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This article was originally published, in slightly different form, by the Emerging New Urbanists in their monthly newsletter, The ENU Exchange. It is shared here with permission.

How Australian unions shaped modern Australian society

Unions are making a comeback. Labour disputes around the world have hit the headlines as unions take action to challenge inequality. But while media coverage has increased, understanding of unions has not. In this lively history of Australian unionism Liam Byrne seeks to illuminate what unionism means, exploring why successive generations of working people organised unions and nurtured them for future generations.

Foregrounding the pioneering efforts of women workers, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers, culturally and linguistically diverse workers, and LGBTIQA+ workers as central to the union story today, Byrne uses case studies of worker action and struggle to better understand the lived reality of unionism, its challenges, and its contribution to Australian life.

No Power Greater is the compelling story of the acts of rebellion and solidarity that have shaped Australia’s past and shows that unions are far from history.

Liam spoke at Per Capita’s John Cain lunch in June 2025. Watch the recording here:

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.

No Kings, No Congress | The Roundtable Ep. 272

Learn about transformational reforms like paid parental leave, the NDIS, the Apology to the Stolen Generations, and revolutionising pensions from Labor’s Jenny Macklin, with insights from Julia Gillard, Ross Garnaut, Bill Kelty, Brian Howe, and Tanya Plibersek.

Is big policy reform still possible? Does Australia have the political will to tackle generational issues such as climate change, the housing crisis, rising inequality and Closing the Gap? Legendary Labor policymaker Jenny Macklin believes that if Australia wants to remain prosperous and fair, big policy reform is not just possible, it’s essential.

Making Progress takes us into the policy engine room and details how Macklin went about developing transformational initiatives such as the Apology to the Stolen Generations, paid parental leave and the National Disability Insurance Scheme, as well as delivering pension reforms that lifted one million Australians out of poverty. She explains how she became a policy wonk, and interviews key policymakers such as Julia Gillard, Brian Howe, Bill Kelty, Tanya Plibersek and Ross Garnaut, who share how they war-gamed ways to turn good policy ideas into reality.

Part policy memoir, part war-room drama, part field guide, Making Progress: How Good Policy Happens is a political book with a message-and a method.

Jenny Macklin and Joel Deane, authors of ‘Making Progress: How good policy happens’ spoke at Per Capita’s John Cain Lunch in May 2025. Watch the recording here:

Polling conducted by YouGov for the Australia Institute shows that twice as many people support the federal government’s proposed changes as oppose them.

Some 52 per cent want the tax concessions on the earnings from these super-sized super balances cut back, compared to just 26 per cent who don’t, the poll shows. A little more than one in five were undecided.

That’s despite ubiquitous media coverage of the wailings of the worried wealthy. The media’s focus on complaints from the tiny proportion of Australians impacted – about 80,000 people – has failed to produce widespread concern among the more than 99 per cent of Australians who have less than $3 million in super.

That’s not surprising when one considers just how far most people are from that level of retirement savings. According to ATO data, the average super balance is a mere $182,000 for men and $146,000 for women. For those between 60 and 65, it’s just over $400,000 for men and $318,000 for women.

Despite this, people tend to overestimate the likelihood they will be affected by the change. About one in five of those surveyed thought it would impact on their retirement plans. The reality is only one in 200 have super balances above the level that attracts the higher tax rate.

The parliament has lost confidence in Liberal Premier Jeremy Rockliff, and so next month Tasmanians will go to the polls for the second time since March last year.

This is the system working as intended.

In the Westminster democracy Australia inherits from the United Kingdom, the government of the day and its ministers are responsible to parliament.

They answer to the representatives of the people.

The awesome powers Australians vest in their governments – unlimited by a bill of rights and granted without a direct popular vote – are supervised by the democratically elected parliament.

That said, Tasmanians are entitled to feel surprised that this term of power-sharing government ended so abruptly.

Most power-sharing parliaments are stable and see out the full term, according to the Australia Institute’s research.

NSW has its third power-sharing government in a row, as Labor governs with three independents in the Minns government, which followed the Perrottet and Berejiklian Coalition
governments without incident.

In the ACT, Labor and the Greens have collaborated for over 15 years – even as the details of the arrangement have changed.

The Gillard Labor government was very productive either in spite or because of power-sharing, making more laws than other governments, including ground-breaking reform like the NDIS, clean energy future package, cigarette plain packaging and expanding Medicare to dental for children.

