The Australia Institute Feed Items

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.

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.

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”.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

It remains true. And that’s how we know business is very worried about the productivity roundtable Jim Chalmers has called for later this month.

Back in 2020, when the pandemic had all elements of Australia’s industrial relations sector in a panic, the emphasis was on the ACTU and business working together.

Countless op-eds were written about how union boss Sally McManus and the Coalition’s then-IR minister Christian Porter worked to find elements of consensus in how to address the looming crisis.

“No time for a workplace brawl”, advised the Australian Financial Review. That push for consensus continued into 2022 when Labor held its Jobs Summit, with the Business Council of Australia and the ACTU jointly releasing “shared principles and policy suggestions” ahead of the talkfest, as if laying the groundwork for the shared interest would make disagreeing later easier.

It didn’t. And getting along doesn’t mean good policy. Usually it just dulls any progressive push for structural change.

Which is why the immediate pushback against the ACTU’s call for a 25 per cent tax on revenue from gas exports in place of the flawed Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT), a minimum 25 per cent tax rate on family trusts and individuals earning more than $1 million a year, changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions and caps to the diesel fuel rebate very telling.

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.

On this special crossover episode of Follow the Money and After America, Dr Emma Shortis joins Glenn Connley to discuss the Australian protests calling for more action to protect Palestinians, the momentum against the troubled AUKUS submarine pact, and Trump’s decision to fire his chief of labour statistics after job growth slowed.

This discussion was recorded on Monday 4 August 2025.

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 for pre-order now via the Australia Institute website.

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

Host: Glenn Connley, Senior Media Advisor, the Australia Institute // @glennconnley

Which brings us to Labor’s revamped ‘Safeguard Mechanism’.

First, let’s set one thing straight. This is basically all about the coal and gas industries. More than 54% of emissions covered by the Safeguard Mechanism come from gas or coal:

This chart shows how big the emissions from the gas and coal industries are compared to other industries covered by the Safeguard Mechanism. Often industries like cement production, agriculture or manufacturing are presented as being a big part of Australia’s climate debate. This chart shows that they’re not, at least in terms of the Safeguard Mechanism.

So, here’s how the Safeguard Mechanism manages to look effective while actually facilitating gas and coal projects.

Rising temperatures and ocean acidification caused by greenhouse gases are among the greatest threats to the marine environment, particularly coral reefs.

Australia Institute research shows emissions from the recent expansion and extension of Woodside’s gas export projects in WA will add around 130 million tonnes of emissions to the atmosphere annually, more than all of Australia’s coal power stations.

Woodside also conducts seismic blasting, which is detrimental to marine life, and is proposing drilling close to the pristine Scott Reef, which the Western Australian Environmental Protection Authority flagged as unacceptable.

“Woodside is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than virtually any other company in Australia,” said Mark Ogge, Principal Advisor at The Australia Institute.

“This sponsorship is another example of greenwashing by one of the companies doing the most damage to our marine environment and coral reefs.

On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Greg explains the Productivity Commission’s proposals for corporate tax and why Trump fired his labour statistics chief, and Elinor discovers people actually like economics.

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 7 August 2025.

Host: Greg Jericho, Chief Economist, the Australia Institute and Centre for Future Work // @grogsgamut

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

Show notes:

‘Donald Trump’s war on statistics is an authoritarian attack on democracy and countries like Australia should call it out’ by Greg Jericho, Guardian Australia (August 2025)

On this episode of After America, Dr Emma Shortis and Angus Blackman discuss how Trump is normalising the idea that he might not leave the White House once his second term is up. Then, Helen Haines MP, independent member for Indi, joins Emma to discuss her community’s concerns about Israel’s actions in Gaza and the growing push for more transparency and accountability in Australian foreign policy.

Emma’s discussion with Helen was recorded on Tuesday 29 July. Her discussion with Angus was recorded on Thursday 7 August.

After America will be back on Tuesday 19 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 for pre-order now via the Australia Institute website.

Guest: Helen Haines MP, Independent Member for Indi // @‪helenhainesindi

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

From multiple press conferences with parliamentarians, to dicussions around how to fix the GST, to our new research into Australian gun laws, we had a lot to talk about.

