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On Saturday afternoon, I began asking the Mastodon community to support Free DC Project, the organization spearheading the fight for DC’s rights to govern itself and to be free from Trump’s authoritarian martial occupation. As of this writing, we have already raised over $2000. Join the campaign here.

The fight to gain and protect Home Rule in the District of Columbia, and for the District's statehood, has a long history. But the fight for DC’s political autonomy connects to a bigger role the nation's capital has played for centuries in the great American struggle to realize the promise of the Declaration of Independence.

The report – Three Ways Australia Can Tax Wealth Better –  comes on the eve of Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ Economic Reform Roundtable, which recognises the growing need to raise more tax revenue to pay for things like health services, schools, housing, the NDIS, defence, and many, many more essential public services.

Key findings:

• A 2% wealth tax on people worth more than $5 million (excluding the family home and superannuation) would raise $41 billion per year.
• The reintroduction of an inheritance tax (which operated in various forms at a state and federal level in the 1960s and 70s) would not only reduce intergenerational inequality, it would raise $10 billion per year.
• And the government would raise an extra $19 billion a year if it scrapped the capital gains tax discount, which would have the double benefit of making property more affordable for those currently locked out of the market.

“Australia is a low-tax country that does not do a good job of taxing wealth. It is one of the few developed economies in the world which has neither a wealth tax nor an inheritance tax,” said Matt Grudnoff, Senior Economist at The Australia Institute.

“Correcting this would raise huge amounts of extra revenue for essential services and ease growing inequality in Australia.

With Mark Carney’s rightward economic turn on spending (save for the military), tax cuts, and natural resource development, Canadian progressives are left struggling for a vision of the alternative. However, there are whole progressive movements south of our border that can help to develop that vision. Canadian progressives need to start paying attention.

At the 2025 Panamerican Congress held August 1-2 in Mexico City, progressive legislators from Nunavut to Tierra Del Fuego discussed what they have been doing to advance the well-being of their citizens and build solidarity across borders. The government of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, host of the Congress with her Morena parliamentary group, touted the ambitious and transformative social programs they have pursued to massive public approval. Legislators from Colombia, co-leading the Hague Group, called to defend international law in solidarity with the people of Palestine. Others observed the fight against far-right extremism; even progressive House Representatives from the United States, such as Ilhan Omar, Summer Lee, Delia Ramirez, and Rashida Tlaib could at least show their bruises in their struggles against fascism.

Progressive governments in the Global South should show Canadians how to build a vision for a good society, where transformation for the wellbeing of all Canadians is the goal.

Andrew Beck argues that America needs to revive the ideal of assimilation if our country is to survive as a country. It must not have its distinctive culture washed away by the influx of immigrants coming from many different cultures and religions. New Americans, he believes, should not only pledge allegiance to the nation’s official creed, as enshrined in its founding documents and laws, but also defer to its dominant culture and way of life, including the majority religion, Christianity.

There is much to agree with in this view, which Beck is at pains to distinguish from “Christian nationalism,” whatever that is. The message of assimilation, as it used to be practiced in the 20th century, was that we Americans were proud of what we had built in this country. We assumed that foreigners were coming to America to share our freedoms and prosperity, and we were eager for them to know why America was free and why it was prosperous. Prejudices they might have brought with them, in favor of monarchy or against private property, for example, should be left behind at Ellis Island. The main instrument of assimilation was public schools, which accepted their responsibility to teach what it was to be American.

When changes to the EPBC Act were fast-tracked through Parliament earlier this year, The Australia Institute flagged that it would likely lead to the extinction of the endangered Maugean skate. The skate is an ancient species with links to the dinosaur era and can only be found in Macquarie Harbour.

“When Murray Watt became the Environment Minister, he said the salmon industry needed to lift its game on sustainability,” said Eloise Carr, Director, The Australia Institute Tasmania.

“But this decision protects the commercial salmon industry and condemns the skate to extinction.

