The Australia Institute Feed Items

The Albanese government wants to pass major changes to national electoral laws with the help of the opposition.

On the cards are tens of millions in taxpayer funding for the major parties, donation caps, and limits on campaign spending – though the rules are much stricter for independent challengers than for major party MPs. They are the biggest changes to Australian democracy in decades – and Australians saw the legislation only last Monday.

The Albanese government is also rushing a social media age ban. It did graciously allow a parliamentary inquiry for this one. Don’t bother writing something – it gave only 24 hours for submissions, and “would appreciate” nothing more than two pages long.

But South Australia takes the cake for pushing new laws through before anyone has time to react.

Two weeks ago, Premier Peter Malinauskas announced Labor, Liberal, Greens and One Nation parliamentarians all supported his legislation to massively increase the amount of public money going to political parties and MPs while simultaneously banning most political donations. The bill will deliver political parties millions of dollars in extra funding while putting limits on newcomers’ fundraising.

Only once the bill was introduced to the Legislative Council did cracks appear; it was described as “rushed”, “a bit of a leap of faith”, an “election vanity project” and compared to the movie Sophie’s choice.

Today the Business Council of Australia released its “Regulation Rumble 2024 report” which ranked Victoria as the worst state to do business. And yet when we examine the actual business investment figures from the Bureau of Statistics, it is clear private business investment in Victoria is actually growing more strongly in that state than almost anywhere else in Australia.

The discrepancy between what the BCA argues and what the data says is due to the reasons behind the BCA’s report. Notionally the report is designed to rank the states in order of places to do business. In reality, it is designed to pressure state governments to reduce taxes and regulations in order to increase the profits of companies.

This is made clear by the criteria – the BCA noted that it “examined planning systems, payroll taxes, property taxes and charges, retail trading hours, workers compensation premiums and licences to do business”. That is, anything that costs businesses is bad regardless of the impact it might have on the community through perhaps better services funded by state revenue.  It concluded that South Australia was the best place to do business and that “this was largely driven by it having lower payroll taxes, lower property charges and less voluminous business licensing.”

The BCA has a very clever media strategy, and its report got wide coverage.

On this episode of After America, Zoe Daniel MP, Independent Member for Goldstein and former foreign correspondent, joins Dr Emma Shortis to talk about the incoming Trump administration, Australia’s relationships with the United States and China, and the role of independent politicians in Australian defence and foreign policy-making.

This discussion was recorded on Thursday 28 November and things may have changed since recording.

Order What’s the Big Idea? 32 Big Ideas for a Better Australia now, via the Australia Institute website.

Guest: The Hon Zoe Daniel MP, Independent Member for Goldstein // @zoedaniel

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

Show notes:

Greetings from Trumpland: How an unprecedented presidency changed everything by Zoe Daniel and Roscoe Whalan (March 2021)

Theme music: Blue Dot Sessions

Tasmanian parliamentary pay frozen

Tasmanian MPs’ rate of pay has been frozen since 2018. Before then the base salary of Tasmanian members of parliament increased annually. It was last increased in July 2018 to $140,185 per year.

Figure 1: Members of parliament base rate of pay 1996-97 to 2023-24

The Vulnerability to Extreme Heat report identifies locations across Australia which have a high likelihood of experiencing extreme heat and a high concentration of people who are vulnerable because of illness, age and/or income level.

It finds that wealthy, coastal areas of major cities are generally less vulnerable to extreme heat than inland suburbs, and that rural areas are generally more vulnerable than urban areas.

Extreme heat is the number one cause of weather-related illness and death in all parts of Australia, except Tasmania, and Australians on low incomes who are older and/or have a long-term health issue are more vulnerable to the effects of extreme heat.

Doctors for the Environment Australia say the research is a vital tool which will help governments to save lives.

At the moment numerous media outlets are attempting to make the case that the Victorian government’s finances are in a parlous state.  The Financial Review for example has editorialised “Allan and Pallas in denial about Victoria’s state of decline”, while The Age stated as though it was an uncontested fact that “The state’s finances are heading towards a cliff.”

The media like to point to Victoria’s debt and deficit but they do so by including government fixed capital investment in the deficit. This might seem to the layperson as perfectly reasonable, but it is not how accounting works in the private sector and it presents a distorted picture of the state of the budget.

