What are flash mobs? Here is a curated collection of resources about what they are, how to do a flash mob, and examples from around the world.
What are Flash Mobs?
A spontaneous, contagious, and often celebratory protest that often uses social media or word of mouth to gather people on short notice in a particular place at a particular time. – Beautiful Trouble
A group of people summoned (as by email or text message) to a designated location at a specified time to perform an indicated action before dispersing. – Merriam Webster Dictionary
Flash Mob refers to any online-coordinated event in which an ad-hoc group of participants meet up at a central location for various purposes. While certain flash mobs may convey a political or commercial message, they are usually organized for the spontaneous amusement of the participants and bewilderment of bystanders. – Know Your Meme
Labor’s announcement that a returned Albanese government would build 100,000 houses for first home buyers is hardly radical. Who’d have thought that actually building houses for people to live in might work? It would.
The Prime Minister’s other housing announcement – to allow people to buy a home with a deposit of just 5%, to avoid mortgage insurance – would give more buyers the chance to bid against each other and push prices up.
The Liberal policy, to allow first home buyers of new homes to claim the interest as a tax deduction, would do the same. Enabling them to dip into their super would make things worse and risk making them poor in retirement.
Neither Anthony Albanese nor Peter Dutton mentioned the two obvious reforms that would help to solve the housing crisis: scrapping or reducing negative gearing and removing the capital gains tax discount for investors.
“We welcome the government’s plan to build 100,000 homes,” said Matt Grudnoff, Senior Economist at The Australia Institute.
“The Australia Institute has long argued the best way for the government to improve housing affordability is to build and own more homes for people to live in – much as it does for Defence Housing Australia.
“This plan is not radical and should become standard for all governments.
“But the plan to guarantee a 5% deposit for first-home buyers will put pressure on prices.
On Tuesday 15th April, 6:30pm, Free Palestine Melbourne and Muslim Votes Matter are hosting a joint Justice at the Ballot Box forum of political candidates and community leaders at Schoolhouse Studios in Coburg.
Here is a collection of resources about community organising in the Arab World. These resources are from an organisation called Ahel.
Ahel works across the Arab region to support people leading collective action for justice, freedom, and equality to build their people power.
Using a values-based community organizing approach, Ahel coaches campaigns, trains leaders in organizing and participatory leadership, and connects changemakers who share a commitment to dignity and justice.
Ahel produces Arabic-language knowledge on community organizing and documents campaign journeys and successes—sharing real stories of how people power drives change.
Ahel’s methodology is based on Marshall Ganz’s work in value based community organizing adapted and expanded for the context of the Arab speaking region.
The concept of productivity, including those for labour, capital and multi-factor productivity (MFP) are central to economic discussion about national economic performance, government policy and income distribution. There is common agreement that productivity growth has been, and remains, central to the long-run improvement in living standards. However, the orthodox or neoclassical, conceptual foundation of productivity, which informs both the work of the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates of productivity growth, media analysis and economic policy is rarely subjected to critical analysis.
The issue of productivity, its measurement and the problems with these measures is a very large one. To assist important economic policy debates that revolve around the concept of productivity, David Richardson (The Australia Institute) and I have written this very short briefing paper, which is being published today on Progress in Political Economy (PPE). The paper sets out just a few of the long-standing questions that have been raised over many decades about the conceptual and empirical robustness of the concept and its role informing public policy.
The LNP came first on 38%, Labor second with 27%, and the Greens third also with 27% – just 11 votes behind Labor.
A surprising trend emerged: when right-wing minor party candidates were eliminated their preferences favoured the Greens over Labor.
Preferences from United Australia and One Nation voters, as well as Animal Justice voters, propelled Greens candidate Stephen Bates ahead of Labor, at which point Labor preferences won the seat for Bates at the expense of sitting LNP MP Trevor Evans.
Elsewhere in Queensland, in the seat of Groom, independent Suzie Holt went from fourth place with 8% of the vote to finish second with 43% on preferences.
This improbable result occurred because she was favoured above the Liberal National candidate by voters across the political spectrum: Greens, One Nation and Labor voters.
These unexpected results are a reminder that you, the voter, decide your preferences, not the political parties – and those preferences could decide an election.
