Media Release Number 2026-11: The Account-to-Account Payments Roundtable has today released a public consultation on the draft vision for the future of account-to-account (A2A) payments in Australia. Submissions close 22 May.
The United States, in its recent war on Iran, has completely misread the Iranian people and failed to recognize the deep revolutionary spirit that pervades Iranian culture. Rather than inciting Iranian people against their government, the US-Israeli war on Iran has united the population. Rather than promoting democracy in Iran and empowering the people, US economic punishment and aggression have accomplished the opposite and have made life more difficult for most Iranians. Like Cuba, Iran is being targeted because it will not relinquish its sovereignty. As Chris Hedges explains, Iran is being punished for “its refusal to become a client state aligned with American interests in the region.”
National housing campaign Everybody’s Home said the federal government must prioritise building social housing and ending investor tax breaks in this year’s Budget, as new analysis reveals virtually no affordable rentals exist for people on the lowest incomes.
This year’s Rental Affordability Snapshot, released by Anglicare Australia, found that nationally, 0% of private rentals were affordable for people on JobSeeker and Youth Allowance, just 0.2% for someone on the Age Pension, and only 0.5% for a full-time minimum wage worker.
Everybody’s Home spokesperson Chantal Caruso said the Federal Budget must deliver tax reform and redirect those savings into homes people can afford.
“It’s staggering that there are virtually no affordable rentals in the private market for people on the lowest incomes. Even full-time workers on the minimum wage are being completely priced out,” Ms Caruso said.
“The system is failing, but it can be fixed if the federal government steps up now with meaningful reform and investment.
“This Budget presents a critical opportunity to deliver meaningful reform by ending unfair investor tax breaks that are making the housing crisis worse, and reinvesting those savings into building more public and community housing.
If George Washington and John Quincy Adams were in the Oval Office advising President Trump on whether to go to war with Iran, what would they have said? They would likely have argued that any American war in the Middle East—whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, or Iran, or in partnership with any ally that commits American money, armaments, or troops—is pure folly.
Both in theory and practice, early American political leaders unequivocally rejected the claim that America was an empire or world hegemon like those established by Alexander the Great, Imperial Rome, the Mongols, or Napoleon. Instead, America was a new kind of regime unseen in world history: a republican empire of liberty, limited in constitutional scope and political geography but unlimited in the power of her political spirit and her example to the world.
Equal Nations
The Preamble of the Declaration of Independence includes a curious phrase often overlooked by commentators: “and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them.” What did the founders mean by a “separate and equal station,” and what does this phrase tell us about their conception of America’s political regime?
New Democratic Party members selected Avi Lewis as the new party leader, with a majority of votes on the first-round ballot. Now, the complex task of rebuilding the movement continues. With a House of Commons NDP caucus of 5 MPs as of the time of writing, Lewis and his new team will need to continue the organizing that took place during the leadership campaign, uniting over 100,000 existing and new party members that participated in voting for a new party leader.
The 2026 NDP Convention and leadership vote, held in Winnipeg, Manitoba from March 27 to 29, also saw the election of a new party executive; some have already voiced concern about the lack of equity among the new executive team. I would like to see Lewis’ leadership team and the new federal executive act swiftly and take a different approach from the previous leadership, to ensure equity is at the forefront of the party in all aspects from governance. This means strengthening Electoral District Association (EDA) organizing, as promised during Lewis’ campaign. It also means stronger equity and earlier candidate searches, as well as turning NDP equity values into effective, intersectional, and tangible policy proposals.
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.
On this episode of Follow the Money, Senator Larissa Waters, leader of the Australian Greens, joins Ebony Bennett to discuss the causes of Australia’s housing crisis, making gas exporters pay their fair share, and the Greens’ new ‘tax the 1%’ campaign.
The footage was grainy and imprecise, the black-and-white nighttime combat visuals to which Americans have become accustomed over the past generation. Still there they were: American aircraft and American soldiers in action, another strike in defense of a nation at war. Yet this combat operation was not part of the American war with Iran, then only four days old: the announcement on March 3, followed by another on March 6, concerned American forces in Ecuador.