Including capital investment in a similar manner would, for example, see BHP’s 2024 profit drop from its declared US$20.7 billion to a marginal US$0.2 billion. Many other profitable companies would be in deficit were their budgets measured in the same way that now has the media suggesting the Victorian state finances are in deep trouble.

In 2022-23 (the latest year of ABS data), Victoria’s general government sector actually made a profit (net cash flow from operating activities) of $4.0 billion. Victoria’s budget papers also show a $1.4 billion surplus from operating activities in 2023-24.

On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Greg and Elinor discuss Trump’s wild new tariff announcement and the end of the standoff between Labor and the Greens over housing.

This discussion was recorded on Wednesday 27 November 2024 and things may have changed since recording.

Pre-order What’s the Big Idea? 32 Big Ideas for a Better Australia now, via the Australia Institute website.

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

Show notes:

‘Welcome to Trump’s trade war – where no one wins because everyone just pays more for things’ by Greg Jericho, Guardian Australia (November 2024)

Theme music: Blue Dot Sessions

For years politicians have been rolling out policies they claim will make housing more affordable. And for years housing affordability has continued to get worse. Housing needs to become cheaper and instead it is becoming more expensive.

You might expect that our politicians would be concerned by the fact that all their policies fail. Instead, the government rammed two new housing affordability bills through the parliament yesterday which are more of the same.

The best you can say about the government’s two new policies is that they will have no impact on the housing market.

The list of policies that both sides of politics have claimed will fix the problem is long. First home buyer grants, government support for social and affordable housing, first home buyers accessing super to buy a home, plus many, many more.

All the while anger is growing as house prices keep rising.

There are two things you can do to make something cheaper. You can increase supply or decrease demand. Or both. If there is a bumper crop of apples (more supply), then the price of apples goes down. When fewer people wanted to buy DVDs (less demand) the price of DVDs went down.

The first problem is many of these policies don’t increase supply or decrease demand. In fact, some of them do the opposite.

The various first-home-buyer grants gave first-home buyers more money to buy a house (increase demand). They all show up the auction and bid up the price of homes making them more expensive.

Thousands of voters have signed a petition, launched by The Australia Institute, demanding a public inquiry into the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Reform) Bill.

The changes would significantly benefit Labor and the Coalition, giving them a huge financial advantage over independents and minor party candidates seeking a seat in the Australian Parliament.

The Australia Institute petition, launched just over a week ago, states:

Trust in our democracy is embedded in strong electoral laws and processes.

The Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Reform) Bill risks undermining this trust by being unfair, rushed, and shrouded in secrecy.

We call on you to immediately establish a parliamentary inquiry, with public hearings, to assess the proposed changes to Australia’s electoral laws.

This must happen before major changes to Australian electoral law are put to Parliament for a vote.

The petition has attracted more than 18,000 signatures.

In the past, even small changes to our electoral system have been scrutinised by a parliamentary committee. Petitioners agree that should happen before these proposed changes are passed.

“The integrity of Australian elections is too important for the Albanese government’s proposed changes to be rushed through without scrutiny, including a thorough parliamentary inquiry,” said Bill Browne, Director of the Australia Institute’s Democracy & Accountability Program.

Endangered Maugean skate and its only home, Macquarie Harbour, are matters of national environmental significance and protected under national environmental law. One third of the harbour is World Heritage and Maugean skate, an endangered stingray-like animal, are one of the natural values of Tasmania’s Wilderness World Heritage Area.

Scientific evidence shows salmon farming operations are the primary risk and ‘almost certain’ to be ‘catastrophic’ to the skate.

The Australia Institute commissioned polling by Dynata, which surveyed a nationally representative sample of 1,009 Australians between 13 and 15 November 2024 about their attitudes towards fish farming in Macquarie Harbour where it is putting the endangered Maugean skate at risk of extinction. The margin of error is ±3%.

In a short primer on the South Australian political finance changes, The Australia Institute explains:

Key findings:

• The proposed laws have not been the subject of a Parliamentary Inquiry. These are normal for even minor changes to electoral laws, and these changes are among the largest ever in the state.
• The South Australian government conducted a secret, internal consultation; later reporting confirmed that the majority of submissions it received were opposed to the proposed laws.
• The government’s independent review recommended administrative funding be decreased, from $1.4 million a year for each major party to $1.2 million. Instead, it was increased to $1.6 million.
• This alone gives Labor and Liberal an additional $3.2 million every four years.
• The proposed laws increase major party administrative funding in South Australia by 66 times compared to 10 years ago.
• The proposed laws introduce “nominated entities” to grandfather in assets of major parties.
• There is no principled reason for the special allowance for parties with exactly two MPs; it exists only to paper over the fundamental problems with a per-MP funding model.