For those just tuning in: I wrote a piece a day for the first three days of this week on what we should probably now term the “Trump Tariff Financial Crisis”. I am coming to you Sunday because, yes, I am a human and took much of the rest of the week off. I even slept at night! Three times in a row! Vanity Fair’s profile of Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway a very bad sign, and very resonant to my experience this week: “No! Sleep! For Bloomberg! How the Media Giant’s Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway Survived a Manic Week”. Well, I did take about 16 hours to write this piece, but I did it at a slower pace with lots of breaks.
Australia doesn’t have a gas shortage, Australia has a gas export problem; and putting a levy on gas exports will help fix the problem.
Unfortunately, Dutton’s wrong on almost everything else.
Gas is driving up the cost of living. After Australia started exporting gas, wholesale gas prices in Australia tripled.
You now pay global prices for Australian gas. For over a decade the gas industry has been pushing the lie that Australia has a gas shortage, but the problem is we export around 80 per cent of our gas.
No matter what crap the gas industry tries to feed you – Dutton has correctly identified Australia has a gas export problem.
For the first time in over a decade, all sides of politics in Australia agree that we’re exporting too much gas, including the Labor government, the Liberals and Nationals, the Greens and most of the independents who sit on the crossbench.
It’s a remarkable political consensus. Politicians now have the opportunity, in the middle of a cost-of-living election, to finally put a stop Australians getting ripped off by the gas industry. It would be a win for the economy, a win for your back pocket and a vote winner for politicians.
To fix Australia’s gas export problem, the Coalition is proposing to tax gas exports to ensure our gas flows first to Australian businesses and households.
In many ways, the issuing of arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes is the realisation of Israel’s worst fears about the International Criminal Court (ICC), and the reason it is not a state party. Both are unlikely to travel to […]
There is no alternative to the UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees, its chief insisted, following Israel’s order to ban the organisation that coordinates nearly all aid in war-ravaged Gaza. “There is no plan B,” head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, told reporters in Geneva. Within the UN […]
The horrific situation in the Middle East has landed Foreign Minister Penny Wong with a difficult and frustrating job. She is wedged between a so-far unacknowledged obligation to honour Australia’s legal commitments to condemn Israeli genocide and apartheid on the one hand, and on the other, a vociferous campaign by local Zionists and their supporters […]
Australia has split with US President Joe Biden over an international arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged war crimes, after Foreign Minister Penny Wong refused to oppose or endorse the International Criminal Court’s decision. The ICC issued warrants on Thursday for Mr Netanyahu and his sacked defence minister Yoav Gallant, accusing […]
Why won’t you hold Israel to account? You don’t have to wait for the rest of the world. You can be the leaders, you can be the leaders to hold Israel to account, for the slaughter of tens of thousands of Palestinians, for the killing of Zoni Frankcom.” – Senator Mehreen Faruqi, addressing the Australian […]
Article link: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/18/lebanon-civil-defence-reels-after-deadly-israeli-strikeArticle source: The Guardian/ William Christou,19.11.20248211
Everybody’s Home has called on the major parties to present more ambitious housing policies to Australians ahead of the election, warning that today’s announcements fall short of what is needed to end the country’s deepening crisis.
The Coalition is expected to propose a policy that would allow first home buyers of newly built properties to deduct their mortgage interest payments from their taxable income.
Meanwhile, Labor is proposing to allow all first home buyers to purchase a home with a five per cent deposit to avoid lenders mortgage insurance and will commit $10 billion to build 100,000 new homes for them.
Everybody’s Home spokesperson Maiy Azize said: “The promises made by the major parties today fall well short of what’s needed to address the housing crisis — in fact, some elements could make it even worse.
“The Coalition’s proposal to allow mortgage payments to be tax deductible for first home buyers is a form of negative gearing for non-investors, a move that will give more help to people on high incomes and could push home prices even higher. To make housing more affordable, we need to get rid of tax breaks when it comes to property, not create more.
“Labor’s home deposit support for first-home buyers will also add to demand. Building 100,000 homes is a good step, but they aren’t guaranteed to be affordable. Australia doesn’t just need new homes, we need homes that people can actually afford.
