The Australia Institute Feed Items

There’s a huge difference between the symbolism of poor optics and the substance of poor strategy.

There’s no doubt appearing in a group photo that included dictators Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin was poor optics for Dan Andrews (perhaps why Bob Carr chose to skip it).

Barnaby Joyce responded by urging Andrews “don’t come home”, and The Australian wrote about “how Andrews and Carr became Xi’s ‘useful idiots'”.

But in the end the photo was pure symbolism; Daniel Andrews appearance in it poses no threat at all to the security of Australians.

While the political establishment spent a lot of effort finger-wagging at a photo, they missed the significance of massive strategic transition that we’re watching happen in real time.

The Australia Institute’s Allan Behm once wrote that the greatest strategic risk to Australia was “the political and social collapse of the United States of America”, because America’s strategic collapse would follow. If as many front pages or column inches had been devoted to the security implications of Australia’s biggest military ally rapidly descending into outright authoritarianism as the supposed threat from China, perhaps Australia would be in a better position.

The decline of the United States has been rapid. Australia is unprepared for the fallout.

President Donald Trump is deploying the military against the civilian population in Democrat-run cities like Chicago and Los Angeles.

It marks the greatest giveaway of Australian resources ever and will undermine the nation’s energy security, while driving up energy prices.

Environment Minister Murray Watt has not provided details of the conditions on Woodside to protect the ancient, priceless Murujuga rock art or how much Woodside succeeded in watering down those conditions during 12 weeks of secret negotiations. However, it is clear that acid gas emissions from the project will continue corroding Murujuga until 2070.

Massive emissions

The approval will add around 90 million tonnes of emissions to the atmosphere annually, equivalent to building 12 new coal power stations.

Undermine energy security

The extension allows Woodside to export enough gas to supply Western Australia for around 90 years, despite WA facing looming gas shortages and price increases. Analysis here.

The Wrap with Amy Remeikis

The world is at a crossroads and so far, Australia is reacting by sticking its head in the sand and pretending nothing is changing.

Leaders from across the globe are about to meet at the 80th UN General Assembly, in a nation which has cancelled the visas of Palestinian Authority delegates, is disappearing people off its streets, carrying out extrajudicial death sentences in its waters, and openly threatening war.

These are not normal times. Pretending they are, is part of what got us here in the first place.

The meeting will kick off on Tuesday, when the incoming president, Annalena Baerbock, a former German foreign affairs minister, will outline her agenda which runs until September 8 next year. She is taking the reins at a time where the UN director at the International Crisis Group, Richard Gowan, says “illusions have been rather stripped away” about the world, and how people feel about its leaders. “It’s now very, very clear that both financially and politically, the UN faces huge crises,” he said.

“Now the question is, is there a way through that?”

And indeed, what role does Australia play in that?

Australia is part of the nations who have agreed to give conditional recognition to Palestine, but it remains unclear at this point what that will look like at the meeting.

Woodside Energy is apparently baulking at strict new limits on nitrous oxide emissions the Albanese government wants to impose on its massive gas project to protect the ancient Indigenous rock art at Murujuga in WA.

The emissions limits are the “major sticking point” in the way of final approval for Woodside’s North West Shelf gas development, according to the AFR Rock art protections behind Woodside North West Shelf gas project delay.

Which begs the question: why is this a negotiation?

It tells you a lot about who wields power in Australia that Woodside is being allowed to haggle in secret over the conditions.

In May, Environment Minister Murray Watt gave provisional approval to a 45-year extension of the oil and gas giant’s liquid natural gas export hub on the Burrup, and an associated gas power plant.

This was subject to “strict conditions” – but they were never made public.

Supposedly, the secrecy was imposed to provide “procedural fairness” to Woodside. The gas giant was given 10 days to respond. It missed the deadline.

Four months later, the conditions are still cloaked in secrecy – and Woodside is still chipping away at them behind closed doors. So much for transparency.

Woodside’s gas facilities are adjacent to what many experts consider the most significant Indigenous rock art site in the world: The Murujuga Cultural Landscape.

Scandals have wracked Bell’s tenure, and a variety of surveys have shown widespread dissatisfaction with the ANU’s current leadership.

But the problems at the ANU are systemic.

They will not be solved with the departure of any one figure. Indeed, the governance crisis at Australia’s universities is sector-wide. In May, Dr Joshua Black and I wrote that the ANU’s rolling crises were predictable because they stem from its flawed governance structure.