With the cooperation of Ecuadorian authorities, the United States attacked narco-terrorists who were reportedly a splinter faction of FARC, a guerrilla force that once sought leftist revolution in Colombia. Now having devolved into a cartel with socialist characteristics, its successors find themselves on the receiving end of American violence. The two military actions received relatively little attention in U.S. media: an air-assault infantry raid in the Andean region isn’t as telegenic as B-2s flying over Isfahan. But they just might be as portentous.
In 2014, Noel Pearson delivered an eulogy for Gough Whitlam. Professor Tom Clark wrote about it for The Conversation and said “Pearson came to praise Caesar on Wednesday, certainly not to bury him” as he listed the achievements of one of Australia’s greatest reformers.
Pearson said he was speaking to “this old man’s legacy with no partisan brief” but named the Racial Discrimination Act as one of the most important acts of Whitlam’s prime ministership, saying “without this old man the land and human rights of our people would never have seen the light of day”.
“Only those who have known discrimination truly know its evil,” Pearson said on that day.
He later described the Whitlam government as the “textbook case of reform trumping management”.
Prices for groceries, rent, insurance, gas bills are up and the cost of petrol is through the roof, and wages aren’t keeping up with rising prices. While many Australians are finding it harder to make ends meet, there has been an explosion in the wealth of the super-rich. Australia taxes wealth very lightly, it’s time that changed.
“Billionaires have the lowest effective tax rate of all social groups everywhere”, according to French economist Gabriel Zucman.
“There is a legitimate debate to have about the proper degree of tax progressivity … But nobody should accept a situation where the super-rich can pay less than the middle class. It’s a basic violation of the fundamental principle of equality before the law, which stands at the heart of our social contract.”
Taxing wealth fairly is not just important for the economy, it’s important for our democracy. As the federal budget approaches, we’re about to hear a lot about what Australia ‘can’t afford’. We can’t afford for so many people to access the National Disability Insurance Scheme, for example. We ‘can’t afford’ to increase the unemployment benefit above the poverty line. But somehow we can afford $368 billion for nuclear submarines we may never receive, and we can afford to give away half of our liquid natural gas royalty-free.
For millions of people, renting is how they access a home. Everyone should be able to live in a home that is stable, affordable and safe — and to trust that the system will treat them fairly.
But while housing is as essential to our society as water, healthcare and energy, governments have largely failed to regulate renting that way. That has left too many renters exposed to insecurity, rising costs and poor conditions.
A new report from Anika Legal, Better Renting and the Consumer Policy Research Centre, Essential Homes, shows strong public support for a different approach:
83% say renting is an essential service
77% say a generation of renters may never be able to afford a home
73% want governments to reform the rental system so it works fairly for renters
The report sets out a practical vision for renting built around stability, affordability, comfort and accountability — and the reforms needed to get there. It’s time to treat renting like the essential service it is.
Lionel Shriver’s 2003 novel-turned-movie We Need to Talk About Kevin was a major prize-winner, a bestseller, and a hit, especially among liberals. Perhaps this is unsurprising, as it dealt with two of their favorite subjects: school shootings and mental health. However, her latest work of fiction, A Better Life, is guaranteed to be received less warmly on the Left, if it’s acknowledged at all.
The central figure in A Better Life is Gloria Bonaventura, an archetypal liberal white woman whom conservatives and independents know all too well. While many New Yorkers at least bristled at their city’s 2022 “migrant crisis,” in which billions were spent on hotel housing alone, Gloria splashily ramps up her do-gooder bona fides. The Brooklyn resident and mother of three adult children sets up a clothing drive for “our newest New Yorkers,” then pushes supermarkets to install donation bins for “culturally appropriate” food, a new program called “Big Apple, Big Hearts” that lets her reach new heights in conspicuous charity. Gloria also brings a highly questionable asylum-seeker into her large home to live with her and her Gen Z son, Nico. For Gloria, young Martiné of Honduras becomes the perfect vehicle, in the words of Nico’s woke sister, to “assure her that she’s making the world a better place.”