On the first day of our Route 66 trip, the media announced that Donald Trump would be indicted that week. I did not believe them because I had heard this claim every year since 2016 and throughout my 1980s and 1990s childhood, when reporters were more straightforward about his ties to organized crime. Trump had been under federal investigation since before I was born.
The year 2023 marked a half century of the Department of Justice opening an inquiry and then doing little about it. With every year his impunity grew, and with it his cruelty. He pushes and pushes, as if frustrated with the ability of the United States to contain its worst instincts, which are embodied in himself. He pushes and pushes, as if testing whether people are as weak and hypocritical as they seem, and no one in power pushes back, which means he is probably right. Trump ended the week he was supposed to be indicted by holding a fascist campaign rally in Waco, Texas.
Randomising is an improvement on how we did it before 1984 – which was by alphabetical order of surname. Parties preferred “Andersons” and “Brownes” in those days!
When someone numbers 1, 2, 3, etc all the way down the ballot, that’s called a “donkey vote”. It is a valid vote – but not a very thoughtful one.
So do donkey voters give candidates at the top of the ballot an advantage?
Yes – topping the ballot is worth about 1 percentage point. Maybe a little more in electorates with younger voters and where fluency in English is lower.
That’s according to research by academics Amy King and Andrew Leigh – the same Andrew Leigh who is now a federal Labor MP.
If you think this is unfair, there is an alternative – called “Robson rotation”. In Robson rotation, the order of candidates rotates so a random ballot paper could have any candidate at the top of the paper. Liberal Senator James McGrath has pushed unsuccessfully for Robson rotation to be used in House of Representatives elections.
When there is a risk of confusion, the advantage of coming at the top of the ballot may be greater than 1 percentage point. In 2013, there were 45 columns on the NSW Senate voting paper – and the “Liberal Democrats” minor party drew first place. They won 9.5% of the vote, and a Senate seat for Senator David Leyonhjelm. Some of those voters likely saw “Liberal” and assumed it was the Liberal Party.
This book aims to provide nothing less than a full-throated defense of moral and political sanity against the latest eruptions of ideological mendacity in our time. Its thesis is simple enough, but it needs the full resources of applied political philosophy to explain with adequate clarity and depth. The thesis? That the “ideological” project to replace the only human condition we know with a utopian “Second Reality” oblivious to—indeed at war with—the deepest wellsprings of human nature and God’s creation has taken on renewed virulence in the late modern world, just 35 years after the glorious anti-totalitarian revolutions of 1989.
If you were confused, don’t be embarrassed: the AEC says the way political parties use postal vote applications is the number 1 source of complaints during election campaigns.
Alexandra Koster at SBS News has written a detailed explanation of the strange and somewhat sketchy world of postal vote applications.
Postal vote application forms, packaged with information about a political party, are “reportedly used by political parties to collect data about voters before forwarding to the AEC”.
“At first glance, the material could be mistaken for official AEC communications as there is no party branding, aside from the use of red and blue party colours.”
A multi-party parliamentary inquiry recommended cleaning up the postal vote application practice:
· Postal vote applications no longer allowed to be bundled with other materials (like party promotional materials)
· Postal vote applications to be sent straight to the AEC, not routed through a party HQ for data harvesting.
The Albanese Government neglected these reforms in favour of an unfair and rushed deal with the Liberal Party to change the laws around Australian elections. Hopefully they are revisited after this election.
None of that has stopped the gas industry from trying to convince us for the past few years that a gas shortage is imminent. Instead of taking responsibility for the problem they are causing for they’ve relentlessly attacked the Victorian Labor Government, characterizing the banning of gas connections to new homes they see as “the demonisation of gas”, when in fact the government’s attempt to reduce the state’s dependence on gas is exactly the right response to gas industry engineered scarcity and price gouging.
All of the major political candidates at this election have acknowledged that there’s “no gas supply shortage in Australia”. Labor’s energy minister Chris Bowen, who admitted at the National Press Club yesterday that “a lot gets exported”, was the last to arrive at the party.
Gas producers and their industry associations try to get their voices heard in multiple ways. One approach is to contribute to major parties’ finances. In 2023-24, Australian Energy Producers disclosed almost $95,000 in contributions to the Labor Party, and a further $77,000 to the Coalition.
It means none of the Liberals, Labor, Nationals, Greens, One Nation and Independents believe the multi-national gas exporters’ claim that there is a shortage of gas in Australia.