“Behind Premier Malinauskas’ proposed ban on most political donations is around $18 million in new taxpayer funding for political parties and candidates; the vast majority goes to the two major parties,” said Bill Browne, Director of the Australia Institute’s Democracy & Accountability Program.

The drop in Australia’s inflation has been quite sharp. The latest monthly Consumer Price Index (CPI) figures from the Bureau of Statistics show that prices over the year to October rose just 2.1%. That is such a relatively small increase that so far form being worried about the 3% ceiling of the Reserve Banks inflation target, we’re now near the 2% bottom. Five months ago the CPI was at 4% and economists were speculating that the RBA might increase rates again.

The big reasons for the decline in price growth are that inflation across the world has slowed – and Australia is very much part of the world economy – and because the government sought to reduce prices by introducing an electricity rebate.

The drop in electricity prices has been dramatic.

In October the amount of electricity that in June last year would now have cost $100 now just cost $69.83. And while that is significant enough, had there not been the Commonwealth government rebate and the other state rebates in WA, Tasmania and Queensland, the average cost of that $100 worth of electricity would be $116.

In essence, the actions of state and federal governments have knocked 40% off the average cost of electricity bills across the county.

That is no small thing.

It serves to remind everyone that governments do actually have a vital role to play in combatting inflation.

On this episode of Follow the Money, the Hon Helen Haines MP, Independent Member for Indi, joins Ebony Bennett to discuss the Government’s Electoral Reform Bill, its potential impact on new and independent candidates, and the future of Australian democracy.

This discussion was recorded on Tuesday 26 November 2024 and things may have changed since recording.

Sign the Australia Institute petition, calling on the Government to establish a parliamentary inquiry, with public hearings, to assess the proposed changes to Australia’s electoral laws.

Pre-order What’s the Big Idea? 32 Big Ideas for a Better Australia now, via the Australia Institute website. Pre-order by 1 December and save $5 on the RRP.

Guest: The Hon Helen Haines MP, Independent Member for Indi // @helenhainesindi

Host: Ebony Bennett, Deputy Director, the Australia Institute // @ebonybennett

Theme music: Pulse and Thrum; additional music by Blue Dot Sessions

More than two thirds (69%) of those who grow their own food say they do it to access healthy food, while 60% do it to save money.

Growing your own helps cut down waste during the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, with almost two thirds of growers composting or worm farming, preventing mountains of food waste from ending up in landfill.

On Tuesday November 26, Australia’s favourite gardener, Costa Georgiades, will join independent MP Sophie Scamps, along with representatives from The Australia Institute and Grow it Local to launch Grow Your Own 2024 – Growing food to feel better, eat better and help the planet.

Please join us for a symbolic seed-planting and media conference in the Senate Courtyard at 9:45am.

The groundbreaking new research found:

Dr Ruth Mitchell, neurosurgeon and founding member of the Australian Nobel Prize-winning group, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, joins Dr Emma Shortis to discuss the global consequences of Trump’s cabinet picks and what his election means for efforts to eradicate nuclear weapons.

This discussion was recorded on Thursday 21 November and things may have changed since recording.

Pre-order What’s the Big Idea? 32 Big Ideas for a Better Australia now, via the Australia Institute website.

Guest: Ruth Mitchell, Board Chair, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War // @drruthmitchell

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

Show notes:

Risky Business: An update on super funds and nuclear weapons by Rosemary Kelly and Margaret Beavis (September 2024)

In fact, more than two thirds (71%) of those polled say that right should be protected by federal legislation.

In a report released in July, the Human Rights Law Centre found there had been 49 laws passed over the last two decades eroding Australians’ right to protest – many aimed at those protesting inaction on climate change.

The Australia Institute polling reveals voters from all parties agree that peaceful protest has a right to play in our democracy, including 79% of Labor voters, 75% of Coalition voters and 73% of One Nation voters.

Key findings

• Seven in 10 Australians (71%) support federal legislation to protect the right to peaceful protest
• Four in five of those aged 18–29 (80%) support legislation protecting the right to protest
• Four in five Australians (79%) agree peaceful protest has a role to play in Australia’s democracy

“Peaceful protest has an essential role to play in democracy and it played a major role in helping women win the right to vote, ending Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War and protecting significant parts of Australia’s history and culture such as The Rocks,” said Richard Denniss, Executive Director of The Australia Institute.