Like all of Australia’s universities, the ANU lacks effective mechanisms for transparency, accountability, and representation. Every new scandal the sector has seen in the last four months is further proof.

The core problem is a vacuum of accountability. In the university sector, no one is held responsible for failure, at least no one at the top.

While vice-chancellors have CEO-like million-dollar pay packets, the university councils they answer to do not face nearly the same scrutiny as a public company’s board of directors.

On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Matt tells Elinor about the massive class action lawsuit settlement the Government made with the victims of Robodebt, Labor potentially getting cold feet on superannuation tax concession reform, and what they both tell us about how Australia views our poorest and wealthiest people.

This discussion was recorded on Thursday 11 September 2025 and things may have changed since recording.

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

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

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

Show notes:

The Australia Institute Revenue Summit 2025

‘The changes to superannuation tax concessions are needed and very fair’ by Greg Jericho, the Australia Institute (May 2025)

The proposed park ends native forest logging on the land and creates a vast sanctuary for koalas and 66 other threatened species.

But it’s always best to read the fine print and understand the Ts&Cs. In this case, they reveal a diabolical trade off.

The native forest will only be saved from logging if the government can monetise it as “carbon credits”.

“The final creation of the park is dependent on the successful registration of a carbon project,” the government makes abundantly clear.

It wants the Clean Energy Regulator to let it generate carbon credits, it seems, from a national park – an unprecedented step. If it can’t, the government says the vast koala sanctuary on the state’s mid north coast won’t go ahead.

Why is this demand a worry?

The NSW plan would only protect forests if they were monetised in ways that support continued carbon emissions.

Carbon credits are a license to pollute. If the NSW government is allowed to generate carbon credits from native forests earmarked for the great koala park, the most likely buyers would be big greenhouse gas emitters.

Under Australian law, these businesses can keep extracting and burning fossil fuels provided they “offset” their emissions by buying Australian Carbon Credit Units or ACCUs.

That’s how Woodside justifies its plans to open up new gas fields and process export gas on the North West Shelf until at least 2070 – with federal government approval.

It describes changes in other jurisdictions as “rushed, self-interested and poorly justified”.

The Australia Institute submission also warns that rules on early voting, roadside election signage and a 100-metre exclusion zone for handing out how-to-vote cards could undermine election day as a “festival of democracy” in the very heart of the nation’s democracy.

Research shows that a “reimbursement” model for public funding, as recommended by the ACT Electoral Commission, would favour wealthy incumbents at the expense of new entrants.

On this episode of Follow the Money, transparency advocate Rex Patrick and Australia Institute Democracy & Accountability Director Bill Browne to discuss the failing freedom of information system and why the proposed changes could make government less transparent – not more.

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

Guest: Rex Patrick, former Senator for South Australia // @mrrexpatrick

Guest: Bill Browne, Democracy & Accountability Director, the Australia Institute // @browne90

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

Show notes:

Proposed changes to Freedom of Information scheme don’t add up, the Australia Institute (September 2025)

The analysis finds that the costs of climate change to local councils – such as repairing roads, drainage, parks and community facilities after floods, storms, and fires – are increasing far faster than local government revenue.

The insured costs of climate change are now 12 times higher than 20 years ago, while local government revenue is only three times higher.

The findings support calls for the release of the National Climate Risk Assessment, which contains important data for councils to prepare for the impact of climate change.

On this episode of After America, Maskym Dotsenko and Illya Kletskovskyy, the Director General and Deputy Director General of the Ukrainian Red Cross, join Allan Behm to discuss the impact of the Russian invasion on Ukrainians, the role of Red Cross in armed conflict, and the importance of international humanitarian law in saving lives and reducing suffering.

This episode was recorded on Thursday 4 September.

After America: Australia and the new world order by Emma Shortis and Dead Centre: How political pragmatism is killing us by Richard Denniss are available now via the Australia Institute website.

Guest: Maskym Dotsenko, Director General, Ukrainian Red Cross Society // @MaksymDotsenko

Guest: Illya Kletskovskyy, Deputy Director General, Ukrainian Red Cross Society

Host: Allan Behm, Special Advisor, International & Security Affairs, the Australia Institute

Host: Angus Blackman, Producer, the Australia Institute // @AngusRB

Show notes:

This week we heard Liberal leader Sussan Ley demanding Anthony Albanese show “leadership” to repair social cohesion. Leadership, in the Coalition’s opinion, is conflating peaceful anti-genocide protests and marches with what we saw last weekend, where neo-Nazis were platformed on the national stage.