Earlier this month, TheAtlantic published a hit piece on FBI Director Kash Patel, accusing him of frequently drinking to excess and often being absent from work and unreachable by colleagues in the administration. Reporter Sarah Fitzpatrick’s article claims that Patel’s deficiencies are a threat to national security given the essential role the FBI director has in protecting the country from grave threats.
Patel responded by suingThe Atlantic and Fitzpatrick for defamation. His lawyers argued that the article’s claims are false and accused The Atlantic of behaving irresponsibly by publishing them. The lawsuit alleges that, among other things, the magazine did not give Patel sufficient time to respond to the allegations before publication, and that the article did not adequately convey the denials and counterevidence that Patel and his supporters had provided.
What are we to make of all this?
Patel certainly has something to complain about. The Atlantic presents the claims of his alleged drunkenness and absenteeism as facts, not as mere speculation. And, as his filing notes, such factual claims certainly amount to libel per se. That is, they are claims that are prima facie injurious to reputation without the need to consult their context.
On August 27th, 2025, about 50 activists gathered at City Hall in Terrace, British Columbia, a rural community of 12,000. From City Hall, they marched to Skeena—Bulkley Valley MP Ellis Ross’ constituency office where they delivered a letter demanding an arms embargo against Israel. The protestors marched from there to a nearby park, where they gathered to hear community members speak about the horrors of Israel’s genocide in Palestine, Canada’s involvement in these crimes, and how ordinary Canadians can build power and fight to win a different world.
Ferret around in the National Archives of Australia and you can turn up NAA A6119, 2749 and 3044, digitised redacted versions of Volumes 1 and 2 of data compiled by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) between 1967 and 1971 regarding Rowan John Cahill. The online presence is due to researchers long ago who sought the data under access regulations of the time. Subsequent Volumes remain in the care of ASIO.
On this episode of After America, Dr Emma Shortis reflects on yet another appalling yet unsurprising act of political violence in the United States, before Mother Jones journalist James West joins the show to discuss the midterm elections and whether real fractures are emerging in the MAGAverse.
This episode was recorded on Thursday 23 April Australian time.
The lovely folks at the Social Media + Society journal asked me to contribute to their anniversary issue by reflecting on the trajectory of social media. Ooof. Snark exuded from my pores as I tried to figure out what I might say. But then I thought about how my students don't know about an era of social media without recommended content, algorithmically curated feeds, and an infinite scroll of cotton candy content. They never encountered a world of social media where people were focused on sharing with their friends rather than becoming influencers. They don't realize how much the "social" in social media has changed.
The 2024 People’s Circle for Palestine protest encampment at the University of Toronto is best understood in terms of “contradiction” as the tensions and struggles which make political life. Over its two-month duration, it was neither a unified expression of solidarity nor reducible to a narrative of institutional repression, but a shifting field of forces in which insurgent organizing and institutional authority converged. What emerged from the People’s Circle was a political formation shaped by the interaction of these opposing forces, each delimiting what could be sustained.
In his latest newsletter, Jamison Foser writes beautifully and compellingly about Bruce Springsteen, the USA, politics, and we the people. There is much to learn from Foster’s piece, especially about culture, true patriotism, and collective action.
I’m deep in the trenches in two different collective action efforts. (More here and here.) And down in the trenches, it is easy to feel bogged down. To be reminded that my own work is connected to so many others’ work and to so many others’ hopes and dreams is empowering and encouraging. Jamison’s essay fulfills the same function he sees Springsteen performing. He reminded me of the connection between my own ordinary efforts and the great project of American democracy.
In the third book of the Discourses on Livy, Niccolo Machiavelli argues that republics “do not last if they do not renew themselves” by recourse to their origins, when they were at their most pure. “Because in the process of time that goodness is corrupted, unless something intervenes to lead it back to the mark, it of necessity kills the body.”