“People say we have plenty of gas in Australia and that is true, a lot gets exported,” said Chris Bowen, Federal Energy Minister during a debate at the National Press Club.
Peter Dutton has already acknowledged Australia has an abundance of gas, and his idea to tax gas exports to ensure our gas flows first to Australian businesses and households is a good idea.
“It is ridiculous to say we have a gas shortage in Australia when we export so much of it,” said Richard Denniss, Executive Director of The Australia Institute.
“Our research shows we are giving away more than half the gas we export for free, with zero royalties paid on 56 per cent of all the gas we sell overseas.
“It is good to see agreement across the political spectrum on this issue.
“There is also no need for new gas or coal projects in Australia, there is gas there now.”
1. Aggregation of donations for the purposes of both the gift cap and disclosure
The failure of the Act to aggregate donations to different party branches for the purposes of the gift cap and disclosure means that wealthy interests will be able to continue to access the political process in a way the average Australian can’t. This is inequitable.
In respect of associated entities, when such an entity is controlled by, or operates solely or to a significant extent to the benefit of one or more political parties, donations to that associated entity should be aggregated with donations to the party for the purpose of the disclosure threshold and donation cap.
2. Spending caps: lower national cap, higher per seat cap and ‘anti-piling in provision’
The national cap of $90 million will be able to be used by parties to flood key races and will do nothing to alleviate the arms race for funding. The setting of the per seat cap also disadvantages new entrants and independents. Our solution is three-pronged:
Professor James Hankins has proposed a grand bargain on immigration. He has the right idea: with an issue as thorny as immigration, on which the views of the American electorate are split, one might even say schizophrenic, the solution must be some kind of compromise. In order to strike a lasting bargain, each side must be satisfied with what it receives in return for giving up some of its demands.
Alas, in the Hankins bargain, what the Right gets, it doesn’t want, and what the Left gets, it doesn’t need.
The Left’s preferred policy solution for illegal immigration is amnesty. Their plan has always been to get as many people as possible over the border and then, when the congressional winds are favorable, grant them citizenship. They think they will be able to get enough conservative crossovers to pass an amnesty. There have always been Republican defectors who are either naïve would-be humanitarians and think amnesty is the compassionate solution or cynical friends of big business who want to maximize immigration as a source of cheap labor.
Plus, it would take some very compelling sweeteners to get the Left to agree to accept the half-loaf of guest worker permits, since they fully expect to get the full loaf of amnesty soon enough. None of the concessions Hankins offers are anywhere close to sweet enough.
The Coalition’s plan to scrap the Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF) will leave tens of thousands of Australians without a roof over their heads, as homelessness continues to soar and crisis services buckle under pressure.
A discussion paper modelling three future scenarios of the HAFF, by national housing campaign Everybody’s Home, shows the real-world human impact of political decisions on social housing.
With more than 76,000 Australians seeking support from homelessness services but missing out on long-term housing every year, the paper reveals:
If the HAFF continues as is, delivering 20,000 social housing dwellings: 65 per cent of those who missed out on housing in 2023-24 could be housed over five years
If the HAFF is abolished by the Coalition: Only a few thousand Australians who missed out on housing in 2023-24 could be housed, leaving at least 70,000 without homes
If the HAFF is expanded to deliver 80,000 social housing dwellings: it could house every person turned away in 2023-24, and an additional 123,312 people over a decade or more.
*Assuming 2.5 people per household.
The modelling comes as Housing Minister Clare O’Neil calls on shadow minister Michael Sukkar to allow the government to continue approving HAFF projects during caretaker mode.
Public opinion has turned against DEI. It is tempting for DEI advocates to wish this reality away and call the DEI rollback part of the “white backlash.” Or claim that people just don’t want to learn real history. Or keep DEI in place under another name. Some administrators in academia are simply rebranding DEI as “community engagement” or “belonging centers.” But we all know what you are doing—it’s the same thing with a slightly different label.
DEI advocates are no doubt convinced of their position. They do not want to change. Their jobs depend on DEI policies. They think the DEI cause is righteous and central to the mission of higher education.