That is not showing “leadership”. But it is in the tradition of the Coalition, which has spent the past decade refusing to acknowledge the growing threat of the far-right in Australia – right down to then home affairs minister Peter Dutton declaring “you can use left-wing to describe everybody from the left to the right” in response to a 2020 speech from ASIO director-general Mike Burgess warning right-wing extremism was on the rise. Burgess didn’t reference left-wing extremism, but Dutton still took aim at “left-wing lunatics”.

That same year, reporting partly based on the ASIO threat assessment briefing indicated right-wing extremists represented a third of all ASIO domestic investigations, with security agencies sounding the alarm that the Covid response was being used to recruit new members to far-right causes.

On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Matt and Elinor discuss the Australia’s latest economic growth data, Trump’s threat to hit countries with digital taxes with extra tariffs, and this week’s political fight over aged care.

Early bird tickets for our Revenue Summit at Parliament House in Canberra – Hon. Steven Miles MP, Senator David Pocock, Kate Chaney MP, Greg Jericho and more – are available now.  You can buy tickets for the early bird price of $99 – available for a limited time only.

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

This discussion was recorded on Thursday 4 September 2025.

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

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

Show notes:

On this episode of Follow the Money, Clive Marshall, former CEO of the Press Association (UK), and Emma Cowdroy, Acting CEO of Australian Associated Press, join Australia Institute Executive Director Richard Denniss to discuss artificial intelligence and the news.

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

Keep up with everything that’s happening at the Australia Institute by subscribing to our newsletter.

Guest: Clive Marshall, former Chief Executive Officer, The Press Association (UK)

Guest: Emma Cowdroy, Acting CEO, Australian Associated Press

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

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

Show notes:

Media and Democracy, the Australia Institute

The latest FOI annual report from the government shows that:

• During the first two years of the Albanese government, there were about 21,000 requests determined per year – the lowest since the Gillard government (20,000 requests in 2010–11).
• But in 2010–11, the total cost of administering the FOI system was $36 million – compared to $70 million in 2022–23 and $86 million in 2023–24.
• Determining half again as many FOI requests (34,000) only cost the Howard Government $25 million to administer in 2006–07.

Australia Institute research into freedom of information laws found:

• There were considerable delays with the FOI system, both in the processing of requests and the review of FOI complaints.
• The FOI system did not meet community expectations.
• Government ministers and officials were delaying and obfuscating releasing FOI information.

Polling research from the first term of the Albanese government found that:

Believe it or not, in 2025, with Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions from transport at a near-record high, the Productivity Commission is more worried about subsidies for electric vehicles that account for just 1 per cent of the cars on our roads than it is about subsidies for the enormous 4WDs that have come to dominate our suburban streets in the past decade.

At the same time that the commission insists productivity in the housing market requires cutting back “red tape”, it is recommending a climate resilience code that would add regulation to the same industry. Pick a lane, commission people.

Let’s start with cars. The commission has suggested incentives for electric vehicles, such as the fringe benefits tax exemption, should be phased out on the basis that they “distort the market”.

That makes as much sense as arguing we should impose the GST on fresh food because it distorts the market – when distorting the market was the whole point of the tax break.

Economics 101 says we should tax things we want less of and subsidise things we want more of.

If the commission doesn’t think we should have more EVs on the roads, it should say so. But arguing that we should remove subsidies for EVs because they are working as intended is simply absurd.

But the real problem with the PC’s pogrom against EV subsidies is its lack of consistency.

“Trust, it is constantly observed, is hard-earned and easily dissipated. It is valuable social capital and not to be squandered.

“If there are no guarantees to be had, we need to place trust with care. This can be hard. The little shepherd boy who shouted ‘Wolf! Wolf!’ eventually lost his sheep, but we note not before his false alarms had deceived others time and again. Deception and betrayal often work.

“Traitors and terrorists, embezzlers and con artists, forgers and plagiarists, false promisers and free riders cultivate then breach others’ trust. They often get away with it. Breach of trust has been around since the Garden of Eden – although it did not quite work out there.

“Now it is more varied and more ingenious, and often successful.”

Modern politics has created the perfect storm for a lack of trust in government and, by association, fractures in our society and the “social cohesion” our politicians hold up as reason, excuse and driver.

One of the ways they destroy trust is through secrecy and half-truths.

The Labor government has still not released the National Climate Risk Assessment analysis, which has been described by those who have seen it as “dire and “extremely confronting” as it continues to obfuscate on setting its 2035 climate target.

