President Donald Trump’s electoral victory makes him an anomaly in the annals of U.S. history—not only for winning non-consecutive terms, which no one has accomplished since Grover Cleveland over a century ago, but also for surviving multiple assassination attempts and becoming the first elected president convicted of felony crimes.
Whether or not the convictions are justified, prognosticators have rightly called his win one of the greatest comebacks ever in American politics—greater even than Richard Nixon’s rise from the ashes after losing to John F. Kennedy in 1960.
Unlike in 2016, when he failed to clinch the popular vote but won the Electoral College, Trump outpaced Kamala Harris by nearly 2.5 million votes, making gains among racial, gender, age, and geographic demographics with whom Democrats typically have excelled, particularly blacks, Latinos, and blue-collar workers.
The approvals were made on 19 December, just before Australia shuts down for the Christmas break.
The three mines are already so large that they would almost cover greater Sydney, or most Australian cities.
“Today’s approval is yet another example of the Australian Government deciding to create more climate change rather than less. Another time that Minister Plibersek was on the side of coal companies, not the environment,” said Rod Campbell, Research Director at The Australia Institute.
“Putting this out just before Christmas is a classic ‘taking out the trash’ tactic. While Australians are trying to enjoy the end of the year, the Minister is doing the bidding of multinational coal companies.
“With every heatwave and every bushfire this summer, Australians should remember that their government is making this problem worse, not better.”
In a case of tragic coincidence, the place most closely associated with the uplifting story of Jesus Christ, Christmas and the teachings of the Bible is now being subject to some of the most sustained and severe death and destruction that modern society has seen.
Rev. Munther Isaac, the pastor at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem and the Lutheran Church in Beit Sahour, joins host Chris Hedges on this special episode of The Chris Hedges Report to revisit the story of Christmas and how it relates to Palestine then and now.
New data from the Office for National Statistics shows that the poorest 10% of households in the UK are still paying a higher proportion of their income in tax than the richest. The UK’s tax system is meant to operate progressively, asking the richest to contribute more in order to tax the middle and poorest […]
Her claim that more gas is needed to help with climate change is contradicted by reports from the International Energy Agency, the CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator.
Key facts:
Foreign-owned gas companies export 80% of Australia’s gas
Nurses and teachers pay more tax than the gas industry
To date, not a single LNG project has paid a cent in Petroleum Resource Rent Tax
“With Christmas here and a cost-of-living crisis on, Minister King decided to write a piece supporting multinational gas companies,” said Rod Campbell, Research Director at The Australia Institute.
“Oddly for a Christmas piece, Minister King makes no mention of the gift that Australians give to gas companies, year in, year out – free gas.
“Australia got literally nothing for the gas that companies like Chevron, Exxon and Inpex sold for $149 billion over the last four years.
“Gas companies have tripled prices for Australians in recent years, by exporting the majority of the country’s gas. This has contributed directly to the tough Christmas many Australians are about to have.
“It is strange that while Australians are paying more money for their own gas, the Minister wants to write about gas somehow being good for the climate.
“More gas is bad for the climate. More gas exports are bad for Australian gas prices. Australians are being ripped off by the gas industry and they know it.
This month, the Australian economic debate was hijacked by a report from the world’s most powerful consulting firm: McKinsey & Co. The consulting firm apparently found that declining living standards represent a “national emergency” – and the care economy, regulations and Australia’s corporate tax rate are to blame for low productivity growth.
The only problem? The report is secret; McKinsey has only shared it with a select group. This is a well-known tactic used by consulting firms to keep their assumptions and conclusions from being scrutinised and criticised.
Not that you would know it from the uncritical reception the report has received from some politicians and journalists, particularly the Australian Financial Review which used the report to attack the government and advocate for its own policy wish list: to cut corporate taxes, encourage industrial relations ‘flexibility’ (in other words, wind back worker and union rights), and cut public spending. The report has been similarly used by the Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor, to criticise the government.
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.
Unidentified Federal Operations | The Roundtable Ep. 248
It’s official: the Reserve Bank of Australia will have its board split in two, and two new appointees will join the reconfigured monetary policy board, whose job it is to make decisions on interest rates. The move was recommended by an independent review panel in 2023. The new members of the monetary policy board, one a former top banker and the other a senior academic economist, were chosen after bipartisan consultation.
In making his announcement, the treasurer Jim Chalmers said that Marnie Baker and Renee Fry-McKibbin would balance the experience of existing members with “fresh perspectives”. That the RBA needs fresh perspectives is surely not in doubt.