“It is clear that a majority of Australians support the right to peaceful protest, even if they don’t always agree with each individual protest.

The report was written by the Immigration Advice and Rights Centre (IARC), a community legal centre that provides free and confidential legal advice and assistance to people throughout New South Wales on all immigration, refugee, and citizenship matters.

It finds that restrictive visa settings are at the root of the many cases of exploitation. This includes the fact that PALM workers are not allowed to leave their employer without approval from the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR). These employers are allowed to make deductions from the wages of PALM workers, which means they are sometimes left with just $100-$200 per week.

Over two years, IARC participated in a series of forums for migrant workers engaged in supplying Australia’s two major supermarkets with fruit and vegetables. IARC also regularly advises PALM workers referred to the service as a result of experiencing workplace exploitation.

The Wrap with Amy Remeikis

In one of his most recent columns for the Philadelphia Inquirer, columnist and author Will Bunch highlighted a quote a top aide to former US President George W. Bush gave to journalist Ron Suskind in 2004.

The context was the Iraqi invasion and the war on terror.  Suskind reported the aide, widely believed to be Karl Rove (which Rove denies) told him:

“…that guys like me were ‘in what we call the reality-based community’,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality … That’s not the way the world really works anymore”.

“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

Bunch dug up the quote to remind readers that trying to discern rationality and structure around the irrational and erratic was a pointless exercise that only served bad faith actors who were actively shaping new realities that only served them.

The wider point? Don’t get distracted by the individuals.  Target the systems they operate in.

We are delighted to sponsor this year’s Australia Institute Climate Cartoon Award, organised by the Australian Cartoonists Association.

The winner will be announced on Saturday, 30th November at the 40th Annual Stanleys Awards at Old Parliament House.

This year’s shortlisted cartoons are as follows:

Megan Herbert

On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Greg and Elinor discuss the government’s new cash mandate plan and the latest state and territory economic data.

This discussion was recorded on Thursday 21 November 2024 and things may have changed since recording.

Pre-order What’s the Big Idea? 32 Big Ideas for a Better Australia now, via the Australia Institute website.

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

Show notes:

‘Australia took its interest rate medicine – and it has poisoned our living standards’ by Greg Jericho, Guardian Australia (November 2024)

Theme music: Blue Dot Sessions

Republicans have control of the Senate, possibly the House of Representatives too and, backed by his handpicked Supreme Court, Trump can enact his plans to further undermine American democracy with almost unchecked power.

Australians would be naive to think the same toxic currents and ambitions can’t be harnessed here.

Vice-President Kamala Harris called Trump the day after the election to congratulate him, concede defeat and assure him of a peaceful transfer of power.

It’s in stark contrast to the violent insurrection Trump instigated last election, that saw his supporters storm the Capitol building and threaten to hang vice-president Mike Pence for refusing to overturn the election results and declare Trump the victor.

That this man, who is on tape asking Georgia’s top election official to find enough votes to reverse his election defeat, has been re-elected as president is an indictment of US democracy and its political institutions.
Yes, Trump was democratically elected, decisively so, but that does not diminish the threat he poses to democracy. Trump won not only the electoral college vote by sweeping the swing states, but the popular vote too. That does not automatically make his policies democratic. Trump plans to be a dictator “on day one”, beginning mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, as well as sacking thousands of independent public servants and replacing them with political appointees who are loyal to him.

If Trump is re-elected, how does Australia engage with such a powerful ally led by such an authoritarian and unstable leader? More importantly, how can Australia prevent the same slide toward authoritarianism happening in our own democracy?

Comparing a politician to Hitler used to be seen as the quickest way to lose an argument, but this week Donald Trump’s former chief of staff, former US Marine Corps general and Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly, told multiple news outlets that Trump liked “the dictator approach” to running a country and meets the definition of a fascist. Mr Kelly told The Atlantic, in a conversation confirmed by two sources, that Trump said: “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had”.

In any functional democracy, a former White House chief-of-staff going on the record to reveal these comments would represent the end of Trump’s political career. But for Trump that was just Tuesday. Let’s be clear: racism and extremism have always been part of US politics. The late Molly Ivins, a Texan journalist and columnist, once observed that “It is possible to read the history of this country as one long struggle to extend the liberties established in our Constitution to everyone in America”. But politics in the United States is less a contest between two rational political parties who disagree on policy issues, than a pitched battle between democracy and authoritarianism.