On this episode of After America, Professor Elizabeth Saunders from Columbia University joins Dr Emma Shortis to discuss the extreme volatility of this administration’s foreign policy and how Trump is breaking down the guardrails of American democracy.

This episode was recorded on Thursday 28 August.

You can sign our petition calling on the Australian Government to launch a parliamentary inquiry into AUKUS.

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

Guest: Elizabeth N Saunders, Professor of Political Science, Columbia University // @profsaunders

Host: Emma Shortis, Director, International & Security Affairs, the Australia Institute // @emmashortis

Show notes:

‘Imperial President at Home, Emperor Abroad’ by Elizabeth Saunders, Foreign Affairs (June 2025)

It‘s been revealed that Santos’ Darwin LNG gas export terminal has been leaking large amounts of climate-destroying methane gas for 20 years – and gas companies and governments have failed to act.

This confirms The Australia Institute’s long-held concern that methane emissions are grossly underestimated and Australia’s regulators have been captured by the gas industry.

The reporting confirms that despite all relevant regulators and governments knowing about the leaks, the emissions will continue to go unreported and will not be included in Australia’s greenhouse gas reporting. Incredibly, Santos will be allowed to use the leaking tank until 2050 without fixing it.

It further confirms that the Northern Territory EPA (NTEPA), the CSIRO, the Clean Energy Regulator (CER), the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA), and NT WorkSafe all knew about the leak – and did nothing.

Santos will receive all the gas from the Barossa gas field that will feed its leaking Darwin LNG export terminal for free, as the Australian government will not charge it royalties. It is also very unlikely to pay Petroleum Resource Rent Tax and, according to the most recent AT0 Corporate Tax Transparency data, Santos LTD has paid virtually no company tax since 2016.

One of the few outcomes of the Economic Reform Roundtable was the Treasurer announcing the Government would “see where we can reduce complexity and red tape in the National Construction Code”. The Housing Minister has previously said regulations are partly to blame for the housing crisis by making it “uneconomic to build the kind of housing that our country needs most”, stating “builders face a ridiculous thicket of red tape that is preventing them building the homes we need.” But making “over-regulation” the villain in the housing crisis fails to recognise how underregulated much of the housing market is.

For the sake of taxpayers, let’s hope that the Audit Office is inspecting the AUKUS books closely.

Australian money is flushing into the US submarine construction system – a billion US dollars so far, with another billion by year’s end. What will Australia have to show for it?

Nothing. Except, of course, for a lot of international travel and glad-handing by the naval officers and public servants who work in the Australian Submarine Agency.

Hitherto, the only explanation for totally unsecured payments to the US is our need to contribute to America’s submarine-building capacity so that, at some date that seems to be sliding ineluctably further away, we are able to buy some Virginia-class submarines and embark on our adventure as a nuclear-powered submarine navy. Right now, the US yards cannot meet the demands of the US Navy, let alone ours. They need to double their production rate.

The march is advertised as being about ending mass immigration. Of course, there is no “correct” level of immigration to Australia – this will always be a democratic question that’s up for debate. But it’s equally clear that’s not what these protests are really about.

The media and anti-fascism activists have revealed that some of the organisers of the marches have posted white nationalist ideas like “remigration”, including pro-Nazi and pro-Hitler memes, and threatened violence. March for Australia has denied links to some prominent neo-Nazis.

While Australians firmly rejected the Coalition’s harsh anti-immigration rhetoric and policies under Peter Dutton’s leadership, scapegoating immigrants is a sadly effective tactic in politics and in the media.

More than one politician has voiced support for the March for Australia, including independent MP Bob Katter, who threatened to punch a journalist for mentioning his Lebanese heritage when questioning him about his support for the anti-immigration rallies.

It is hard to see where it goes from here.

In a 1954 lecture, then prime minister Robert Menzies said: “A man may be a tough, concentrated, successful money maker and never contribute to his country anything more than a horrible example.”

He, of course, was talking about managers, but the same could apply to the members of his party in 2025.

You don’t have to go too far back to trace the origins of the intellectual malaise that afflicts the party. John Howard was unshakeably a conservative and paved the way for what we are seeing now. Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton were the inexorable end point of Howard’s style of leadership, each having further diluted the conservative value beliefs their mentor held dear, while grasping onto Howard’s single-eyed drive for personal power.

Like Tony Abbott before them, they sought to mould the party into their own personal project, but even Abbott could claim an ideologue’s drive.