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

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

The profit motive is a great thing in the right industry.

But long ago we worked out that education wasn’t one of those industries. There is no profit motive driving school education in Australia.

Private schools in Australia are non-profit. They are run by school boards that are supposed to be focused on providing the best education for their students.

How does the government keep the for-profit sector out of school education? A for-profit school is ineligible for government funding.

We need to do the same for childcare.

The only priority of childcare providers should be the children in their care. They should not be distracted by the idea of keeping their shareholders happy.

The government is rushing its childcare changes through Parliament. It will use threats of funding cuts to ensure improvements to safety standards.

It’s a good move. Money talks in this industry.

But the heartbreaking stories out of Melbourne in recent weeks, which are driving these changes, could be a catalyst for significant long-term change.

Australia’s childcare industry is dominated by for-profit providers. They make up 70 per cent of the childcare industry, and 95 per cent of the growth in the industry is in the for-profit centres.

The expansion of government subsidies means that a childcare centre in the right urban location is a licence to print money.

A cut in greenhouse gas emissions of at least 75 per cent below 2005 levels would broadly align with the science – and strengthen Australia’s bid to host the 2026 United Nations climate conference.

Announcing a bigger number is one thing, though. How the government reaches it is another.

Australia’s current target under the international treaty on climate change, the Paris Agreement, is a 43 per cent cut in emissions by 2030. Progress is tracked through a set of climate accounts called the “inventory” and reported annually. Emissions from across the economy – including energy, transport, industry and land – are recorded, added up, and presented as a single figure.

The Australian government claims emissions for the year to December 2024 were 27 per cent below 2005 levels. But Australia’s emissions inventory is riddled with loopholes and unverifiable modelling that paints a misleading picture of progress. Just this week, United Nations Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell urged Australia not to settle for the bare minimum as it prepares to announce its 2035 target. “Bog standard is beneath you,” he said. “Don’t settle for what’s easy. Go for what’s smart by going big.” But bog standard would be an improvement on what’s happening now.

In the 2025 federal election, Labor won a landslide victory. That victory reflects the strong preference Australians had for the Labor Government over the Liberal–National Opposition. In 100 of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives, most voters preferred the Labor candidate to the Liberal or National one.

However, while Labor was preferred on preferences, only about 35% of Australians gave the party their first preference. Despite this, Labor won 62% of the seats. In other words, about five million of the fifteen million votes cast were “1 Labor”, but the party won 94 of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives.

Major parties win more seats than their share of the vote because only one member of Parliament (MP) represents each seat.

Other countries have similarly distorted results. For example, in the 2024 United Kingdom election the Labour Government won 34% of the vote and 63% of the seats. Significantly, the United Kingdom does not use preferential voting but rather first-past-the-post. If anything, Australia’s full preferential voting system reduces distortions.

An alternative to “winner takes all” is proportional representation, where parties and candidates win seats based on their share of the vote. Proportional representation allows for more diverse representation of parties and interests – as in the Australian Senate or the New Zealand Parliament.

That for a party’s election campaign to be a success, the leaders would need to kiss the ring, and then News Corp’s coverage would decide the outcome of the campaign.

It was never true, but it was a truism for years.

In reality, News Corp would just see which way the wind was blowing and then back in the party that was already ahead, retconning its support as having MADE the government instead of just following the trend.

The strategy worked – for decades those in the political sphere would tell you of News Corp’s power in deciding elections and how the company, no matter how heinous or one-sided its coverage became, could not be ignored.

It became obvious that News Corp only ever had the perception of influence – rather than influence itself – once it switched its editorial position to campaigning for the conservatives, no matter what.

There have been countless state and federal elections where News Corp has thrown as much muck at Labor as possible and the full weight of its media influence at supporting the losers – the Coalition – and not moved the dial.

But the myth remains in many circles. News Corp cannot be ignored. Why? Because you have to make a play to be a player, even when the result is already known. Especially when it is already known.

Except for the US, which is its own basket case of mutable positions, Australia’s major allies will recognise Palestine when the United Nations General Assembly next meets in September.