A majority of Americans find DEI policies objectionable, however. My home state of Idaho recently banned DEI policies, joining many states in passing sweeping bans. The recent dismantling of DEI at the University of Michigan may be a watershed moment for DEI in higher education. Michigan had been a leader in DEI advocacy, when measuring its funding of DEI initiatives and the number of DEI administrators on its payroll.
Something is happening here. What it is, is rather clear.
Let’s face facts: DEI advocates are increasingly in the minority. They are fighting rear-guard actions against a majority of people in the country, and in many states. They are fighting against democracy to preserve their DEI domain.
In 2022, the Labor Government received just 33% of the primary vote – but won a majority of the seats. In Australia’s single-member electorate system, a minority of votes easily becomes a majority of seats.
New Zealand adopted proportional representation in 1996 after an election where a majority government formed with a record low vote share of just 35%. Since then, most of its governments have formed from parties that won a majority of the vote.
In the 2023 New Zealand election, the incoming three-party coalition of Nationals, ACT, and NZ First had 53% of the vote between them. Another proportional system (Hare-Clark) is employed for elections in Tasmania and the ACT, where governments generally have the support of half or more of the primary vote.
While no Australian government has won a majority of the primary vote since 1975, the Gillard government was in some ways the closest to it.
Only 38% of Australians voted for Gillard’s Labor in 2010, but 13% voted for the Greens and independents who made formal confidence and supply agreements with the government.
That makes the 2010 election is the only time since 1975 where confidence in the government was based on MPs receiving the votes of most Australians.
Imagine if next week you predicted that you would earn 20% less than your actual salary. When you earned your actual salary, would you have just earned a windfall!? No, but that is what the LNP is saying would be the case with their new funds announced today.
Today, the Liberal and National Party announced that they will set up two news funds that will be part of the Future Fund. They are the “Future Generations Fund and the Regional Australia Future Fund”. It all sounds quite nice – who wouldn’t love future generations and regional Australia! Alas, as with the ALP government’s Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF) the best parts of these funds are their names.
These funds, like the HAFF, use meaningless figures to make them sound big, but are purely set up to put off doing things.
Rather than spend money on vital infrastructure, health care, and education services now, these funds instead put money into an account and will only spend money once the funds earn a return on their investments.
But by the time these funds have made a return, the infrastructure needs will be much greater, and Australians will have gone without vital improvements in health, education and other services.
On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Greg and Elinor discuss Trump’s tariff turmoil, the dodgy numbers doing the rounds in the election campaign, and the Coalition’s big fund boondoggle.
This discussion was recorded on Thursday 10 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.
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
Cities and the First Amendment. In order to exercise the right to assemble peaceably, people need a place to assemble, and cities provide these places. Last week’s demonstrations in Portland against the Trump Administration took place on symbolically important ground in the heart of the city. Tens of thousands marched along Naito Parkway and Governor Tom McCall Waterfront Park, and through the Japanese-American Memorial Plaza.
This is the place where, half a century ago, Portland tore out the Harbor Drive Freeway that cut off the city from its riverfront, and instead built a park. The Naito Parkway honors civic leader Bill Naito, who was among those pushed out of Portland in the early days of World War II by the federal government’s illegal 
There were two in the first federal parliament, and between 1980 and 2004, 56 Independent MPs were elected to parliaments across Australia.
At times, they have held the balance of power and decided the fate of governments.
Of the 151 lower house MPs elected in 2022, 10 were independent candidates, and a further 6 represented minor or micro-parties.
Recent elections in comparable democracies have returned fewer, if any, Independents.
The UK’s 2019 election returned no Independents to the House of Commons, and the 2024 election only six (out of 650 members).
Neither Canada nor New Zealand elected any Independents in their most recent elections, nor did the US House of Representatives in 2022 or 2024.
Australia’s uniqueness has several causes.
Compulsory voting means that even disaffected or apathetic citizens show up to vote.
Preferential voting benefits independent candidates because major party voters usually preference independents ahead of the other major party.
In the Senate, proportional representation increases the chances of a well-organised independent or micro-party, and at double dissolution election the reduced quota gives them even better odds, as we saw in 2016.
Local candidates with existing name recognition (or the patience to build a public profile over successive campaigns) can be highly competitive in these circumstances.