Morrison and Dutton were slaves to their own personal instincts, which is why their exit from domestic politics has been so seamless. Both disappeared like they were never there, because they weren’t. Not truly.

When their personal ambitions were thwarted, they simply moved on. In their wake, they have left a party barren of any meaning.

The data is buried in a footnote of the latest government inventory of greenhouse gas emissions. It reveals that the Moomba CCS project, owned by Santos, captured just half a megatonne of emissions in the first quarter of 2025.

World-renowned climate analyst and Senior Research Fellow at The Australia Institute, Ketan Joshi, says this equates to just 4.6 days’ worth of Santos’ total emissions and just 1.6 days’ worth of domestic emissions from Australia’s fossil fuel industries.

“In a full year, Santos will, at most, capture about 4.3% of their total emissions – yet it was paid $15 million from the Morrison government to fund this carbon capture and storage facility,” said Ketan Joshi, Senior Research Fellow at The Australia Institute.

“If that’s not bad enough, they are now being issued carbon offsets for the use of the CCS facility, which means that another polluter can buy the offsets from this facility to greenwash their emissions, as well.

“The truth is, carbon capture and storage is one of the biggest false promises in the fight against climate change.

“CCS is a fantasy policy at a time when Australia and the world need the exact opposite – real action to reduce real emissions on the road to real zero. Rather than dodgy offsets and questionable carbon capture and storage projects, it’s time to stop new gas and coal projects.”

Recent growth in Australia’s population has gone through historically big swings, starting with the closure of borders during the Covid pandemic.

This resulted in the population falling, as many people, such as foreign students, left the country. There was a period of about 18 months (from early 2020 to late 2021) where population growth was at historic lows.

When the borders reopened, many people came back and we had a period where the population increased more rapidly.

Since 2024, population growth appears to have fallen back to pre-Covid rates.

But has the bounce-back in population been larger than the slowdown during Covid? To see that, we need to project growth assuming that the population grew at the average pre-Covid rate.

If we do, we can see that the actual population is lower than it would have been if the Covid pandemic had not occurred. The actual growth in the population is the blue line and the projected number without the pandemic is the dotted orange line.

On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Matt and Elinor discuss why the latest inflation data isn’t anything to panic about, the case for economy-wide price gouging laws, and why Australia Post has stopped sending many packages to the United States.

Early bird tickets for our Revenue Summit at Parliament House in Canberra – Hon. Steven Miles MP, Senator David Pocock, Kate Chaney MP, Greg Jericho and more – are available now.  You can buy tickets for the early bird price of $99 – available for a limited time only.

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

This discussion was recorded on Thursday 28 August 2025.

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

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

Show notes:

August was another busy month at the Australia Institute!

With Parliament sitting, the economic roundtable and more, there was already a lot going on! And we were still releasing new research, holding events, press conferences, the list goes on.

Watch a select highlight of content and media from the Australia Institute in August 2025.

The post Media Highlights August 2025 appeared first on The Australia Institute.

On this episode of Follow the Money, manufacturing industry representative Geoff Crittenden and Australia Institute Principal Advisor Mark Ogge join Ebony Bennett to discuss how governments can ensure there’s more gas available for Australians.

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

Guest: Geoff Crittenden, Chief Executive Officer, WELD Australia

Guest: Mark Ogge, Principal Advisor, the Australia Institute // @markogge

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

Show notes:

Impact of gas exports on Australian energy prices, the Australia Institute (July 2025)

Big gas is taking the piss, Follow the Money (April 2025)

Policy can seem like opening a blind box: you’ll get something, but probably not what you want. Jim Chalmers’ economic roundtable was no different. Every option is on the table, yes, but what we’ll get is as unknown as what is driving the Labubu craze.

First, the positives. Holding the roundtable is at least an indication that the government is looking to expand the mandate it took to the election. Despite Anthony Albanese’s repeated statements (always carefully worded in the present tense) that “the only tax policy that we’re implementing is the one that we took to the election”, every Labor MP privately admits there is not only the need to do more on tax but also the space. A whopping majority tends to focus even the most recalcitrant minds on the art of the possible.

The issue with the roundtable is that the same groups advising on how to disarm the intergenerational economic bombs that have started to explode are the same groups that helped set them.

The Productivity Commission, Treasury, the Business Council — the same outfits that have spent the past 25 or more years advocating for more privatisation and tax cuts, claiming they are panaceas for productivity growth — are now sounding the alarms that productivity has continued to fall.

