Rethinking public debt Lars Syll Few issues in politics and economics are nowadays more discussed — and less understood — than public debt. Many raise…
Understatement of unemployment John Haly In Australia, the media and government utilise Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) unemployment statistics. These indicate that the jobless rate…
This title borrows a phrase from Ruth Puttick, Principal Research Fellow at UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP), during the panel “Building Dynamic Capabilities: How Do Cities Adapt to Tackle Grand Challenges?” The session was chaired by Dan Hill, Director of Melbourne School of Design, and featured Mariana Mazzucato, Founding Director of UCL IIPP, James Anderson, Head of Government Innovation Programs at Bloomberg Philanthropies, Ruth Puttick, Senior Research Fellow at UCL IIPP, and Bridgette Morris, Innovation and Customer Insights Manager for the City of Cape Town. Held as part of the 2025 IIPP Forum, the panel explored why promising ideas often stall inside city governments and what it really takes to make progress last. This blog follows up on that conversation.
Israeli bombardment in Gaza kills 58 people in one day ABC / Reuters | 1 July 2025 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-01/israeli-bombardment-in-gaza-kills-58-people-in-one-day/105479464 A beachfront cafe and schools were among targets struck on Monday as Israel stepped up its latest campaign in Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has signalled it would be intensifying operations in the Palestinian enclave after […]
Milei’s “Radical Plan”, revisited – part 2 Peter Rock-Lacroix In 2023, Javier Milei pitched dollarization as the path toward prosperity for Argentina. Two years on,…
How monetary myths conceal power Asad Zaman Modern economics rests on a dangerous illusion: that abstract, universal laws – derived primarily from the European experience…
Howl of frustration John Alt I recently received a plaintive howl from someone who had just finished viewing my five Video-Diagrams: “How”, he agonized, “can…
Pornography has never been more free—free in a double sense because nearly anyone in the world can access pornography at little to no cost, and there are seemingly no limits to what can be pornographized. Given the pervasiveness of pornography in the world today, and its real impact on our political and personal lives, last month our Materialist Feminist Reading Group read Andrea Dworkin’s recently re-issued book Pornography: Men Possessing Women. At the end of the session, we considered the question: what ought to be the Left’s position on pornography? Or, as Dworkin provocatively puts it: can the Left have its whores and its politics too?
On this episode of After America, Professor James Laurenceson, Director of the Australia-China Relations Institute, joins Dr Emma Shortis to discuss the Trump administration’s confused approach to China and how Australia is navigating these complex relationships.
This discussion was recorded on Friday 13 June 2025 and things may have changed since recording.
You can sign our petition calling on the Australian Government to launch a parliamentary inquiry into AUKUS.
Join Dr Emma Shortis and Dr Richard Denniss in conversation about After America: Australia and the new world order at the University of Melbourne at 6pm AEST, Wednesday 16 July.
Guest: James Laurenceson, Professor and Director, Australia-China Relations Institute, University of Technology Sydney // @j_laurenceson
Host: Emma Shortis, Director, International & Security Affairs, the Australia Institute // @emmashortis
Ever since the Republican Party failed to repeal and replace Obamacare during President Trump’s first term, healthcare reform has slipped off the GOP’s agenda. However, Obamacare’s problems continue to fester, with Americans in the individual health insurance market facing high costs and restricted choices. If the GOP intends to deliver on its pledge to help middle-class families—and especially the young voters who swung to Trump—it must finally honor its broken promise to repeal and replace Obamacare. In doing so, the GOP could look to countries like Australia, Chile, and Germany on how to restructure the individual market.
Climate change has made it impossible to treat development as business as usual. Extreme weather, food insecurity, mass displacement, and the loss of biodiversity are exposing just how outdated our economic governance models have become. But while governments have shown they can mobilize trillions in times of war or financial collapse, this boldness is still absent when it comes to inequality, hunger, and climate resilience.
In this context, the climate crisis can no longer be seen as an environmental issue, but a governance challenge. And the aid system, still anchored in a donor-driven assistance paradigm, is being called into question.