You don’t have to be David Attenborough to know that coal mines are “nature positive” in the same way as asbestos is lung positive. The timing of the approvals was egregious, but as an example of governments’ fundamentally dishonest approach to halting and reversing biodiversity and habitat loss, it was entirely on brand.

What does nature positive even mean? Well, it actually means that governments have committed to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030. Only if governments said that plainly, it might encourage expectations to stop things that destroy nature, like new coal mines and native forest logging.

But nature positive is a nice euphemism that allows environment departments to talk about restoring nature in their PR pamphlets, while the resources departments keep up a pipeline of projects that are destroying nature in real life.

Nature is in decline. Logging, land-clearing, invasive species and climate change are devastating threatened species and the habitats they live in. In Australia alone, the Black Summer bushfires killed or displaced nearly three billion animals – mammals, reptiles, birds and frogs – almost triple the original estimate, according to scientists commissioned by the World Wide Fund for Nature.

On this episode of Follow the Money, Walkley Award-winning journalist Stephen Long joins Alice Grundy to discuss climate change, skyrocketing premiums and serious impact they’re having on inequality.

This discussion was recorded on Wednesday 13 November 2024 and things may have changed since recording.

Pre-order What’s the Big Idea? 32 Big Ideas for a Better Australia now, via the Australia Institute website.

Guest: Stephen Long, Senior Fellow and Contributing Editor, the Australia Institute // @StephenLongAus

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

Show notes:

Premium price: The impact of climate change on insurance costs, the Australia Institute (November 2024)

Theme music: Pulse and Thrum; additional music by Blue Dot Sessions

Fruit pickers and meat workers who fill chronic labour shortages in Australia are being overtaxed and exploited, new research from The Australia Institute has found.

Workers holding Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) visas can be the difference between fruit being harvested or left to rot on the vine.

But, in return for the critical work they do to keep some sectors of our agriculture industry afloat, PALM visa holders pay more tax than Australians doing the same work and find it almost impossible to access their superannuation.

Australians like to think that we live in a very equal society – where because of Medicare, unlike in the USA, wherever you live you can expect the same level of healthcare.  Unfortunately the data shows the lie to this belief.

Healthcare should be universal, but your postcode has a big impact on life expectancy. People who live in inner metropolitan electorates (the inner parts of Australia’s capital cities) live almost a year (0.8) longer than people in outer metropolitan electorates (the edges of Australia’s capital cities).

But life expectancy falls even more for people who live in electorates outside the capital cities. In electorates where the majority of people live in major regional cities life expectancy falls by more than a year (1.1) compared with outer metro electorates. In rural electorates the results are even worse. Almost half a year (0.4) lower than provincial electorates.

This means that those in inner metro electorates can expect to live on average 2.3 years longer than there fellow Australians in rural electorates.

But this is more than just about the distance from healthcare services. This is about rich and poor. In South Australia the relatively wealthy rural electorate of Mayo has an average life expectancy of 84.5 years, while the relatively poor outer metro electorate of Spence has a life expectancy 4 years lower than that at 80.5 years.

Key details:

• The Albanese Government has announced the broad strokes of its plans to introduce:
  • Donation caps (how much can be given to parties and candidates)
  • Expenditure caps (how much parties and candidates can spend)
  • Increase public funding (taxpayer money going to parties and candidates).
• Changes to electoral law often have perverse outcomes:
  • Existing public funding models used in Australia already unfairly advantage sitting MPs and established parties over challengers and new entrants.
  • Donation caps fail to prevent cash-for-access payments to ministers and shadow ministers.
  • Spending caps allow major parties to concentrate their spending on target seats, in effect allowing them to outspend independent candidates in that seat.
  • Existing donation caps in Victoria have already concentrated power among a small group of people.
• The Australia Institute has identified nine principles for fair political finance reform that should be satisfied before any changes are made.
• Australia Institute polling research finds that three in five Australians oppose public funding for political parties and candidates, and seven in 10 oppose increased public funding, but there are alternative funding models.

“The integrity of Australian elections is too important for the Albanese government’s proposed changes to be rushed through without scrutiny, including a thorough parliamentary inquiry,” said Bill Browne, Director of the Australia Institut