On this episode of After America, Allan Behm joins Dr Emma Shortis to discuss Trump’s deployment of federal authorities to Democrat-voting jurisdictions, land grabs by the Russian and Israeli governments, and what a collapse of American democracy might mean for Australia.

This episode was recorded on Friday 22 August.

You can sign our petition calling on the Australian Government to launch a parliamentary inquiry into AUKUS.

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

Guest: Allan Behm, Special Advisor, International & Security Affairs, the Australia Institute

Host: Emma Shortis, Director, International & Security Affairs, the Australia Institute // @emmashortis

Show notes:

Beyond the Two-State Solution: Policy responses to the Destruction of Palestine and the Insecurity of Israel by Emma Shortis, Allan Behm and Bob Bowker, The Australia Institute (February 2025)

The Albanese government’s Economic Reform Roundtable has far more to do with political power than how best to boost the rate of production at Australia’s factories or mines. The agenda was far narrower than the breadth of problems facing Australia and the attendees. With a few notable exceptions, those assembled were more likely to demand more tax cuts and more cuts to government spending than to question why decades of doing precisely that has delivered not just record low productivity growth but also record low quality in our essential services.

One of the core beliefs that unites Australian chief executives, the Department of the Treasury, the Productivity Commission and most of the Australian media is that the less tax a country collects and the less money it spends on essential services, the better its economy will perform. If only there was some data to back up their strong feelings.

According to the pinko lefties at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the OECD – now headed by that well-known progressive Mathias Cormann – Australia is already one of the lowest taxed countries in the developed world and has one of the smallest public sectors. Yet despite decades of taking the advice of organisations such as the Productivity Commission and Treasury, resulting in decades of deregulation, privatisation and tax cuts, Australia has witnessed a collapse in productivity growth.

The laws – which were rushed through late last year – came into effect from the new financial year, ahead of the next state election on March 21, 2026.

The laws go further than any other state in Australia in banning political donations and replacing them with taxpayer funding of parties and candidates.

However, the same pattern appears in other states and in recent changes to federal election laws – the new taxpayer funding is not fairly distributed between parties and candidates, and restrictions fall more heavily on new entrants and independents while loopholes ensure major parties can still operate comfortably.

New entrants are strictly restricted in the donations they can receive – but are not eligible for the same taxpayer funding that existing players will be.

In South Australia, minor parties and independents will struggle while incumbent political parties run multimillion-dollar campaigns with public money.

The 2026 state election should provide more data on how incumbents and challengers alike respond to large-scale taxpayer funding of elections.

Independents and new parties considering national politics will watch with interest, since a Labor/Liberal deal means that the next federal election will also feature party campaigns funded by the taxpayer and restrictions on
fundraising that fall more heavily on new entrants.

In the fight against slavery, abolitionists eventually prevailed over slave owners. The long fight was not won in the sensible centre, but by “radical, democratic” absolutists who risked their lives in the fight to save the lives of others. It scares me to think how the ABC, or indeed most of the world’s media, would report on such a debate today.

Can you imagine the economic modelling on the jobs that would be lost in the slave-using industries? Or the endless discussion of the impact on the price of clothes if slaves didn’t pick cotton?

And can you imagine the modern debate about the best way to compensate hard-working slave owners whose business model was based on long-accepted rules allowing whipping and branding?

Slavery persists today, and England (the major global slave trader of the 1800s) paid out the equivalent of over £17 billion in compensation to slave owners in 1837, but it’s important to remember that change was driven by abolitionists, not centrists.

The incrementalism on the path to abolition was a consequence of sustained pressure against change, but the incrementalism was never the goal. Unsurprisingly, few mock the extremism of those who fought to end slavery in the US and UK, and few argue abolitionists would have achieved more if they had asked for less.

On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Matt and Elinor discuss the big fine handed to Qantas, how a training levy on businesses could improve productivity, the misunderstandings around the causes of Australia’s housing crisis, and the latest from the government’s economic reform roundtable.

Sign our petition calling on fossil fuel producers to pay a climate disaster levy.

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

This discussion was recorded on Thursday 21 August 2025.

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

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

Show notes:

SA algal bloom underlines urgent need for National Climate Disaster Fund, the Australia Institute (August 2025)

Artificial intelligence is good and red tape is bad.

Really? Wasn’t this a chance to deal with the big issues? To pave the way for genuine reform?

Maybe more will filter out in the coming weeks. After all, the roundtable was conducted behind closed doors. Maybe I’m an old cynic, but I have my doubts.