Historian J.G.A. Pocock elaborates on this idea, arguing for a “Machiavellian moment” (the title of his sprawling and majestic book on the subject) in which a republic must act to save itself by returning to first principles. Per Pocock, the Renaissance Florentines, the Commonwealthmen of 18th-century Britain, and the Revolutionary-era Americans all faced such a moment and were forced to act against the corruption of their regimes. These moments, however, are not always successful. The Florentines lost their republic, and the Commonwealthmen remained a minority in Britain, whose legacy was predominantly to influence the American patriots at the end of the century.
If the United States is serious about giving citizenship to worthy immigrants, we also need to be serious about revoking it from the unworthy.
More than 800,000 immigrants became American citizens in FY 2024, and a comparable number are expected in FY 2025, though the final numbers aren’t out yet. There are more than 25 million naturalized American citizens, which is about half the foreign-born population. Having delivered remarks at many swearing-in ceremonies, I welcome those—undoubtedly the majority—who followed the rules and took the Oath of Allegiance in good faith.
But many didn’t. That’s where denaturalization comes in.
The question of revoking citizenship from immigrants who lied on their applications or were otherwise ineligible is part of a broader debate about what membership in our national community means—a debate made especially urgent by the waves of mass immigration the political class has allowed into our country over the past 50-plus years.
The 2026 Ellen Meiksins Wood Lecture was held on Wednesday, April 22nd at Toronto Metropolitan University with support from the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung – New York Office. A special thanks to TMU Faculty of Arts Dean Amy Peng, and RLS-NYC Director Stefan Liebich for hosting this Broadbent Institute event.
Ellen Meiksins Wood was one of the left’s foremost theorists on democracy and history, and often promoted the idea that democracy always has to be fought for and secured from below, never benevolently conferred from above. The Broadbent Institute founded the annual Ellen Meiksins Wood Prize & Lecture to honour Professor Wood’s legacy as an internationally renowned scholar and to bring her work to new generations of Canadians.
The Ellen Meiksins Wood Prize is given annually to an academic, labour activist or writer and recognizes outstanding contributions in political theory, social or economic history, human rights, or sociology. Each year’s recipient also delivers the Ellen Meiksins Wood Lecture.
Markets are consolidating right around 7100 after breaking through 7000 — exactly the pattern I was laying out last week. A half-percent dip today off renewed Middle East negotiation headlines, but the underlying setup hasn't changed.
The bigger topic in this update, though, is theoretical — and I think it's important. There's a lot of noise in the macro world right now about "liquidity," and I want to walk through why I think that framing is actually missing what matters. Liquidity crises can take a swing at asset prices, but they don't break the system. What breaks the system is something else entirely — and understanding that distinction is the difference between being right about a scary headline and being right about where the market actually ends up six months later.
I'll also cover the flows picture, the deficit impulse, the economic calendar for next week including Powell's likely final FOMC as chair, and how we could grind higher into the summer even with some inflationary data starting to filter through.
This is an excerpt from my book The Last American Road Trip, written in 2023, released in 2025 – and now out in paperback. This excerpt takes place in March 2021; most of the book isn’t as dark. But my mood is, so I’m running this short piece. Read to the end! As mentioned, I’m taking it slow after my father’s death. I will be back. Keep finding light in that sky. — SK
It is March 2021, and we are at Palo Duro Canyon, four years after our original visit and my promise to the kids that we would return. We are staying in Canyon, Texas, a town south of Amarillo. We skipped Cadillac Ranch because I had nothing left to say.
We are in Canyon to get a break from the plague. We drove in from Dallas, where we celebrated a belated Covid Christmas at my sister’s house. It was the first gathering of my family since 2019, my newly vaccinated parents falsely believing they were now immune. A fake Christmas, a fake cure, a fake government, a real end.
I thought 2020 was the demarcation point between Then and Now, but I was wrong. Americans could still see in 2020. They had 2020 vision: the ability to see through the lies of tyrants and say “no more.”
New research from OzHarvest confirms what people across the country are already feeling: when costs rise, food is often the first thing people cut.
76% of charities say rising grocery prices are pushing people to seek food relief. But just behind that is housing – with 74% pointing to housing affordability and access as a key driver, alongside low or insufficient incomes (69%).
