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Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator – Open research and policy positions in political economy and regulatory policy”

New research by The Australia Institute reveals that while so many Australian families are struggling after 13 interest rate rises, much of what they pay doesn’t go towards paying bank staff, improving services or keeping branches open.

It goes towards making Australian banks among the most profitable in the world.

Key findings:

• Between them, the Commonwealth Bank, NAB, Westpac and ANZ made pre-tax profits of $44.6 billion last financial year.
• $17.6 billion of that figure came from loans to owner-occupiers.
• An owner-occupier with an average 30-year loan of $574,200 with one of the big 4 contributes $200,800 purely to the bank’s profit. Over the life of the average loan, that’s almost 35% of the amount they borrowed.
• ABS data shows that banks are sharply cutting staff numbers in Australia. The number of people working in banking, insurance and other financial institutions fell by more than 35,000 between November 2023 and August 2024. At the same time, banks have been hiring hundreds of workers in other parts of the world, predominantly India.

“This report highlights that a lack of competition among the big banks has come at the cost of home owners,” said Greg Jericho, Chief Economist at The Australia Institute.

“The big 4 are generating massive profits from home loans that far exceed the level of risk the banks undertake.

To mark PPE@10 this feature continues a series of posts to celebrate ten years of Progress in Political Economy (PPE) as a blog that has addressed the worldliness of critical political economy issues since 2014. 

Immanuel Wallerstein placed anarchism as one of the four central ideologies of the world-system. However, anarchist movements/spaces have remained understudied by world-systems analysis. This oversight is particularly striking given the significant role anarchist and anarchistic movements have played in shaping global politics and social movements throughout history. In my Master’s dissertation, I addressed this gap by developing a multi-pronged framework to assess anarchist experiments across five key socio-economic dimensions: economy and food production, geopolitics, feminism, education, and healthcare.

In this blog post, I share the framework as developed for each dimension and discuss how anarchist principles can be applied to create alternative social structures to capitalist and oppressive ones. By focusing on these five dimensions, we can better understand the various creative approaches anarchist movements have taken to address social challenges and their potential for transformative change.

Anarchist Theory Across Five Socioeconomic Dimensions

On Wednesday 30th October, Rachel Reeves will deliver the first Labour budget in 14 years. Naturally, every media organisation and charity will be interested in analysing it – but we’ve repeatedly seen that our system can’t talk about economics without perpetuating misconceptions or outright falsehoods. An independent review of the BBC in 2023 found that […]

The post How to Talk About the Budget appeared first on Equality Trust.

Contributors: Gerald Epstein, Iain Frame, Rory Van Loo, Andrew Cumbers, Franziska Paul, Michael Swack, Ellen Brown, Nancy Ryan, Rohan Grey, Wesley Marshall, Nadav Orian Peer, Dan Rohde, Jean-Philippe Bombay, Christine Desan, and more to come
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Public Banking”

On this episode of After America, Dr Emma Shortis and Alice Grundy discuss Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally, Eminem’s appearance at a Harris event in Detroit, and what this election result could mean for Australia.

This discussion was recorded on Monday 28 October 2024 and things may have changed since recording.

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

Host: Alice Grundy, Research Manager, Anne Kantor Fellows, the Australia Institute // @alicekgt

Show notes:

‘In the US election, 7 states and a few ‘swing voters’ have all the power. This is exposing hidden tensions in both campaigns’ by Emma Shortis, The Conversation (October 2024)

The Odd Couple: the Australia-America relationship by Allan Behm (2024)

Theme music: Blue Dot Sessions

Subscribe for regular updates from the Australia Institute.

Introduction

The Narrative Directory is a co-created international resource to support those using storytelling and narrative strategies to drive progressive change. It is a tool for building narrative power.

About

The Narrative Directory is a tool for activists, civic innovators, independent storytellers, journalists, researchers and funders to locate one another, exchange knowledge and see the bigger picture of the global impact storytelling and narrative change ecosystem. By sharing resources openly with each other, we’re better able to make connections, seed collaborations and build shared narrative power.

The Directory is hosted and curated by IRIS (International Resource for Impact and Storytelling)—a funder collaborative devoted to ensuring the field of narrative change becomes influential, widely accepted and generously supported.

How to Use the Directory

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UK trans rights organization TransActual has published an open letter, with an impressive number of signatures from experts in the field of gender-affirming care, demanding that the UK government stop implementing the draconian suggestions of the Cass Report.

Introduction

Erica Chenoweth, a US political scientist known for groundbreaking research work on nonviolent civil resistance movements, shares five paths social movements can take in a disinformation era. 

From the Arab Spring to the Black Lives Matter movement, civil resistance occurs around the world. But how can nonviolent social movements succeed against the rise of fictional narratives in the media? Erica Chenoweth, Berthold Beitz Professor in Human Rights and International Affairs, discusses these topics and more during this 2020 Wiener Conference Call.

Listen to Podcast

Social Movements in the Age of Fake News with Erica Chenoweth

Read the full transcript

Welcome to Made Not Found, the newsletter that I (danah boyd) write to share random thoughts, ideas, and updates. Much of the content here is also posted on Apophenia, my blog.