In the lead-up, we were treated to lots of ideas. Some great, some good, and some thinly disguised self-interest. Yes, I’m looking at you business lobby groups who want to cut the company tax rate.

As it got closer, the push was on to confine it to deal only with small things. After decades of successive governments dodging real reform, all that had been achieved was making all the big problems progressively worse.

And small things are what we got, including the call to reduce red tape.

If people truly want to reduce red tape, then they should come up with specific proposals on what should be changed. Vague calls to reduce red tape are meaningless.

This is exemplified by the call to freeze the National Construction Code. Not only would such a freeze stop good changes from being added, it would also stop bad regulations from being removed or modified. But this was all justified as part of a push to speed up housing approvals and construction times.

The federal government has little to do with building approvals. But it has been out telling everyone who will listen that the problem is housing supply. You know … that thing it has almost no control over but is instead controlled by state governments.

On this episode of Follow the Money, Senior Economist Matt Grudnoff joins Ebony Bennett to discuss the Government’s economic roundtable, why taxing wealth more effectively would make Australians better off, and why removing as-yet-unnamed ‘red tape’ isn’t going to fix productivity.

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

You can listen to Dollars & Sense each week on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Guest: Matt Grudnoff, Senior Economist, the Australia Institute // @mattgrudnoff

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

Show notes:

This was a question asked of Anthony Albanese on Wednesday, after alleged war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu denounced him as a “weak” leader who had “abandoned Australian Jews” and “betrayed Israel”.

What led to this? Australia is joining most of the rest of the world in the (largely symbolic) act of recognising Palestine and has cancelled the visas of far-right Israeli politicians who called Palestinian children “little snakes” and the “enemy”. Children.

Netanyahu is wanted by the ICC for crimes against humanity and war crimes. Palestinians are being deliberately starved through Israel’s policies.

It is not an allegation that Israel has plans for the mass removal of Palestinians in Gaza, it is documented. Tens of thousands of civilians have been killed, most of them women and children, and that is just the numbers we have from when Gaza still had infrastructure in place.

We have no idea how many are still trapped beneath the rubble. No way of counting the missing. Israel’s forces are not fighting against a military. There is no safe place for people in Gaza, no way out, and no way to be safe.

And still, STILL, our leaders are being asked “how do we get the relationship with Israel back on track?”.

When do we stop pretending that Israel has any moral authority to criticise any other nation state?

World-renowned climate analyst and Senior Research Fellow at The Australia Institute, Ketan Joshi, has crunched the numbers and found that, despite claims of a shortage or crisis, Victoria is, in fact, a net exporter of gas.

Data from the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water clearly shows that gas consumption has been declining in Victoria for years, which has led to an oversupply. It’s being driven by soaring gas prices (caused by exports) and legislation forcing Victorians to electrify their homes at a faster rate than any other state.

“Victoria exports way more gas than it consumes,” said Ketan Joshi, Senior Research Fellow at The Australia Institute.

“The Australia Institute recently produced a video of a massive gas drilling rig near the iconic 12 Apostles. Projects like this simply don’t make sense. They are unnecessary.

“Despite all the breathless claims of a gas shortage in Victoria, federal government data shows the true picture, that there is an oversupply.

“To top it off, demand for gas in Victoria is at its lowest level in a generation – and falling – as high prices and regulations force people to electrify their homes.

“The last time gas use was this low in Victoria, Dirty Dancing was in the cinema and Rick Astley cassette tapes were selling like hot cakes.”

On this episode of After America, Dr Emma Shortis joins Angus Blackman to discuss the fallout from Trump’s meeting with Putin, the Australian government’s commitment to recognising Palestinian statehood, and the not-super-encouraging prospects for American democracy as Trump sics the National Guard on Washington, D.C.

This episode was recorded on Monday 18 August.

You can sign our petition calling on the Australian Government to launch a parliamentary inquiry into AUKUS.

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

Host: Emma Shortis, Director, International & Security Affairs, the Australia Institute // @emmashortis

Host: Angus Blackman, Producer, the Australia Institute // @angusrb

Show notes: 

Australia Institute research has found that a fund, paid for by big polluters responsible for climate change, would save taxpayers tens of billions of dollars a year.

The research found that a levy of $30 per tonne of carbon pollution caused by coal, oil and gas production would have raised $44 billion this year alone.

The South Australian and federal governments have, so far, pledged $28 million of taxpayers’ money in response to the algal bloom, which is being driven by rising sea temperatures due to climate change.

It’s having a devastating impact on sea life, tourism, fishing, and other marine industries.