On this special crossover episode of Follow the Money and After America, Dr Emma Shortis joins Glenn Connley to discuss the Australian protests calling for more action to protect Palestinians, the momentum against the troubled AUKUS submarine pact, and Trump’s decision to fire his chief of labour statistics after job growth slowed.

This discussion was recorded on Monday 4 August 2025.

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 for pre-order now via the Australia Institute website.

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

Host: Glenn Connley, Senior Media Advisor, the Australia Institute // @glennconnley

Show notes:

The Wrap with Amy Remeikis

If there is one thing you can bank on, it is that conservative governments know how to use power.

They never shy away from it.

If a conservative government wants to change something, it will, and it won’t worry about who it is annoying, or the pushback, or whether or not it is the smart move. It will do it, knowing that it will very quickly become the new normal and people, more likely than not, will move on.

John Howard did it for 11 years. Howard changed this country more in the last three decades than almost any other modern politician. While he eventually pushed the electorate too far with Work Choices, he would probably say it was worth it – because many of the changes he went to the wall for still exist today. Why?

Because the left never uses power the same way. And conservatives know it.

It’s pleasing to see a real competition emerging for government in Tasmania the state election a fortnight ago. The Labor Party is finally off the bench and in the game – making a play for crossbench support to form government after refusing the last two opportunities to do so.

So far, negotiations are focusing on procedural changes. But if the numbers in the House of Assembly pan out as expected, it will take more than a conflict resolution process to win over the crossbenchers needed for stable government.

Tasmanians have elected a power-sharing government for the second time in a row. They clearly no longer want Liberal or Labor to act as if they are in majority. Former Premier David Bartlett said recently that he doesn’t think there will be another majority government in his lifetime.

Tasmanian parliamentarians need to get on with making power-sharing government work. A conflict resolution process is necessary, but it’s small beer. Crossbench members know their worth and will likely demand more in exchange for their support.

Both re-elected and new Green and independent crossbenchers have fought to gain traction on issues that matter to their constituents. At least some of them will hold the balance of power, and influence not just who forms government but also what issues will be addressed by Tasmania’s 52nd Parliament.

When crossbenchers and major parties struck successful power-sharing agreements in other Australian parliaments, they covered policy as well as procedure.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has a target to keep headline inflation between 2% and 3%. By any reasonable measure it has completely failed on this over the last decade.

The June quarter released this week shows that inflation has been within the band for the last four consecutive quarters. This is the first time we have seen four consecutive quarters in the RBA target band since 2014.

Since the end of 2014 there have been just eight quarters where inflation has been in the target band and half of those are the four most recent ones. That means just eight of the last 43 quarters have been in the band. How can that be judged as anything but a complete failure?

Most recently, the inflation rate has been higher than 3%, but for most of the past decade, it has been outside the band because it has been below 2%.

In the 43 quarters since December 2014, inflation has been too high for 12 quarters, but too low for 23 quarters.

You might think that inflation is bad, and so having inflation below 2% is a good thing. But there is a reason that the RBA inflation target has a lower limit.

Low inflation comes with sluggish economic growth and higher unemployment. The 2022 RBA review actually rebuked the RBA for not doing enough to increase inflation in the years before the pandemic. They said that the RBA had kept interest rates too high for too long when inflation was below 2% which resulted in more people being unemployed.

On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Greg and Elinor unpack how the latest inflation figures only make it more obvious the RBA should have cut interest rates at their last meeting, and why some people who are unemployed are not looking for work (and it’s not because they’re ‘dole bludgers’).

This discussion was recorded on Thursday 31 July 2025 and things may have changed since recording.

Host: Greg Jericho, Chief Economist, the Australia Institute // @grogsgamut

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

Show notes: 

Take a deep dive into the inflation numbers and the RBA’s decision not to cut rates seems inexplicable by Greg Jericho (July 2025)

Wrong call – RBA rate hold unfairly dashes borrowers’ hopes for relief, the Australia Institute (July 2025)

By contrast, in 1903 there were just 25,000 voters per MP (this being the first election where most women could vote).

In the intervening 122 years, the federal parliament has significantly expanded twice: from 74 to 121 seats in 1949, and from 125 to 148 in 1984. Both times, the number of people per seat sat at a then record high: 64,000 and 75,000 respectively.