This blog is a follow-up to the panel discussion From Digital Feudalism to Digital Sovereignty, part of UCL IIPP’s Rethinking the State Forum 2025. The session, chaired by Rainer Kattel, Co-Deputy Director and Professor of Innovation and Public Governance at UCL IIPP, featured Francesca Bria, Honorary Professor at UCL/IIPP, member of the High-Level Roundtable for the New European Bauhaus, and co-author of EuroStack 2025; Mike Bracken, visiting Professor at UCL/IIPP, founding partner at Public Digital and former Executive Director of the UK Government Digital Service; Mariana Mazzucato, Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at UCL and Founding Director of IIPP; and Cecilia Rikap, Associate Professor in Economics and Head of Research at UCL/IIPP. The recording can be watched above.
“Don’t even bother talking about efficiency unless you know what it’s for”. With this provocation, Mariana Mazzucato opened the panel “Beyond the Chainsaw: Rethinking Efficiency in Government” at IIPP’s Rethinking the State Forum 2025. The conversation, moderated by Josh Entsminger, PhD student at UCL’s Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, featured Yamini Aiyar, former CEO of the Centre for Policy Research; Rohit Chopra, former Director of the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; Elizabeth Linos, Emma Bloomberg Associate Professor of Public Policy and Management; Damon Silvers, Visiting Professor at UCL IIPP; and Mazzucato herself, Professor and Founding Director at UCL IIPP.
Over the course of ninety minutes, the panel unpacked what efficiency has come to mean in public administration and how, far from being a neutral virtue, it has become a weapon.
On this episode, Sunita Narain joins Paul Barclay to discuss the need for inclusive and equitable growth in tackling climate change, pollution and congestion in Delhi, renewable energy in India and how climate change and climate justice will affect global migration.
This discussion was recorded on Tuesday, 18 February 2025, and things may have changed since the recording.
Media Release Number 2025-15: The RBA has commenced its consultation on Guidance for the Australian Clearing and Settlement Facility Resolution Regime.
Labor’s landslide federal election victory in May, both in seats and two-party preferred terms, was underpinned by a greater number of preferences than ever from voters who didn’t put it first on the ballot paper.
Key findings:
The Labor Party has never received so many preferences from voters who didn’t put it first.
The growing number of voters giving their first preference to a minor party or independent candidate is hurting the Coalition far more than Labor.
In 2013, 21% of voters gave their primary vote to a minor party or independent candidate. Of that, more preferred Labor (62%) to the Coalition (38%). Yet the Coalition was able to form government.
In 2025, 34% of voters gave their primary vote to a minor party or independent candidate. Despite an almost identical split of preferences to 2013 (62% Labor/38% Coalition), Labor won in a landslide.
In 2025, the Liberal–National Coalition had a historically low vote, whether you measure it in first-preference or 2PP terms.
“One of the great Australian innovations is the full preferential voting system, which guarantees that every vote matters and you cannot waste your vote,” said Bill Browne, Democracy & Accountability Director at the Australia Institute.
The comparison of median rent data for March Qtr 2025 shows that the commercial asking rent data inflates rent prices, a trend reflected over time. This matters because it impacts on rents in the market.
Israeli strikes kill at least 72 people in Gaza as prospects for ceasefire in war improve ABC / AP | 29 June 2025 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-29/israel-strikes-gaza-displacement-tents-ceasefire-talks-improve/105473676 More than 70 people, including children, have been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza, according to Palestian health officials. There have been sporadic indirect talks between Israel and Hamas since Israel […]
At the 2025 federal election, the Albanese Labor Government won over 55% of the two-party preferred vote. The two-party preferred vote, called 2PP, measures whether Australians preferred their Labor candidate or their Liberal–National Coalition candidate. 55% of the 2PP is the party’s best result since 1943.
This high 2PP vote disguises a relatively low first-preference vote of 35% for Labor. That is, only about one in three voters put “1” next to their Labor candidate.
The Labor Party has never received so many preferences. 20% of Australians preferred Labor to the Coalition but did not put Labor first. That 20% plus the 35% who gave Labor their first preference results in 55% 2PP for Labor. The result is a Labor landslide, despite a relatively low first-preference vote.
The Liberal–National Coalition also depended on preferences to an unusually large degree. Even so, it had a historically low vote, whether you measure it in first-preference or 2PP terms.