For years, I thought that there were two "sides" to the discussion around climate change. There were the people who believed in the science and the people who thought it was all a farce. Often, they could segregated into Democrats and Republicans. Of course, there were plenty of people who believed in the science but didn't give a hoot - and certainly didn't want to be forced to stop what they were doing. These believers happily leveraged those who didn't believe to minimize regulation. Needless to say, I was long infuriated with the financial interests involved in ensuring people questioned the science, doubted the issue, and opposed regulatory action.
Over time, more and more people have come to believe that climate change is real. There are still plenty of capitalists who don't care and don't want regulators to get in their way. But I've started to realize that entirely new responses to climate change have started to emerge. And some of them scare me. So I'm going to attempt to articulate them in buckets. I'd love to hear if you see different buckets.
Cities and city streets are the place where we exercise our most fundamental rights.
“The right of the people peacefully to assemble” guaranteed by the First Amendment only has meaning if the people have a place in which to assemble.
In Portland, on April 5, tens of thousands marched to voice their objections to the Trump Administration. The march wasn’t in a random location, it was in a place rich with meaning for the city and the Constitution.
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.
The Fog of Trade War | The Roundtable Ep. 262
Trump announces a sweeping tariff regime, then pauses it for 90 days—why? As a tactic to renegotiate trade deals? To reshore manufacturing? Some combination of both? With midterms just over the horizon, the stakes of this gamble to reorient global trade are high. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court lifts District Judge Jeb Boasberg’s temporary restraining order on deporting members of the Venezuelan gang Tren De Aragua—what’s next?? Internment camps for U.S. citizens?? This week, the hosts weigh in on the effectiveness of the recent tariffs, recount Justice Sotomayor’s ridiculous dissent, and touch on the limp, confused effort by the Left to protest. Plus: media and reading recommendations!
The research, by The Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work, reveals that until recently, government policies reinforced economic trends that eroded workers’ power.
This erosion normalised low wage growth in Australia for both union and non-union workers.
The report – The Curious Incident of Low Wages Growth – found that of the 16 key developments in the labour market over the past half century, 14 reduced workers’ power, one increased the power of female workers only and just one increased the power of all workers.
From 2014, the majority of federal legislation buttressed this trend and further reduced workers’ power.
Since the election of the Albanese government in 2022, almost all federal legislation impacting wages has done the opposite. It has increased workers’ power. And this may continue, with the government seeking a pay rise above the rate of inflation for low-paid workers in its submission to the Fair Work Commission’s annual wage review.
“These findings dispel the idea that governments can do nothing about wages,” said Professor Emeritus David Peetz, Laurie Carmichael Distinguished Research Fellow at The Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work and author of the report.
The most powerful nation in history has spent the last three decades outsourcing its strength. Factories have been shuttered, energy dependence was reinstated, domestic bureaucracies have continued to grow, and bad trade deals were signed with rivals—all moves that have weakened America’s sovereignty. The Trump Administration is reversing this decline not only through rhetoric but also through action (which, admittedly, can be confusing at times).
The common thread weaved through President Trump’s current efforts is self-reliance. It’s evident in the concessions the Trump Administration is seeking from partners and adversaries alike. The administration’s “Liberation Day” reciprocal tariffs illustrate this tone. Unlike the soft diplomacy of the past, President Trump is seeking to rebalance trade and renew focus on American industry, while forcing better terms for America by using access to our markets as common leverage. While confounding critics who are accustomed to diplomatic platitudes and bureaucratic stagnation, this signals a return to American independence.
On this episode of Follow the Money, Rod Campbell and Mark Ogge join Ebony Bennett to discuss the fixing Australia’s gas export problem, making gas companies pay their fair share in taxes and royalties, and why there is no need for new gas projects.
This discussion was recorded on Tuesday 8 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.
Guest: Mark Ogge, Principal Advisor, the Australia Institute // @markogge
Guest: Rod Campbell, Research Director, the Australia Institute // @rodcampbell
Host: Ebony Bennett, Deputy Director, the Australia Institute // @ebonybennett
“These are levels of craziness that are part of the decline I suspect of all empires when they consume themselves,” Professor Richard Wolff says of America’s current situation in the outset of Donald Trump’s second term. He joins host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report to discuss the history and rationale behind the decisions made by Trump and how it relates to the decline of the US empire.