If you'd like to join me here, please subscribe and you'll get emails when new content is published!

In an election campaign dominated by law and order and an ‘it’s time’ factor, the Queensland Labor Party released an ambitious raft of popular, progressive policies that has kept the new Liberal National government to a narrow majority. The big swing to the LNP predicted before the election campaign did not arrive, especially in Brisbane.

The implications for the Federal election are clear: voters want progressive policies on cost of living, climate change, reproductive rights, education and more.

New polling research by The Australia Institute, released just days before the election, revealed broad support for 12 progressive policies, even in policy areas which had previously proven controversial.

These policies appear to have been the difference between last night’s narrow defeat of Queensland Labor and electoral wipeout expected by so many commentators at the beginning of the campaign.

The Wrap with Dr Emma Shortis

What Australia does matters.

We tend to think of ourselves as not having much influence or power in the world, but that’s not true. We’ve led the world on many things – including in our contribution to climate change.

While leaders of Commonwealth countries met in Samoa for CHOGM, a new report shines a spotlight on Australia as a global leader in carbon emissions. We’re second only to Russia in emissions from fossil fuel exports – and the Australian government is busy promising the largest pipeline of coal export projects in the world.

Pacific nations are furious at our determination not just to approve new gas and coal mines, but to subsidise their expansion.

In Samoa this week, President of Tuvalu Feleti Teo described fossil fuel expansion as a “death sentence” for his country. He pointed out that the expansion of Australian fossil fuel exports goes against the “spirit” of the Falepili Union between Tuvalu and Australia, which recognises that climate change is an “existential threat”.

But rather than stop opening new coal mines to address that real threat, the Australian government seems determined to pour vast amounts of money into missiles and nuclear-powered submarines. As the President of Timor-Leste José Ramos-Horta wrote, neither of those things will actually make us safer.

When you choose your superannuation fund, you’re probably not thinking about weapons of mass destruction.

But it might surprise you to learn that if you’re with one of Australia’s largest funds, your money is going into the production of nuclear weapons.

Research published last month by Quit Nukes and The Australia Institute found that 13 of Australia’s 14 biggest public super funds invested a combined total of $3.4 billion in companies involved in the production of nuclear weapons, as of December 2023.

Australian Super—Australia’s largest fund—was the biggest investor, with nearly $1.5 billion of its members’ money funnelled into nuclear weapons companies.  Hostplus was the only fund out of the top 14 that had excluded nuclear weapons from its portfolio.

If that wasn’t enough, two of the funds—Australian Super and Spirit Super—invest in nuclear weapons companies with their ethical investment options. You read that right: “ethical” investments in nuclear weapons.

Most people would be shocked to hear their money is being used to fund nukes.

How do super funds get away with it? It comes down to the way they define nuclear weapons.

All super funds apply various “screens” to exclude certain types of investments from their portfolios, for example companies involved in fossil fuels or tobacco.

This article was originally published, in slightly different form, on Strong Towns member Will Gardner’s Substack, StrongHaven. It is shared here with permission. In-line images were provided by the writer.

The first title What’s the Big Idea: 32 Big Ideas for a Better Australia will be published in November 2024 in time to mark The Australia Institute’s 30 years of big ideas anniversary.

The anthology brings together some of Australia and the world’s brightest thinkers sharing a big idea on topics ranging from the housing crisis to climate change, from mental health to the Australia-US alliance.

Contributors include The Hon. Michael Kirby AC, Yanis Varoufakis, His Excellency Anote Tong, Aunty Pat Anderson, Jennifer Robinson, Professor Fiona Stanley and Nobel prize winners Professor Peter Doherty and Professor Brian Schmidt and more.

Australia Institute Press will also launching a new series of public policy essays, Vantage Point: Big ideas in small packages to be released every three months starting with Dr Emma Shortis’ analysis of the American election, to be published in February 2025.

Australia Institute Press will be managed by Alice Grundy, whose previous trade publishing experience includes working at Allen & Unwin, Murdoch, Giramondo and Brio Books where she was Associate Publisher.

The Australia Institute’s inaugural 2024 Transparency Summit brought together experts, whistleblowers and those working to ensure the interests of all Australians are represented in our policy-making process.

We are sleepwalking towards disaster when we accept the idea that the more secret we are about decision-making, the safer we’ll be.

– Richard Denniss, Executive Director of the Australia Institute

Here are six big ideas to reverse Australia’s culture of secrecy: 

Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, recently alleged disgraced right-wing mouthpieces Jordan Peterson and Tucker Carlson to be controlled and funded by the Kremlin. Was he totally off base, or is there more to the story… ?

The first title What’s the Big Idea: 32 Big Ideas for a Better Australia will be published in November 2024 in time to mark The Australia Institute’s 30 years of big ideas anniversary.

The anthology brings together some of Australia and the world’s brightest thinkers sharing a big idea on topics ranging from the housing crisis to climate change, from mental health to the Australia-US alliance.

Contributors include The Hon. Michael Kirby AC, Yanis Varoufakis, His Excellency Anote Tong, Aunty Pat Anderson, Jennifer Robinson, Professor Fiona Stanley and Nobel prize winners Professor Peter Doherty and Professor Brian Schmidt and more.