Voting rights have also expanded: women’s suffrage came in 1903 (though not for all women), Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voting rights took until 1963, and the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18 in 1974.

But while there are nine times as many registered voters today as in 1903, the number of electorates has only doubled.

As the number of voters per MP grows, the access any individual voter will have to their member necessarily decreases – Australia Institute polling research in 2022 found that only 15% of Australians had ever spoken to their local MP (and only 36% knew their name).

And the more voters there are in an electorate, the larger a campaign needs to be to make any difference to the result, giving communities less power to kick out an unrepresentative or under-performing MP.

On this episode of Follow the Money, Alice Grundy and Skye Predavec join Ebony Bennett to discuss how the Howard Government’s brave reforms in the aftermath of the Port Arthur massacre are falling short of its aims – and what federal, state and territory governments can do to keep Australians safe.

1800RESPECT is the national domestic, family and sexual violence counselling, information and support service. Call 1800 737 732, text 0458 737 732, chat online or video call via their website.

Correction: This podcast was updated to remove a reference to buying firearms and ammunition interstate when there is a limit on the licence, which does not appear in our research. What is possible is for a licence-holder to buy firearms and travel to another state.

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

Guest: Alice Grundy, Research Manager and Managing Editor, the Australia Institute // @alicektg

Guest: Skye Predavec, Anne Kantor Fellow, the Australia Institute // @skyelark

Currently, political parties are allowed to send postal vote application forms bundled with information about a candidate.

The forms are then returned to the political party, which forwards them to the Australian Electoral Commission.

The new poll has found that a vast majority of Australians would rather voters send their voting paper directly to the AEC.

Key findings:

Today in the AFR, the head of the private health insurance lobby group “PrivateHealth Australia” showed the industry is very worried by suggestions by The Australia Institute and others that private health insurance fees should be subject to GST.

When the GST was introduced, John Howard ensured private health insurance fees were not subject to GST, and at essentially the same time, he introduced the “Lifetime Health Cover”, which meant if you did not join private health insurance by the time you were 30 you would have to pay higher fees were you to join it later.

The problem is that even with this virtual forcing of people onto health insurance, most people take out the minimum health insurance they need to qualify for the lifetime health cover, and usually this means lots of things are excluded from the cover, and also you have to pay a lot of excess payments should you actually need to use it. It is not health insurance in any true sense, but it is wonderful for private health insurers.

Indeed, Australia Institute research finds most Australians support federal legislation to protect the right to protest and maintain that peaceful protest has a role to play in Australia’s democracy.

The rhetoric of Australian politicians, by contrast, feels increasingly hostile to protesters, even to peaceful protesters.

NSW Police Minister Yasmine Catley said: “I don’t want to see protests on our street at all, from anybody. I don’t think anybody really does.”

South Australian Labor Premier Peter Malinauskas workshopped anti-protest laws on talkback radio before rushing them through the lower house just a day later.

Over the last five years, most states have introduced anti-protest laws. Protestors can be charged much higher fines for expressing their views in the open than lobbyists are charged to express their views privately in exclusive dinners with government ministers.

But non-violent protests, including disruptive and impolite protests, are a key part of the Australian tradition.

The Australian and Queensland governments’ decisions in 2010 to allow large-scale exporting of Australian gas from Queensland exposed Australians to high global prices, ending decades of abundant, low-cost gas for Australians, leading to higher energy bills, gas shortages and manufacturing closures.

Gas price increases due to excessive exports have also caused electricity prices to rise because gas power stations often set electricity prices.

“When you get your next energy bill, blame the gas industry and your governments for opening the gas export floodgates despite being warned it would drive up energy bills for Australians,” said Mark Ogge, Principal Adviser at The Australia Institute.

“Gas exports have meant Australian households and businesses have paid billions of dollars more for energy over the last decade, all of which went to the profits of a handful of predominantly foreign-owned gas corporations.

“The gas industry’s deliberate plan to increase domestic gas prices for Australians, by exposing us to global gas prices, has been a massive transfer of wealth from Australian households and businesses to Big Gas.

“Gas exports have led to manufacturing closures in Australia. Gas exporters manufacture nothing except gas shortages and higher energy bills for Australians.