Expect conflict when President-elect Donald Trump revokes, as planned, the “Temporary Protected Status (TPS)” program that President Joe Biden massively expanded to shield almost one million immigrants from deportation. Biden did so on grounds that these illegally present immigrants cannot be returned to, as the New York Times recently put it, “dangerous and deeply troubled countries.”
Without addressing exports, or how to reduce household gas use, there will be no reduction energy bills.
“It beggars’ belief that the Coalition would propose cutting energy bills by making Australians more dependent on gas and the multinational gas companies that dominate the Australian gas market”, said Mark Ogge, Principal Adviser at The Australia Institute.
“If the Coalition is elected and revives the Morrison Government’s Gas Fired Recovery, Australians will be even more exposed to global gas prices, which will lead to higher energy bills in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis.
“Gas is already a far more expensive way of producing electricity than renewable energy. Making Australians even more dependent on gas will drive up energy bills for Australian households and businesses.
After acknowledging that economic growth is at its lowest level since the 1990s, the RBA chose not to cut rates in December, leaving Australians to wait months for a potential rate cut.
“Economic management is a full-time job yet the RBA is taking a two-month summer holiday,” said Greg Jericho, The Australia Institute’s Chief Economist.
“Michele Bullock and Jim Chalmers constantly tell us they’re ‘fine tuning’ the economy. That can’t be done with the RBA board all at the cricket.
“With so many Australians suffering, the RBA should cut short its holiday and come back to work in January.”
“The board is currently scheduled to meet on February 17 and 18. It should meet on January 20 and 21,” said Matt Grudnoff, Senior Economist at The Australia Institute.
“If it’s good enough for most Australians to be back at work by then, it’s good enough for the RBA.
“Christmas is a busy time for the economy. Its certainly a difficult, expensive time for consumers. There would be plenty to discuss in January.
“Mortgage holders shouldn’t have to wait one day longer than necessary for an interest rate cut which, let’s face it, is already long overdue.”
Join me tonight on my YouTube channel for a live Q&A at 4pm PT / 7pm ET. I will pull questions from the comments of this post, my X, and live on YouTube. We will discuss the future of The Middle East. To post your questions here, you must be a paid subscriber to my Substack. Please attempt to keep your questions direct and relatively brief, as I cannot read entire paragraphs during the show.
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At a reception celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Foster Care Independence Act of 1999, House Representative Nancy Mace claims to have been assaulted by a… handshake?
Remember when BHP threatened that Queensland was going to “rue the day” that coal royalties were changed to get more money for Queenslanders? How mining companies were going to desert the state?
New data from the Queensland Government shows that there are more coal mines in the state now than ever before, with 58 operating in 2024. Production is also up – 224 million tonnes this year compared to 218 million in 2022, although down from the record of 249 million in 2018.
This is obviously terrible news for the world’s climate, the Great Barrier Reef and most life forms on earth.
It also demonstrates that BHP and other mining companies will blatantly lie in their attempts to pay less to governments and communities.
On this Summer Book Club episode of Follow the Money, journalist and author George Megalogenis joins Alice Grundy to discuss the rise of independents and minor parties, Australia’s changing political landscape, and his latest Quarterly Essay, ‘Minority Report: The new shape of Australian politics’.
This discussion was recorded on Friday 6 December 2024 and things may have changed since recording.
We have made it to the time of year when we all think that if we can just get to the end, that things are going to be better.
It makes sense – we turn over calendars, set resolutions and embrace the potential of a new year.
It’s almost like an extreme, universal experience of the doorway effect, the psychological phenomenon of short term memory loss while crossing from one boundary to another (if you have ever walked into a room to get something and then immediately forgotten why you were there, you have experienced the doorway effect).
But just as we eventually remember what we wanted from the other room, so too do we remember the unfinished business of the year before.
Opening up a new calendar is just the turning of a page. Nothing has fundamentally changed before or after that moment beyond being faced with a blank sheet. And no matter how much we may wish it, the turning of one year to another does not put a full stop on the issues we experienced in the year before.
The world is going to continue to be a complicated, sometimes horrifying, often confounding place. But with that comes the beauty and the simple moments of joy and delight, pleasant surprises and everything in between. Changing the calendar doesn’t change the world. But you, working to bring about change, does.
And so why this time of year would often mean we reflect on the wins – and there have been those – it can be more productive to look at what still needs to be done.
Bryan, Ohio, is a fine small town. It’s the kind of place where holiday dinners are potlucks, featuring several versions of homemade meatloaf and bean casserole, and the cooks silently watch to see which desserts are gone first. It’s as flat as a sheet of plywood, and the wind bites bare skin in the winter.