This tells a clear story: the housing crisis isn’t just about housing – it’s pushing people into hunger.
When rent takes too much of your income, something has to give. For many, that means skipping meals, cutting back on essentials, or going without entirely.
The Trump Administration has done what no previous administration attempted in directly confronting Iran. American and Israeli forces destroyed the Iranian Air Force and Navy, killed the supreme leader and dozens of senior IRGC commanders, struck over 13,000 targets across 26 provinces, and drove Iran’s ballistic missile launch rate down by more than 90%. B-52 Stratofortresses now fly unchallenged in Iranian airspace, carrying out bombing runs with impunity over a country whose integrated air defense system ceased functioning within the campaign’s first week. This pressure culminated in a ceasefire framework brokered through Pakistani mediation, representing the first serious diplomatic movement since the war began.
On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Greg and Elinor discuss the case for a 25 per cent gas export tax, why global foreign aid spending has plummeted, and the likelihood of the government announcing reforms to housing investor tax concessions ahead of the May federal budget.
This discussion was recorded on Wednesday 22 April 2026.
Visit The Point for research, analysis, explainers and factchecks from experts at the Australia Institute and beyond.
Host: Greg Jericho, Chief Economist, the Australia Institute // @grogsgamut
Host: Elinor Johnston-Leek, Senior Content Producer, the Australia Institute // @elinorjohnstonleek
In the great journal of things happening under the sun, we, the American people, find our account running, under date of the nineteenth century of the Christian era. We find ourselves in the peaceful possession, of the fairest portion of the earth, as regards extent of territory, fertility of soil, and salubrity of climate. We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tell us.
For decades, legacy conservatives have sent mixed signals about family life. On one hand, they have emphasized family values and spoken about the family as the “cornerstone of society.” On the other hand, to distinguish themselves from the feminist Left, legacy conservatives have created a leaner formulation that emphasizes choice. This focus accommodates the supposed gains of second-wave feminism, allowing legacy conservatives to bypass seemingly lost causes and avoid accusations of wanting to “turn back the clock.” They want an agenda that caters to both conservative girlbosses and full-time mothers—a coalition that winks at having no favorites. Rather than acknowledging the obvious tension of trying to be a full-time mom and a full-time employee at the same time, legacy conservatives have spent decades telling women that they can have it all—motherhood, career, both, or neither—whatever their hearts desire.
This logic has long dominated institutional legacy conservative thinking. Single women, even if they hate a family-first worldview, must be courted, or at least not antagonized. Even organizations that promote the traditional family usually apologize for their benighted traditionalism—“It’s a free country,” “Family life is not for everyone,” “Some of our best employees are career women,” or “We support feminism, but oppose abortion.”
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.
On this episode of Follow the Money, Senator David Pocock and Dr Richard Denniss join Leanne Minshull to discuss the case for a 25 per cent gas export tax, why Australians currently get so little in return for the country’s finite resources, and how the gas industry wields power in parliament.
This episode was recorded live at the Australia Institute’s Politics in the Pub event on Wednesday 15 April. Subscribe now to find out about more live events from the Australia Institute.
Guest: David Pocock, Independent Senator for the Australia Capital Territory // @davidpocock
Guest: Richard Denniss, co-Chief Executive Officer, the Australia Institute // @richarddenniss
Host: Leanne Minshull, co-Chief Executive Officer, the Australia Institute // @leanneminshull
Host: Glenn Connley, Senior Media Advisor, the Australia Institute // @glennconnley
Independent economic think tank Prosper Australia has slammed threats from Elon Musk’s SpaceX to withhold satellite-based mobile services from Australia unless it is handed valuable public spectrum access for free. “Let’s be clear: Australia’s airwaves are a public resource, not a bargaining chip for billionaires,” said Rayna Fahey, Executive Director at Prosper Australia. “If SpaceX […]
In March, Americans witnessed just how broken our naturalization process has become. Within the span of just 11 days, the nation experienced four terrorist attacks: mass shootings at a Texas bar and at Old Dominion University in Virginia, an attempted bombing in New York City, and an assault on a synagogue in Michigan.