“As it stands, South Australian communities, families and business owners are being left to foot the bill for this crisis, and that simply isn’t good enough,” said Noah Schultz-Byard, a South Australia-based Director at The Australia Institute.

“State and federal governments have been caught flat-footed in their response to this algal bloom tragedy.

“If the government had a National Climate Disaster Fund at the ready, so that they could quickly roll out the level of support that is actually needed in these communities, it would be a very different story.

“Currently, regular Australians are paying for climate-related disasters through higher taxes, increased insurance premiums, and lost income.

But will the Albanese government spend the next three years using its thumping majority to lead bold reforms or deliver damp squib solutions?

Next week’s productivity roundtable will reveal which path the Prime Minister intends to tread, and so far, it looks like all it’s set to do is weaken environment laws and delay big tax reforms until after the next election.

Between the Treasury advice leaked to the ABC and the Prime Minister ruling out any major tax reforms before the next election, the government poured a bucket of cold water on any real excitement building for the productivity roundtable.

And the productivity roundtable has a big job ahead of it. Australia doesn’t just have a productivity problem, it has a revenue problem.

Australia is one of the lowest-taxing countries in the developed world. In fact, if Australia collected the OECD average in tax – not the highest amount, just the average – the Commonwealth would have had an extra $140 billion in revenue in 2023-24.

Previous Australia Institute analysis shows the gas policy mess created by Australian governments allowing virtually unlimited exports of gas from eastern Australia has led to a tripling of gas prices and doubling of wholesale electricity prices.

The analysis shows that incremental and technocratic attempts to fix the problems have failed, and that the ACTU proposal would solve these problems. It would:

• Increase domestic gas supply by providing a strong incentive for gas companies to supply uncontracted gas to Australian customers rather than selling it on the global spot market.
• Reduce domestic gas prices by significantly increasing the supply of gas to the domestic market.

Importantly, unlike the other technocratic policies, the ACTU proposal could not easily be gamed by the gas industry, which has run rings around the government for decades.

The elephant in the room is that it is business that has the biggest influence on productivity. Certainly, it has a much bigger impact than workers, who typically get the blame when things go wrong.

The factor that most shapes how productive workers are, we must remember, is the technology they work with. It is management that is responsible for the decisions about what technology a business introduces, and how. Workers often do not have much of a say.

It is not workers who make the decisions about how much money is available for investment. It is not workers who make the decision about which particular technologies to buy, install and use. It is not workers who decide how much money should be allocated to the training of workers to use the new technology, or how those workers should be deployed. It is management.

Sure, there is lots of evidence that, when workers have a say at work, productivity is higher. But managers often don’t give them a chance to have more than a token say, if they have any say at all. Any attempts by governments to legislate that workers decide or influence decisions on those matters are opposed by business bodies in Australia.

Canberra is in the grip of Abundance fever, a virus that threatens to overwhelm public policy with a diagnosis of overregulation.

For those afflicted, the treatment is to maintain the status quo, but with the sheen of progressivism.

The Abundance agenda is being presented as a panacea for all of America’s problems, and therefore also Australia’s problems. It’s shaping next week’s productivity summit, as policy wonks, institutional heads, journalists and most government MPs hold up the Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson book as the new bible.

In America, the authors have been invited to speak at Democratic retreats as the answer to their woes, even as polling, the New York mayoral primary and the exasperated hair-pulling of millions of Americans say they’d much prefer Bernie Sanders’ socialism. But why change when you can do more of the same and call it abundance?

There are some thoughtful arguments in the book, but the crux of it boils down to “everything would be just fantastic and problem-free if we just cut the red tape that was holding back all that abundance we could be throwing around”.

Recently, we published a video showing a huge new gas drilling rig in Victoria, within sight of the 12 Apostles – a globally recognised tourist hotspot. As Dr Emma Shortis says in the video:

“We are putting our coastlines at risk to extract gas we don’t even need. Australia already produces way more gas than we use….Australia doesn’t have a gas shortage. We have a gas export problem”

Despite the undeniable numbers here, a ‘gas shortage’ is still put forward as one of the most common rationalisations for building massive new gas exploration and extraction sites, like the monster off Victoria’s coast.

A little-known data set buried in Australia’s government energy accounts lays it out quite nicely, and quite dramatically.

You may have seen something like this before in our charts, like here. But we’ve discovered recently that you can also zoom down into the state level, and see which regions of Australia have the most significant oversupply problem for fossil gas.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.