“All of the baby skates that have hatched in captivity come from eggs fertilised in the wild. It is not a captive ‘breeding’ program, it’s a captive rearing program. That means if the skate becomes extinct in the wild, it is over for the species.

“Tasmanians have just elected independent Peter George, with the third-highest vote in the state. He was elected due to his work to protect the marine environment.

“It is clear Tasmanians are sick and tired of government inaction to address the harmful effects of the foreign-owned salmon industry on Tasmanian waterways.”

The post Minister backs foreign commercial fish farms over endangered native species appeared first on The Australia Institute.

This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

One of the most stark examples of the expanding tide of authoritarianism worldwide was the 2017 murder of Gauri Lankesh, an Indian journalist and activist, allegedly assassinated by a far-right religious group in India for her fearless journalism.

On August 10, Palestinian journalist Anas Al-Sharif wrote:

“To Whom It May Concern: The occupation is now openly threatening a full-scale invasion of Gaza. For 22 months, the city has been bleeding under relentless bombardment from land, sea, and air. Tens of thousands have been killed, and hundreds of thousands wounded. If this madness does not end, Gaza will be reduced to ruins, its people’s voices silenced, their faces erased — and history will remember you as silent witnesses to a genocide you chose not to stop. Please share this message and tag everyone who has the power to help end this massacre. Silence is complicity.”

Within hours, Al-Sharif was assassinated by the Israeli military in a targeted attack.

Al-Sharif was one of 184 Palestinian journalists murdered by Israel since 2023. He was one of tens of thousands of Palestinian fathers murdered by Israel since 2023 — a figure that will rise as forced starvation threatens millions.

Roughly half of the Palestinians killed by Israel were children. The deliberate massacre of children is unprecedented, as is the record number of reporters killed.

The Opposition Leader can’t tell you yet what the Liberals would do on housing or cost of living, or energy or climate, or how they would tackle the disruption tsunami from AI, or how they would position Australia in the shifting geopolitical space – that’s all “under review”.

But she can tell you that whenever the Coalition next wins government – at best a prospect for 2031, assuming the Coalition as we know it still exists then – it will “un-recognise Palestine”.

So the first policy priority for a future Coalition government would be going through the process of un-recognising a nation’s statehood in at least six years’ time, and this is something everyone is supposed to treat very seriously.

Yet it made headlines across Australia. Why? What does it possibly matter what the Coalition claims it would do in the 2030s? What is the rationality for thinking this is remotely serious, or even remotely possible?

Sure, it signals the Coalition has not shifted one iota on recognising a genocide, but we knew that. And a serious opposition would not pretend it has any role here other than to say what it supports or doesn’t support.

Pretending that there is any reality in which a government in the 2030s sticks to a commitment made in 2025 based entirely on emotion and political expediency is the epitome of delusion.

Christopher Wolfe’s thoughtful essay on Booker T. Washington, leisure, and work stirred some fond memories, from years ago, of making a friend by reading a book.

He was an old black man, and I was an old white man. We were both native Angelenos and had been just about old enough to drive when the Watts riots broke out in 1965. But that was half a century and a lifetime ago, and we hadn’t known one another. Los Angeles is a big place, home to many worlds. Now we were white-haired professors, reading a book together, and we became friends. His name was Kimasi, and he has since gone to a better world.  

We were spending a week with a dozen other academics reading Booker T. Washington’s autobiography, Up from Slavery. Washington was born a slave in Franklin County, Virginia, just a few years before the Civil War began. He gained his freedom through Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and the Union victory in the war. With heroic determination, he got himself an education and went on to found the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama, where he remained principal for the rest of his life.

On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Matt and Elinor discuss the RBA cutting interest rates five weeks too late, Australia’s biggest bank posting its biggest profit ever in an uncompetitive banking sector, and why Albanese seems to be putting a damper on expectations ahead of the economic roundtable next week.