The terrorists in Texas, Virginia, and Michigan were naturalized U.S. citizens. And the New York City bombers were the children of naturalized citizens.
In response to inquiries about these incidents, a spokesman for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) reiterated that it “has a zero-tolerance policy for anyone who lies or misrepresents themselves during the naturalization process.”
That zero-tolerance policy is the right approach, but these recent attacks point to a stark reality: our naturalization process has erroneously granted the priceless privilege of American citizenship to foreigners who never accepted America, never embraced our values, and never intended to live as loyal members of our national community.
Naturalization is a long-standing, time-honored American tradition. But it is not a clerical formality or a routine application for benefits. Citizenship is not a property interest—it’s a covenant.
Prosper Australia has rejected calls for new tax breaks and subsidies for developers in Geelong’s CBD, warning that such measures would shift private risk onto taxpayers without addressing the root cause of stalled development. “Governments should not be in the business of propping up private development projects,” said Rayna Fahey, Prosper Australia Executive Director, today. […]
At the last minute, Iran agreed on Monday to participate in negotiations with the United States in Islamabad, Pakistan. The fragile ceasefire agreement between the two countries ends on Wednesday. Following the US attack on and seizure of an Iranian cargo ship in the Sea of Oman on Saturday, and contradictory tweets by President Trump in recent days, Iran was understandably hesitant to engage in further discussions with the US. There are additional obstacles to a successful resolution of the US-Israeli war on Iran to consider.
Cross-posted from Fresh Economic Thinking By Cameron Murray I explain how a scaled variable royalty does the job of a super-profits tax while avoiding the accounting trickery in order to share risk and get a better public return from resources. Have you heard that Norway taxes their gas at 78% of profits, but Australia’s offshore gas pays […]
Gov. Bill Lee signed a symbolic proclamation praising 'God’s design for familial structure' — in a state built on slavery and facing an affordability crisis
New Australia Institute research published today shows that the Japanese Government makes more revenue taxing its imports of Australian gas than the Australian Government makes from the export of our gas.
Key findings:
Japan has imposed a tax on oil and gas imports since 1978, expanding the tax to cover coal in 2003.
Over the last five years, Japan’s energy import tax has delivered an average of AUD $8 billion per year to the Japanese Government.
On average, every year, $1.8 billion of Japan’s energy import tax comes from gas imports, substantially more than the $1.4 billion raised by the Australian Government’s Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT).
“It’s hard to believe how badly Australians have been ripped off by gas export companies,” said Dr Richard Denniss, co-CEO of the Australia Institute.
“Japan, a country with no gas, oil or coal reserves of its own collected almost $40 billion over the last five years while the Australian PRRT provided only $7 billion to Australians.
“Not only has Australia been literally giving more than half of the gas we export away for free, we now learn that the same Japanese Government that is opposed to us putting a tax on our gas and coal exports, has been raking in billions of dollars per year via their own tax on gas and coal imports.
On this episode of After America, nuclear policy expert Jon B Wolfsthal and Dr Emma Shortis discuss the US-Iran negotiations, the risks of this conflict metastasising, and how Trump is continuing to break down the guardrails around the use of nuclear weapons.
Why did the National Park Service regularly denigrate the events of 1776 prior to the Trump Administration? In the Claremont Review of Books’ 25th anniversary issue, Jeffrey Anderson describes a visit to Independence National Historical Park, situated in the heart of old Philadelphia and run by the National Park Service. Congress created Independence Park for the purpose of “preserving” historic sites associated with “the American Revolution and the founding and growth of the United States,” as Anderson notes.
Anderson found an overwhelming emphasis on slavery and race—25 of 30 signs at the park’s President’s House, where George Washington and John Adams lived during part of their presidencies, “focus on slavery or race relations.” He writes that Washington and other founders “stand accused” of “‘injustice’” and “‘immorality.’” The first U.S. president’s “actions [are] characterized as ‘deplorable,’ ‘profoundly disturbing,’ and as having ‘mocked the nation’s pretense to be a beacon of liberty.’”
