’ or become a foundation subscriber to Vantage Point at australiainstitute.org.au/store.
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
In October 1980, before almost half the people voting in this election were born, Ronald Reagan posed what became one of the defining questions of modern politics.
Are you better off today than you were four years ago?
Reagan would go on to beat Carter and along with Margaret Thatcher, usher in the neo-liberal era to western democracies.
It’s been a standard in campaigns ever since.
Peter Dutton has revived it for the 2025 Australian campaign, asking voters to think about if they are better off now, than they were three years ago. He has been deploying it with increasing frequency (with four references in the most recent leaders debate alone) confident that the retrospection will fall his way, because the rear vision mirror is always a safer bet for a politician than the windscreen.
But it’s the wrong question. It always has been. In this current context, the question is asking you what? Are you better off now than you were before a global pandemic rocked your entire foundation? Are you better off than before you survived the global inflation crisis that followed that pandemic? Are you better off than before you watched Israel carry out a genocide against the Palestinian people while your leaders pretend it’s not only not happening, but they have no role to play in it?
Are you better off than before Donald Trump was elected? Were you better off before you saw the worsening impacts of climate change continue to devastate communities and the planet?
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.
Vanessa is the Equality Trust’s Senior Project Officer. She champions the meaningful implementation of the Socio-Economic Duty (SED) to help build a fairer society. She represents the Equality Trust on the SED Expert Advisory Group to the Cabinet Office, the #1forEquality alliance and Make Equality Real campaign coalition. Key to her work is centring the […]
The Constitution does not tolerate willful disobedience of judicial orders — especially by officials of a coordinate branch who have sworn an oath to uphold it. To permit such officials to freely “annul the judgments of the courts of the United States” would not just “destroy the rights acquired under those judgments”; it would make “a solemn mockery” of “the constitution itself.” United States v. Peters, 9 U.S. (5 Cranch) 115, 136 (1809) (Marshall, C.J.). — from Judge Boasberg’s opinion.
Today, Judge Boasberg issued a slightly complicated opinion and order regarding the Trump executive’s apparent contempt of court in obeying his orders regarding Venezuelans the executive surreptitiously captured and sent to prison in El Salvador. The complexity is actually brilliant.
Boasberg found that there is “probable cause” for finding Trump officials in criminal contempt. Boasberg also set out a procedure for eventually reaching a criminal contempt judgment. That procedure ensures due process for any Trump official fined or jailed while keeping the public spotlight on the Trump executive’s likely refusal to obey the court yet again.
Every nation has a story. Recently, the Washington Post described the Smithsonian Institution, with its 21 museums and 14 educational and research centers, as “the official keeper of the American Story.” What kind of story have they been telling about our country?
On March 27, President Trump issued an executive order arguing that there has been a “concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history” and promote a “distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth.” This “revisionist movement” casts American “founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light.” A White House fact sheet calls for “revitalizing key cultural institutions and reversing the spread of divisive ideology.” Vice President JD Vance, a member of the Smithsonian Board of Regents, is tasked with leading the administration’s efforts.
On this episode of Follow the Money, the Australia Institute’s Amy Remeikis and Bill Browne join guest host Stephen Long to discuss housing policy, the Australian electoral system, and the need for truth in political advertising laws.
This discussion was recorded on Tuesday 15 April 2025 and things may have changed.
Follow all the action from the federal election on our new politics live blog, Australia Institute Live with Amy Remeikis.
Order ‘After America: Australia and the new world order’ or become a foundation subscriber to Vantage Point at australiainstitute.org.au/store.
Guest: Amy Remeikis, Chief Political Analyst, the Australia Institute // @amyremeikis
Guest: Bill Browne, Director, Democracy & Accountability, the Australia Institute // @browne90
Host: Stephen Long, Senior Fellow & Contributing Editor, the Australia Institute // @stephenlongaus
President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency is perhaps the most welcome wake-up call for the federal government—and its obscene spending habits—in decades. It is refreshing to see many overpaid, underworked, often-vacationing federal employees fretting about whether their cushy jobs will disappear, and to see at least one branch of the federal government working to rein in our massive deficit spending. All of this is long overdue.
Yet it remains to be seen whether DOGE will help jump-start a serious and sustained effort to restore fiscal sanity, or whether its high-profile efforts will wrongly convince Americans that enough has been done, and that we can stop worrying that the federal government is bankrupting the country. If the former happens, it will be an extraordinary and much-needed development; if the latter, it will provide further evidence that, as Lincoln warned us nearly two centuries ago, if our republic is to be destroyed, it will be destroyed from within.
There are already signs that DOGE might not be able to deliver as much as originally promised.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE MEDIA REPORT 16.4.25 US must act on killings The Age | Letters | 16 April 2025 https://edition.theage.com.au/shortcode/THE965/edition/78aeee5a-b151-c9b3-75b7-3e3dd9564559?page=da8fdc97-df47-1e8f-ccfb-9b21b04711dc Since when did children’s playgrounds, schools and places of worship become legitimate military targets for Russian and Israeli drones to kill and maim unsuspecting Ukrainians and Palestinians, many of them women and children? Dismissing such war crimes […]
Feel free to modify this template for your organisation’s use by picking out the sections that are most relevant.
Please note that the Organising Models Mapping Project researched approaches to organising in Australia and Aotearoa/NZ. The situation may be different in your country or community. If you have other frameworks, tools or articles to share on The Commons, we welcome your input.
Thanks to Beth Koch (formerly Australian Conservation Foundation), Anita Tang (Australian Progress) and Dr Robin Gulliver for their work on this project.
In Australia’s Westminster system, governments depend on MPs for support – and MPs can be replaced part-way through the term or change their minds about who to support.
Since Federation, the governing party changed eight times due to non-electoral events, most recently in 1975 with the Dismissal of the Whitlam Government.
While in 1975 it was the Governor-General who forced a change, the other seven were caused by MPs changing their minds about who to support or governments failing to get their agenda passed through the parliament.
A government can also lose its parliamentary majority outside of a general election but hold on to power.
In 2018, when Malcolm Turnbull quit Parliament and independent Kerryn Phelps won his seat, the Morrison Government fell into minority. The government survived, although legislation to allow for medical evacuation of sick refugees and asylum seekers became law despite the government’s opposition.
At the state level, since 1992 there have been three times when crossbenchers have forced a change in premiers or ministers, without bringing down the rest of the government – most recently in Tasmania last year.
Crossbenchers can demand the old convention of ministerial responsibility is upheld without threatening the survival of the government as a whole.
The housing crisis continues to grip Australia and it’s a central part of this election campaign. Unfortunately, while both major parties have made housing policies key parts of their election platforms their policies mostly tinker around the edges and fail in four key ways.