This discussion was recorded on Thursday 14 August 2025 and things may have changed since recording.

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

Host: Matt Grudnoff, Senior Economist, the Australia Institute // @mattgrudnoff.bsky.social

Host: Elinor Johnston-Leek, Senior Content Producer, the Australia Institute // @elinorjohnstonleek

Show notes:

‘Climate and the Economic Reform Roundtable’ by Jack Thrower and Rod Campbell, the Australia Institute (August 2025)

‘Solving the crisis: Raising the living standards of Australian workers’ by Lisa Heap, the Australia Institute (August 2025)

Theme music: Blue Dot Sessions

Does a Hindu statue in Sugar Land, Texas, threaten America’s stability and cohesion? Andrew Beck thinks so. He wants the government to “curate or protect the dominant and preferred culture of its historic people.”

In a column I wrote to which Beck responds, I suggested America’s Christian culture is not imperiled by a lone statue in a community like Sugar Land, where Christianity and churches are quite strong. Recalling the U.S. Nazi Party based in the community where I lived during my 1970s boyhood, I extolled the U.S. Constitution for protecting free speech—even for the “absurd and the hateful,” which is “parcel to our freedom from despotism.” The Constitution, I argued, “expresses a providential trust that if truth and virtue are free to argue their case, they can in the open market of ideas survive and even prevail, at least to a certain extent, in our fallen world.”

Beck evidently has less providential trust in the power of truth and virtue, warning that “What you elevate in the public eye is what you encourage the people to idealize in their hearts.” He asks, do “we want immigrants to be looking backwards at what they left? Or looking forward to what they now are privileged to inherit?”

Beck surmises that my evident indifference about Hindu idols reveals my wider complacency about the “cost of pluralism.” He warns:

The analysis finds that climate change and productivity are inextricably linked, concluding that any genuine economic plan for the future would be incomplete without taking into account the impact of climate change.

The National Climate Risk Assessment, yet to be released to the public, includes important forecasts, modelling and information for consumers and investors about the severity and cost of weather extremes and natural disasters.

The Australia Institute analysis outlines the impact of climate change on the cost of insurance and food, which are among the main contributors to the high inflation that has dominated the global economy for the past three years.

“Australians should see the truth of the climate risks we face before the government locks in a 2035 emissions reduction target,” said David Pocock, Independent Senator for the ACT.

“Setting an emissions reduction target without knowing the extent of climate risk would be like planning a road trip without having access to a map.

“This kind of assessment isn’t an optional extra; it’s at the core of helping us protect the people and places we love.”

“Climate change is going to drive down productivity in all sorts of Australian industries. Extreme weather events will drive up costs and reduce output in industries ranging from agriculture and construction to tourism and the health sector,” said Richard Denniss, Executive Director at The Australia Institute.

Nicholas Bloom, Jonathan Hartley, Raffaella Sadun, Rachel Schuh, and John Van Reenen

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 Crooks in DC | The Roundtable Ep. 280

We are pleased to announce that nominations are now open for the 2025 Australian International Political Economy Network (AIPEN) Richard Higgott Journal Article Prize. The prize is awarded annually for the best article published in the broad field of International Political Economy (IPE) by an Australia-based academic.

The prize will be awarded to the best article published in IPE as deemed by a selection committee of IPE scholars. The award will be given to any article in IPE, understood in a pluralist sense to include the political economy of security, geography, literature, sociology, anthropology, post-coloniality, gender, finance, trade, regional studies, development and economic theory, in ways that can span concerns for in/security, poverty, inequality, sustainability, exploitation, deprivation and discrimination.

The Camp of the Saints by Jean Raspail is one of the most interesting and controversial novels of the 20th century. Which is why it’s good news that Vauban Books, a small publishing house, is coming out with a new edition, complete with a fresh translation by scholar Ethan Rundell. English-language copies of the book, first published in the U.S. in 1975, have been passed around like samizdat. The Camp of the Saints became popular again in the 2010s, but the rightsholders refused to reprint it until Vauban managed to secure the rights.