Dad’s Place, a storefront church run by Pastor Chris, occupies an old building a few doors down from the county courthouse. It looks like plenty of other businesses that haven’t yet spruced up their early-20th century buildings. Mentally ill and homeless people shelter in the church, which is open 24/7—but the day of my visit, the local City Hall got a court order to shut it down. The temperature dipped to 16 degrees that night.
Pastor Chris founded Dad’s Place years after his conversion to Christianity in mid-adulthood, after which he entered ministry. He describes his reluctant conversion this way: “It was like a nuclear bomb went off. I can’t describe it—nothing around me happened, I didn’t hear a voice or anything like that.” His eyes welled up at the memory. “But everything changed in that moment.”
Inside of Dad’s Place, there’s a front room that faces the street, with just a table and some chairs. Anyone can walk in off the street. There’s always a live or recorded sermon playing for customers.
The letter – published in Australian newspapers today – points out the hypocrisy of successive Australian leaders, who have made promises about climate action to the faces of Pacific leaders but do the opposite when they return to Australia.
The letter points out some stark facts about how Australia is a terrible neighbour to its Pacific family.
Key points of the open letter:
Australia’s fossil fuel project approvals undermine the survival and security of Pacific Island communities.
In September, Australia approved three coal mines which will create 1.4 billion tonnes of emissions, equivalent to the combined emissions from 12 Pacific Island nations for over 250 years.
In December, Australia refused to reconsider three more coal mines, paving the way for their approval, which could add a further 850 million tonnes of emissions.
Australia’s actions do not match its commitments to its Pacific neighbours and are contrary to its support as signatory to various Pacific Island Forum Leaders’ communiques.
“Pacific Island nations are already feeling the impact of climate change, with rising sea levels threatening their very existence,” said Leanne Minshull, Strategic Director at The Australia Institute.
“Intense cyclones, king tides and droughts are putting their coast lines, food chains and water supplies in danger.
“Prime Minister Albanese constantly refers to our ‘Pacific family’, travelling the Pacific and ensuring leaders he’s committed to climate change action.
Lawmakers in Georgia push to ban trans kids from school sports, with the intention of banning them from private school sports and collegiate sports as well.
Japan and Australia enjoy a long-standing relationship when it comes to energy trade. According to Japan, “(t)he energy and resources sector is the bedrock of the Japan-Australia economic partnership”. But the two countries’ efforts to decarbonise their economies to reach their respective emissions reduction targets have been threatening to jeopardise this gas-fuelled obsession. Japan has been lobbying hard against any change to fossil fuel regulation in Australia. Now, under the guise of Japan’s Asia Zero Emission Community (AZEC), Japan and Australia have found a new way to keep the relationship going.
On paper, AZEC serves as a platform to support achieving net-zero emissions across the Asia-Pacific region. AZEC allows its 11 partner countries to benefit from Japanese funding for energy projects. Through AZEC, Japan aims to lead the energy transition across Asia. Research by Zero Carbon Analytics shows that, since AZEC was launched in March 2023, 158 project agreements have been signed across the Asia Pacific. Prime Minister Albanese took part via video message in the inaugural AZEC leaders’ summit in December 2023.
The people of Australia collectively own all the resources under the ground. This means that the coal in NSW is the property of the Australian people too.
Because of this, mining companies have to pay the NSW Government a “royalty” if they want to dig up and sell coal.
Royalties are not taxes. They are a payment for a resource. Just like a builder has to pay for the bricks used to make a house and pay tax when they sell the house, mining companies have to pay royalties for coal and then pay tax once they sell it.
If NSW were a country, it would be the third-largest exporter of coal in the world, smaller only than Queensland and Indonesia. With all that coal production, the mining industry and politicians frequently claim that coal royalties are large enough pay for services like schools, hospitals, teachers and nurses.
“[Coal] is the state’s largest export commodity, and is a major source of revenue, which the NSW Government uses to help fund essential services and infrastructure such as schools, hospitals, roads and transport.”
Daniel Penny enjoyed a well-earned beer more than a year too late. After protecting dozens of New York City subway passengers from the violent fantasies of Jordan Neely, Penny was punished at the hands of activist Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Though he escaped a heavy punishment—spending the prime of his life rotting away in jail—for Penny and others like him, the process is the punishment. The stress of a grueling trial, the financial toll brought on by his parents fronting an $100,000 bond, and the reality that many Americans taken in by the media’s lies think Penny got away with committing a lynching in broad daylight—all of this will serve as a stern warning to men who dare stand up to the lawless tyranny in many of America’s major cities.