What’s On around Naarm/Melbourne & Regional Victoria: June 30-July 6, 2025 With thanks to the dedicated activists at Friends of the Earth Melbourne! . . See also these Palestine events listings from around the country: 9193
FPM Media Report Saturday June 28 2025 IDF launches investigation into possible war crimes after deaths near aid sites https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-27/israeli-strike-kills-18-palestinians-in-central-gaza/105471440 In short: The Israeli military has opened an inquiry into possible war crimes after deaths near a Gaza aid site. Meanwhile, 18 people have been killed by an Israeli air strike in Gaza, in an […]
We are at war with Iran, we are not at war with Iran. Federal lands are for sale, the sale of federal lands is prohibited. The tariffs are back, the tariffs are over. Foreign students are banned, foreign students can stay. Trump rebuffs Israel, Trump will defend Israel to the death.
To the death, to our death: the threat of death is the constant. Nothing is real except awful things that don’t stop growing and don’t backtrack. Death is behind the drapes you draw down like a gunfight you already lost. The temperature hits 100 and makes you remember when the world had centuries instead of one endless day.
The heat will not relent. Why should it when nothing else will?
Politics is a jigsaw seesaw with a push and pull that cuts. Every policy is retracted and reinstated so that you can no longer remember relief. What were its ingredients — time, promises? She inhaled a sigh of relief, you think, but all you inhale is heat. You open the front door and stick out your head and breathe like Sylvia Plath.
Slam the door: you have a choice. Slam the door on that cannonball sun.
This article was originally published, in slightly different form, on the writer’s Substack, Chris Arnade Walks the World. It is shared here with permission. Photos provided by the writer.
This blog is a follow-up to the panel discussion “Decolonising Public Administration: Rethinking Public Governance and Policy”, part of the 2025 IIPP Forum. The session gathered researchers and practitioners to interrogate how ‘decolonisation’ is being deployed across public institutions, and whether that language is matched by structural change. The recording of the event can be watched above.
What is the state? How does it function? And who benefits from it? For Professor Rainer Kattel, Co-Deputy Director and Professor of Innovation and Public Governance at UCL IIPP, these are the fundamental questions that any serious conversation about decolonising public administration must confront.
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
There’s a world before Trump’s descent down the escalator, and there’s a world after it. The recent “No Kings” protests transmitted the idée fixe of the pre-2015 world. That idea was hostility to personal authority, or personal power—hostility to the notion of sovereignty, to the power once exercised by kings. Donald Trump, the figure who has dominated politics since 2015, is its most visible sign of contradiction. In that sense, the protesters weren’t entirely wrong. Trump’s success marks the passing of the world of the latter half of the 20th century, which was defined by hatred of personal authority.
Successive generations demolished the concept of sovereignty, casting suspicion on the notion that a leader’s decisions can legitimately reshape political or social life. This shift began in the United States when the intelligentsia promulgated the concept of “the authoritarian personality.” They found this personality in the working classes, their churches and associations, their families and fathers, and the politicians who represented them. Where there was the whiff of authoritarian character traits, fascism probably lurked.
In 2010, the U.S. government created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to restore public trust after the global financial meltdown. It was a bold experiment: a state agency with a clear mission, deep expertise, and a mandate to protect ordinary people from predatory financial practices. By all accounts, it worked. Until it became DOGE’s target.
At the recent panel, which opened IIPP’s Rethinking the State Festival, titled “Rethinking Public Value in the Age of Doge”, former CFPB Director Rohit Chopra described what’s happening:
In this paper we study the propagation of demand and supply shocks in a heterogeneous agent New Keynesian model. Calibrating the model to Australia, we explore how inequality in the model affects shock transition, as well as how shocks impact individuals differently across the distribution. Contrary to much of the literature, with a single asset in the model we find a dampening in the response of the real economy to a monetary policy shock, driven by falling consumption in the extremes of the distribution. This dampening is likely due to the high holdings of liquid assets by many households in the model, which allows these households to effectively smooth their consumption, emphasising the need to include further asset classes. In the case of supply shocks, we likewise find a dampened response of the real economy to both a labour disutility shock and a mark-up shock. These results highlight the need to explore models with more realistic asset classes in the Australian context.