The Camp of the Saints depicts mass immigration destroying European civilization. In the novel a gigantic flotilla of boats filled with destitute Indians sets course for France to seek refugee status. After much handwringing, the government allows them to land rather than take the only other option available, which is to massacre them. France—and very quickly all of Europe—turns into a dystopian Third-World slum.

Raspail’s novel was written in the 1970s when the “boat people” fled Vietnam for Europe. The book caused an enormous sensation—it was a bestseller in France and the U.S., and eventually globally. Many have hailed it as a great and important work of prophecy. But, predictably, it was then and is now denounced as a horribly racist screed that only white supremacists would be interested in reading.

On this episode of Follow the Money, Richard Denniss joins Ebony Bennett to discuss why the constant search for the centre ground doing Australians harm, why bipartisanship can actually be bad, and his new essay, Dead Centre.

Dead Centre: How political pragmatism is killing us by Richard Denniss is available now via the Australia Institute website.

Guest: Richard Denniss, Executive Director, the Australia Institute // @richarddenniss

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

Show notes:

A chance to be brave: understanding Australia’s election result, Follow the Money, the Australia Institute (May 2025)

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

Does this make up for its bad call at the last meeting in July, when it left rates on hold?

No, because the data since the July meeting shows it should have cut again in August. So Australian borrowers are still at least one 0.25 per cent cut behind.

Unemployment is up, economic growth has almost completely stalled, and inflation is well and truly under control.

Cutting the official cash rate by 0.25 per cent to 3.6 per cent will be welcome relief for mortgage-holders, but interest rates are still restrictive. That means that rates are acting as a brake on the economy at a time when it needs a boost.

How far do rates need to fall before they are no longer weighing down the economy? This is known as the neutral rate. A rate that is neither slowing nor stimulating the economy.

It’s a bit fuzzy as to exactly what that rate is, but it is generally considered to start at around 3 per cent. So, we still need another two or three 0.25 per cent cuts on top of Tuesday’s, before rates aren’t dragging the economy down.

With headline inflation at 2.1 per cent, which is at the very bottom of the target band, all the talk has shifted to the underlying rate of inflation.

The underlying rate, also known as the trimmed mean, is the headline rate minus the volatile bits. It gives us an indication about where inflation is heading.

So, what is it telling us about where the rate of inflation is heading?

As if to confirm the problem Andrew Beck identified in “Assimilation and Its Discontents,” U.S. Representative Delia Ramirez just days after publication of his piece declared (in Spanish) at a leftist gathering in Mexico City, “I’m a proud Guatemalan before I’m an American.” The Chicago-born Democratic congresswoman—more than the Hindu idol in Texas Beck decries—defines the problem we face in creating an unum out of the plures of people, states, and regions that make up our sprawling continental nation.

Representative Ramirez deserves all the obloquy heaped on her for being America Second (at best). But the core assimilation problem we face is not that some immigrants and their children are insufficiently committed to America—it’s that America is insufficiently committed to assimilation.

Immigrants are going to take their cues from Americans about what we expect of them regarding assimilation. As an old boss of mine used to say, you teach people how to treat you—and we’ve been teaching newcomers that it’s okay to, as Beck puts it, “come to America, live in America—but…not become an American.”

Senior Economist Matt Grudnoff said while the cut in the official cash rate from 3.85% to 3.60% will provide long-overdue relief for mortgage holders, it should have happened five weeks ago.

“Borrowers should have been celebrating back-to-back cuts today,” he said.

Mr Grudnoff says the drawn-out period of high interest rates achieved its goal months ago – and is now doing more harm than good.

“Interest rates are still restrictive. They’re still weighing the economy down and causing unnecessary pain for borrowers,” he said.