A regime that allows an army of Jordan Neelys to harass and threaten its citizens, and then tries to make an example of any man who dares try putting a stop to it, is a regime infused with a deep-seated hatred of masculinity. This makes sense given that masculinity is what will protect the innocent from the regime’s open embrace of lawlessness.
A decent society would honor Daniel Penny. Instead, our elites dragged him through a sham trial that ended in an acquittal despite their most brazen efforts. In a regime of lawlessness, citizens who enforce order are the enemy.
A well-functioning society possesses an inherent will to survive. Daniel Penny’s grave mistake was assuming he lived in such a place.
As campaigners and organisers, we know stories of lived experience are powerful, and we’re eager to involve the community in our storytelling. But how do we do this meaningfully and with care?
This resource includes tips, tools and a presentation from a workshop session for digital storytellers and organisers working with affected communities.
The workshop was led by Zenaida Beatson and Kristin Gillies from For Purpose, a social enterprise from Aotearoa. They shared a framework and lessons on ethical storytelling with community including case studies from campaigns in Australia and New Zealand.
This workshop was hosted at a conference by Australian Progress called FWD+Organise 2024 and was held in Naarm/Melbourne.
Below are some tips and tools from their workshop session, and you can also access their full slide presentation below.
In late November, at the start of Parliament’s last – and busiest – sitting week, the Australia Institute and community organisation Grow it Local launched a report showing that Australians simply love growing food.
Our organisations partnered to conduct a national survey on Australians’ food growing habits and attitudes towards food waste. The results show that a whopping 45% of Australians—around 9 million people—are growing food at home, and even more are interested in starting edible gardening. And it’s not just a passing trend: a decade ago, the Australia Institute conducted a similar survey which found that one in two Australian households were growing food – to produce healthier food, to save money, and simply because they enjoy it. These results show that growing food is a lifestyle choice driven by the desire for healthier food, to save money, and to live more sustainably.
As the days get longer and the nights warmer, find yourself a cool place to lounge back and immerse yourself in some of the books we have picked out for our annual progressive summer reading list.
Here are our favourite books from 2024 to keep you entertained over the summer.
The research will be sent to the NSW Treasury, as a pre-budget submission ahead of the 2025-2026 state budget. Submissions close today.
Key points:
Coal royalties have averaged only 2.4% of NSW Government revenue over the last decade.
In 2023–24, coal royalties were 4.2% of total NSW Government revenue, with global coal prices pushed up by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
All coal resources in NSW are publicly owned, and royalties are the price that mining companies pay the public to extract the resource.
Royalties do not fund specific programs — they are grouped with the rest of government revenue. This means that over the last decade, coal royalties have funded only 2.4% of every teacher or nurse.
No money has yet been spent from the Royalties for Rejuvenation Fund, the NSW Government program which theoretically redirects royalties back to coal-producing regions.
“Coal companies and politicians keep telling us that coal royalties are huge, and that they fund schools, hospitals, and regional communities all across the state. This report shows that these claims simply aren’t true,” said Rod Campbell, Research Director at The Australia Institute.
“Coal royalties fund a tiny proportion of every school, hospital or regional community. They are not propping up the economy.
“The NSW public owns coal resources, but they aren’t getting their fair share of coal mining revenue. The real money is flowing into the pockets of big corporations.
Seen for a political economic perspective, there’s always lots of topics needing analysis. This is evident in the array of articles in the new issue of Australia’s leading political economy journal. Topics include debates around green growth; the wages of childcare workers; the management of water; new industry policy interventions; taxing giant tech companies; and tensions between social democracy and neoliberalism.
Almost certainly, the most controversial article will be the first one: assessing what’s at stake in debates between advocates of ‘green growth’ and ‘degrowth’. Written by Tim Thornton, it identifies sources of confusion underlying the different viewpoints, suggests a typology of positions taken on ‘economic growth versus the environment’, and seeks to identify potentially common ground. Given the intensity with which some participants in these debates hold their positions, it is probably unrealistic to expect a cosy consensus to result. Hopefully though, Tim’s article will be widely read and discussed; and further submissions and rejoinders on this important topic could be featured in future issues of the journal.