A few days before my 39th birthday, I found myself relaxing in a reclining chair, Bob Marley and the Beach Boys playing through a home speaker while my Xanax kicked in. It might’ve been the perfect way to ring in another year gone- if I hadn’t also had a gigantic needle in my neck.
Yes, eight days ago I underwent a Stellate Ganglion Block procedure in yet another semi-experimental attempt to treat various Long COVID symptoms, including dysautonomia and migraines (both of which SGBs show some promise in alleviating). The nurse at the neurology and pain center asked me to pick a playlist, and I’d attempted to replicate the feeling of relaxing on a beach. And it had gone pretty well until needle met neck.
To borrow a phrase from a writer many of my radical colleagues love to cite, the chickens are coming home to roost at colleges and universities around the country.
As anyone paying even a modicum of attention knows, the Trump Administration is endeavoring to curtail some of the more explicit ideological partisanship going on in higher education under the mask of scholarship and teaching. Beyond that, many schools are recognizing that bottom lines have shifted, and faculty hiring will have to adjust.
Recently, faculty and administrative communities on many campuses have discussed the difficulties departments are facing in replacing departing faculty lost through retirement or moves. The American Association of University Professors has been fretting about it for some years. My place of employment, Bucknell University, is currently experiencing just such a moment, as have institutions like American University and UNC-Chapel Hill.
Only President Trump could have ordered Operation Midnight Hammer, which dealt a blow to the Iranian nuclear program while blazing a path toward a real diplomatic solution to the Iran-Israel conflict. The president has demonstrated peace through strength, and it is now the responsibility of policymakers and defense officials to ensure the military can deter and, if necessary, win in a range of conflict environments.
By all accounts, Operation Midnight Hammer was a stunning success. It was a meticulously executed, 37-hour tactical operation that was meant to cripple Iran’s nuclear program. It demonstrated America’s unrivaled ability to project force across continents, penetrate air defenses, and strike hardened targets with precision.
The coordination of stealth bombers, mid-air refueling aircraft, and supporting naval assets showcased the professionalism and lethality of the U.S. military. At least a dozen B-2 bombers, including those that were part of the deception flights out of Guam, were joined by mid-air refueling tankers, multiple fighter jets, and even a few nuclear-powered submarines that acted in concert against three Iranian nuclear sites. For many observers, it appeared to reaffirm the conviction that when the United States chooses to act, it can do so with unmatched resolve and capability. President Trump’s decisiveness is fundamental to this reality, one that our enemies are only beginning to come to grips with.
The federal budget today resembles a time bomb with a Medicare card taped to it. Entitlement spending consumes the vast majority of federal outlays, and future obligations (mostly from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid) far exceed $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities. Reform is overdue, but politically radioactive. The welfare state is no longer a safety net—it is a gravitational force pulling federal priorities inward.
Sixty-nine million Americans received $1.5 trillion in Social Security payments in 2024. Nearly $2 trillion was spent on Medicare and Medicaid combined. Welfare outlays were $1.6 trillion. The magnitude of these numbers is not simply staggering, but beyond comprehension. For comparative scale, the outlay for military salaries and housing was $176.2 billion for fiscal year 2024. Federal employees who weren’t military were paid $384 billion.
This is obviously irresponsible and unsustainable. Treating Social Security as anything other than a general fund and part of the federal income tax structure is dishonest. The program is a general fund in, and a general fund out. This was once an important debate—but it is no longer.
Donald Trump’s f-bomb is one missile that could sway Benjamin Netanyahu ABC | Matthew Doran | 25 June 2025 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-25/trump-and-netanyahu-ceasefire-reaction-analysis/105456502 The world is rarely left wondering what Donald Trump thinks. It might be confounded by the tone, but most of the time his unique turn of phrase expresses a blunt assessment of what’s happening in […]
Palestine Israel Media Report Thursday 19 June 2025 Gazans fear they are being forgotten amid focus on Iran https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-19/gazans-fear-they-are-being-forgotten-amid-focus-on-iran/105434708 While Israel’s war with Iran continues, Gazans are begging for help, saying their suffering is being ignored because of the new conflict. “No one cares about Gaza. The massacres continue in silence,” Mahmoud Wadi, from northern […]