“Headline inflation is at 2.1%. The underlying rate, which moves more slowly than the headline rate, has fallen every quarter for the last year. Unemployment is up and economic growth has almost completely stalled.

“How far do rates need to fall before they are no longer weighing the economy down? That figure is generally considered to be around 3%. So, we still need another two or three 0.25% cuts on top of today’s cut, before rates aren’t dragging the economy down.”

The post Rate cut welcome – but borrowers are still behind appeared first on The Australia Institute.

Where do capabilities end and dynamic capabilities begin? Unpacking the “dynamic” nature of capabilities

By Ruth Puttick and Fernando Monge

As we develop the Public Sector Capabilities Index, a question we have been asked is, What are ‘dynamic’ capabilities? And how are they different from ‘ordinary’ capabilities?

In this post, we explain how dynamic capabilities differ from operational ones and why the distinction matters.

Why dynamic capabilities matter

Stating that governments are facing complex problems is a well-rehearsed argument. City governments are having to balance large-scale shocks, such as those caused by geopolitical conflicts or health crises, with managing the demands of day-to-day delivery, often with fiscal constraints.

Donghoon Lee and Joseph Tracy

The frog, who has seen scorpions sting and kill its brethren, is cautious and tells the scorpion no, because he is afraid of being stung.

The scorpion reassures the frog by telling it he too would die if he stung the frog while riding it across the river, and the frog sees the truth in this and offers the scorpion his back. As they approach the middle of the river, the frog feels the scorpion’s tail pierce his skin, and the poison immediately begin to flow through and paralyse his body.

“Why?” he gasps as he and the scorpion sink beneath the water.

“I’m sorry,” the scorpion says as the two see the face of death. “It is but my nature.”

The moral of the story, at least as it was relayed to me as a child, is that you cannot expect rationality from those unwilling to fight their worst nature.

This week, watching Tim Wilson and the Liberals attempt to reignite the work-from-home debate, just months after the Coalition was forced to dump its policy to force the public service back into the office mid-election because of how unpopular it was, brought the frog and the scorpion front of mind.

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan announced plans last week to enshrine employees’ rights to work from home for at least two days a week in law, setting off the predictable culture war over whether workers deserve any gains.

Andrew Beck has made a cogent case for why the U.S., like other countries, requires cultural and moral cohesion to protect its nationhood and act with a unified will on behalf of the common good. Beck correctly notes that the U.S. started out as a country with a well-defined collective identity. If we look back at America’s beginnings, we discover John Jay in Federalist 2 defining this original American identity in a memorable observation:

Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people—a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence.

At the time this was written, the newly formed American nation-state was composed overwhelmingly of Northern European Protestants; its legal institutions were largely British. Its shared culture was shaped by, among other things, reading and revering the King James Bible. Among the professional class, the Bible’s authority was supplemented by that of Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England, Shakespeare’s tragedies, and (to some extent) classical texts like Plutarch’s Lives.

For some Gen Zers, it’s already time to retire. A new trend known as “micro-retirement” has spread like wildfire on social media. It involves young adults working for a few years, quitting their jobs to pursue life experiences, and then repeating the cycle. While it is tempting to dismiss this trend, micro-retirement’s appeal to Zoomers reveals much about their unique perspective on life.

One popular influencer, Adama Lorna, made the case for micro-retirement in a TikTok video: “Instead of waiting until you’re 60 or 70 to travel the world and indulge in hobbies, you do them while you have your youth, your energy, and health.” As she sees it, micro-retirement is a way for young people to have their cake and eat it too. By “retiring” every few years, they’re able to reap the freedom that comes with retiree life while enjoying their youth.

Lifestyle guru Timothy Ferriss coined the term “micro-retirement” in his book titled The 4-Hour Workweek. Although it was written in 2007, it didn’t catch on among Millennials. The fact that Zoomers popularized a term coined while they were learning their ABCs suggests that something about their generational experience primed them for it.