In the hamlet of Remsenburg, Suffolk County, Long Island, New York lies a small cemetery behind the chapel of the Remsenburg Community Church. There one finds the modest final resting place of a great American, marked by a substantial rectangular headstone with a large open book sculpted on top, in which is inscribed from top to bottom:
Jeeves
Blanding’s Castle
Leave it to Psmith
Meet Mister Mulliner
Beneath this on the wide headstone you see the name of the great American:
Sir Pelham Grenville
WODEHOUSE
At the very bottom of the headstone are the words:
HE GAVE JOY TO COUNTLESS PEOPLE
Seldom have truer words been engraved in stone. Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (Plum to his friends; P.G. to his reading public) gave joy to countless millions of people with his books, about a hundred of them, written during the first 75 years of the 20th century. So long as people and books are to be found, he will continue to give joy—the joy of pure soul-refreshing laughter—by inviting his readers into the worlds of Jeeves, Blandings castle (not Blanding’s as on the headstone), Psmith (with a silent P as in ptarmigan), Mr. Mulliner, and other immortal comic characters and settings.
The Albanese government’s attempt to rush through major changes to Australian elections has been delayed in the Senate – at least until February, perhaps forever.
As Australia Institute research identified serious flaws, risks and loopholes in the legislation, delay is welcome – but bittersweet, because electoral reform is needed to increase confidence in politics and democracy.
Good electoral reform would include transparency around political contributions, especially “cash- for-access” payments from vested interests to get exclusive access to politicians; truth-in-political-advertising laws to prevent political players from misleading the public; and upper limits on billionaire and corporate spending on political campaigns.
But the government proposed changes that are flawed in process and substance. Though Special Minister of State Don Farrell has had almost three years to prepare the bill, the 200-plus page behemoth was presented to Parliament with just days for consideration.
If you get caught speeding in Australia, you will be fined with a flat-rate traffic fine. Exceeding the speed limit by 12km/h in New South Wales earns you a $361 fine, whether you are on government benefits or a billionaire. This is not a fair system.
What about the principle: same offence, same price?
If you earn $50,000 a year, a $361 fine is equal to more than a third of your weekly salary. If you earn $200,000, it is less than 1% of your weekly salary.
So, while a speeding fine is nothing more than annoying to a wealthier person, someone on a low-income might have to choose between paying the fine and a medical bill or food.
A minor fine left unpaid can lead to a vicious circle of accrued debts, leading to a loss of licence and further loss of income. In some cases, it can even lead to jail time. Unpaid fines are in fact one of the top concerns for people seeking legal aid.
Australia Institute research shows that a proportional traffic fine system, as is in place in Finland, would be much fairer. In practice, the Finnish system calculates a fine based on the driver’s disposable income and whether they have dependents. Same offence, same proportion of income.
Tips and an example checklist for community organisers about planning and promoting an event such as a town hall. This resource comes from a conference session called Town Halls and Turning People Out in 2024.
The conference—FWD+Organise 2024—was held by Australian Progress in Naarm | Melbourne. The session was run by Carly Robertson from the Australian Conservation Foundation and Caitlin Gordon-King from Huddle.
In the session, Carly Robertson, a community organiser with the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), shared lessons about ACF’s ‘organising playbook.’
ACF Community Groups
ACF uses a decentralised organising framework and has 43 groups (as of Dec 2024) around Australia. (See Map) The community groups are a network of independently organised, volunteer-run groups in the ACF community and are supported by paid community organisers. The community organisers provide support by:
This article is read by Eunice Wong, a Juilliard-trained actor, featured on Audible's list of Best Women Narrators. Her work is on the annual Best Audiobooks lists of the New York Times, Audible, AudioFile, & Library Journal. www.eunicewong.actor
As far as I know, the only institutional reaction from American law schools to federal results from the 2024 election has been to tell foreign law students to get to campus before Trump's inauguration, part of broader warnings from universities and colleges. I can find no record of law schools holding conferences on how to teach law when all three branches of the U.S. federal government will be controlled by officials and judges expressly opposed to rule of law and the design of the U.S. Constitution. There is no news of curricular overhaul to meet this moment, no reports of revamped legal ethics courses considering how, if at all, ethical attorneys can practice law in this environment. The Association of American Law Schools, U.S. legal education's main professional organization, has not issued any statements about what "excellence in legal education" might require when the federal legal system is about to be controlled by fascists.
In January, 2020, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was ratified, per the procedures specified in Article V of the U.S. Constitution. As with all U.S. law, the U.S. Constitution is the paramount authority on the law of amending the U.S. Constitution. So, when Virginia became the thirty-eighth state to ratify, the Amendment was lawfully ratified and it became part of the U.S. Constitution. Where was the fanfare? The celebration? Why was a woman's constitutional right to abortion relitigated in 2022 as a question of due process rather than a question of women's equal right to choose their own medical care and to bodily autonomy?