The tumultuous and exhausting 12-year pontificate of the Argentinian Jorge Bergoglio, better known to the world as Pope Francis, came to an end in April. Francis was a paradoxical pope if there ever was one. He openly promoted disruption in the Catholic Church, which he did not hesitate to call causing “a mess,” as if unclarity about doctrine and the Church’s moral teaching could somehow serve constructive purposes. He spoke endlessly of mercy and the Church as an immense, nonjudgmental “field hospital” for the lost and broken. But Pope Francis rarely called for the repentance that is the crucial prerequisite for the healing of the soul. He occasionally criticized abortion and gender ideology, and in no uncertain terms, even as he tolerated and promoted those inside and outside the Church who indulged these grave evils.

The Australia Institute is saddened to hear of the passing of the Honourable Stephen Charles AO KC.

Stephen was a former judge of the Victorian Supreme Court of Appeal and member of the National Integrity Committee, which, under the auspices of The Australia Institute, made the case for effective anti-corruption commissions.

Stephen worked tirelessly toward the creation of a federal anti-corruption watchdog. He was ultimately successful when the Parliament passed the National Anti-Corruption Commission Act in 2022 – although the NACC remains restricted in its ability to hold public inquiries, an unnecessary restriction Stephen warned against in 2018.

Last year, with his daughter Lucy Hamilton, he wrote an essay in Meanjin reflecting on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament and Australia’s democracy crisis titled “The Year in Truth-telling”.

Our thoughts are with Stephen’s family.

The post Vale — The Honourable Stephen Charles AO KC appeared first on The Australia Institute.

Has anyone actually read The Handmaid’s Tale? Maybe Margaret Atwood has. But it seems unlikely that many of the demonstrators who hauled out their red cloaks yet again last weekend have done more than watch the HBO TV show based—rather loosely—on the 1985 novel. Thomas Aquinas was supposed to have said, “I fear a man of only one book.” These are people of only one streaming miniseries.

Margaret Atwood doesn’t seem to mind them very much. In fact she appears pleased as punch with them, which is yet another indication that she is not a serious person. Ever since she wrote The Handmaid’s Tale, the dystopian thriller implying that America in the mid-1980s was on the brink of turning women into burqa-wearing sex slaves because Ronald Reagan was president, Atwood and her non-readers have treated every political event they don’t like as their personal Iranian Revolution.

Under the proposed changes, Australians with super balances over $3 million would pay 30% tax – rather than 15% – on earnings above $3 million.

According to Australian Tax Office data, the current average super balance in Australia is around $182,000 for men and $146,000 for women. Among those aged 60 to 65, it’s around $402,000 for men and $318,000 for women.

The poll, conducted by YouGov, shows 52% of Australians support the proposed changes, compared to 26% who oppose them, while a similar figure (22%) don’t know or are unsure.

Key findings:

25% of Australians say they “strongly support” reducing tax concessions for people with super balances over $3 million, while 27% support the changes.

14% of Australians say they “strongly oppose” reducing tax concessions for people with super balances over $3 million, while 12% oppose the changes.

One in five of Australians think the changes will have an impact on their retirement plans, but the reality is that only one in 200 people have super balances that would be affected by the changes.

“Twice as many Australians support the proposal to reduce tax concessions on superannuation balances over $3 million as oppose the idea,” said Richard Denniss, Executive Director of The Australia Institute.

YouGov conducted a national survey of 1,535 voters on behalf of The Australia Institute between 6 and 11 June 2025, using an online survey polling methodology. Full details are provided in the methodology statement.

The poll is compliant with the Australian Polling Council’s requirements.

The margin of error on the effective sample size is 3.2%.

The post Polling – Superannuation appeared first on The Australia Institute.

I am just old enough to remember watching the tall ships sail down the Hudson River on Independence Day in 1976. My parents hosted a huge party for their friends and family to look out from the high windows of our apartment on Riverside Park and the river beyond. I alternated between eating slices from an enormous six-foot hoagie my parents had ordered and watching ship after ship sail by. My memory mixes up the sight of sails and the taste of salami.

I remember a spectacle, and I remember a host of people coming together to enjoy it. I remember the small, personal delight of racing from the dining room table with the hoagie to the window and back again. I remember the ships, proceeding by stately fathoms, with the Palisades of New Jersey behind. I remember my country’s 200th birthday—not as a solemn public event, but as something bound up with the happiness of family and friends, and with the individual joy of a small boy shuttling from gulping food to gaping at the masted vessels out of a storybook.

We have been too slow off the mark in preparing to celebrate America’s 250th birthday. It didn’t help that too many people in positions of power were at best indifferent to our country and have procrastinated celebrating its birth. Now we have leaders who love our country and want to hold a dazzling party for America in 2026.

Author’s note: I’ve had to be a lot more quick writing this article than I normally am, because of responsibilities elsewhere.