Australia Institute Press will also launching a new series of public policy essays, Vantage Point: Big ideas in small packages to be released every three months starting with Dr Emma Shortis’ analysis of the American election, to be published in February 2025.

Australia Institute Press will be managed by Alice Grundy, whose previous trade publishing experience includes working at Allen & Unwin, Murdoch, Giramondo and Brio Books where she was Associate Publisher.

This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

Decades of Islamophobia, relentless propaganda campaigns and heavily financed lobbying efforts have made it difficult to understand the political realities of the Middle East. John Mearsheimer, prominent political scientist, University of Chicago professor and self-proclaimed realist, has consistently demonstrated the courage and ability to bypass the noise, delivering honest and well-informed analysis on global affairs. He joins host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report to lay out what’s happening in the Middle East, from Israel’s genocide in Gaza to its escalating attacks on Lebanon and Iran.

Mira Lazine interviews trans activist from Trans Kids Deserve Better after the cricketing of an LGB Alliance conference.

The Australia Institute and Quit Nukes looked at the holdings of Australia’s 14 biggest public superfunds, and found that 13 of those invest their members’ money in nuclear weapons.

This might seem strange, especially if your superfund says things like, “we believe in building a sustainable future,” or “we do what’s right with your money”.

Some funds do exclude so-called “controversial weapons”, at least from their “ethical options”. But their definition of “controversial weapon” includes for instance chemical or biological weapons, but not nuclear weapons.

In 2021, Quit Nukes and the Australia Institute analysed the investment portfolios of Australia’s largest superfunds and found that most of them invested their members’ money in companies involved in nuclear weapon production and development, such as Airbus, Honeywell or Thales.

So, how are superfunds tracking?

Well…as of December 2023, all of those funds, at the exception of HostPlus, continued to invest in nuclear weapons companies. This adds up to $3.4 billion dollars’ worth of your money invested in nuclear weapons companies.

At the top of the list, Australian Super, who claims to be “Australia’s most trusted fund” and to be “working hard for your future”, invests almost $1.5 billion of Australians’ money in nuclear weapon companies.

On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Greg and Elinor discuss the Coalition’s new housing policy, the surveillance of workers and the latest unemployment data.

Greg Jericho is Chief Economist at the Australia Institute and the Centre for Future Work and popular columnist of Grogonomics with Guardian Australia. Each week on Dollars & Sense, Greg dives into the latest economic figures to explain what they can tell us about what’s happening in the economy, how it will impact you and where things are headed.

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

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

Show notes:

‘Australia’s unemployment figures are a reason for joy – even if it means waiting for the next interest rate cut’ by Greg Jericho, Guardian Australia (October 2024)

An ancient and endangered skate (related to rays and sharks), which can only be found in a remote corner of western Tasmania, could be wiped out by salmon farming, prompting an extraordinary warning from some of the nation’s foremost marine scientists.

14 Professors and five Fellows from the Australian Academy of Science are among more than 30 experts who have written to Environment and Water Minister Tanya Plibersek to defend the science behind the plight of the Maugean skate, which is teetering on the brink of extinction.

The salmon industry and some politicians have been seeking to undermine scientific evidence which overwhelming finds that open cage salmon farming in Macquarie Harbour is the primary cause of the skate’s demise.

The skate is recognised as one of the Gondwana-era natural values of Tasmania’s Wilderness World Heritage Area. Its potential extinction carries global significance.

Signatories to the letter also include the immediate former Chair of Australia’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee plus a string of scientists who have had leadership roles in national and international marine organisations and institutions.

This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

It is rare to hear a United States presidential candidate clearly and eloquently spell out the realities of the country — whether it’s the genocide in Gaza, rising economic inequality or the horrors of mass incarceration. Dr. Cornel West, renowned political activist, philosopher, public intellectual, author and now independent presidential candidate, joins host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report to give an update on his campaign and to highlight the critical issues that define his fight for justice and equality.

The editors of the Journal of Australian Political Economy like to encourage and enable students to progress to publishing articles based on their work. Particularly for any student who has been writing a dissertation or thesis, getting an article published in a reputable journal like JAPE is potentially helpful in job-seeking and career development. It is also a personally fulfilling process.

The JAPE Young Scholar Award also provides a more direct incentive because a prize of $1000 goes to the Award winner. A further $1000 is payable when the resulting article is published.

The descriptor ‘Young Scholar’ does not set an age limit: rather it indicates that applicants should be in the transitional stage from student essay-writing to publishing an article for a more senior audience. Applicants may be of any age, but should be in at least their third year of undergraduate study in political economy or a related social science subject. They may have already completed their degree.

Students who are completing an honours thesis and would like the experience of doing further research during part of the following year (or the year after) would be particularly welcome to apply.

The winner of the Award will receive guidance about how to convert their work into a publishable form for a journal like JAPE.

Applications need to be submitted to the JAPE editorial coordinator, Frank Stilwell [frank.stilwell@sydney.edu.au], by 30 November 2024.