On this episode of After America, Assistant Professor Musa Al-Gharbi joins Dr Emma Shortis to discuss the catastrophic failure of the Democrats to effectively resist Trump’s agenda and whether a new generation of leaders can turn the party around.

This discussion was recorded on Wednesday 9 July 2025.

Emma and Musa also did a live event with Alex Sloan in Canberra – the recording is available here.

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

Guest: Musa al-Gharbi, Assistant Professor in the School of Communication and Journalism, Stony Brook University // @musaalgharbi

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

Show notes: 

To Tasmania’s 52nd Parliament –

Lutruwita / Tasmania’s environment is in trouble. From marine heatwaves, toxic algal blooms and over a million dead fish last summer, to the rapid loss of native vegetation and the increase in animals and plants threatened with extinction, Tasmanians are suffering considerable environmental losses. The 2024 State of Environment Report confirmed this with a majority of indicators classified as getting worse.

We call on you to do your job and end Lutruwita / Tasmania’s environmental and economic decline by protecting and investing in nature, the living system that sustains the state’s prosperity, resilience and way of life.

The well-being and prosperity of all Tasmanians relies on a healthy environment. We call on the next government to make a real change and commit to protecting Lutruwita / Tasmania’s environment from further harm, real action on climate change, and to respect the rights of the Tasmanian Aboriginal people to care for their Country through land returns and Treaty.

Liberal and Labor parties are taking the environment for granted, ignoring signs of ecological collapse,  wielding the term ‘environmental activism’ as an insult, and outlawing peaceful protest. But they are no longer able to govern in majority and must find new ways to work collaboratively in power-sharing government, in the best interest of Tasmanians and the environment we all rely on.

We the undersigned, call on whoever forms Tasmania’s next government act on the following key asks:

This role is so important that our status as “consumers” has been elevated as the dominant identity in our society, trumping others such as “patient”, “student”, “citizen” or “voter”. This evolution in language has been well-documented and reflects the deep ideological change of public services from a collective right to a market transaction.

If we are to believe the rhetoric from government and the private sector, this is a positive development. Because consumers have power. Our money, our attention spans, our time and our sense of identity are constantly courted. Our spending habits and our reviews can apparently make or break a business.

Accordingly, our rights as consumers are enshrined in law and upheld in regulation. In Australia, if the goods and services we procure don’t work as advertised, we are entitled to a refund or a replacement. We are told we are protected from misleading and unfair practices.

Recently, after what could be described as two separate but equally bruising admissions to a Canberra hospital, I was invited to provide feedback about my experience to the Canberra Health Services’ “Consumer Feedback and Engagement” team.

Like the rest of the world, productivity has been sluggish since the COVID pandemic, but that is largely due to businesses failing to adequately invest in machinery, equipment, technology and skills, at a time when many are recording record profits.

The research also reveals that disappointing productivity is not the cause of the problems facing Australian households, like falling real wages, high prices, high interest rates and the unaffordability of housing.

Key findings:

• If real wages had grown at the same rate of productivity since 2000, average wages would be 18% – or $350 per week – higher.
• Australian businesses now invest less than half as much in research and development as those in other OECD countries.
• Higher productivity does not automatically “trickle down” to workers in terms of improved wages or living standards.
• Productivity benefits are trending toward high-paid executives, shareholders and profits, rather than workers.
• Business claims that productivity can be improved by wage cuts, tax cuts, deregulation or reduced unionisation are false.
• The idea that workers should “tighten their belts and make do with less” to improve productivity is a lie.

“Productivity has become an excuse for big, profitable businesses to do whatever they like,” said Greg Jericho, Chief Economist at The Australia Institute‘s Centre for Future Work.

Regular readers would know the question we have been asking is “what will Labor do with power?”. Now we have the answer.

The least possible.

Yes, to be fair it has only been a week in this Parliament and we are yet to see what the Albanese government’s version of “ambitious” ultimately ends up looking like, but we have been given the direction.

The very first bill the government introduced was legislation that will reduce HECS/HELP debt by 20 per cent. That is, as Ross Gittens of The Sydney Morning Herald pointed out, the very least they could do.

The bill helps those with university debt now, but does nothing to address the cost of going to university. It does nothing to correct the failure of the Morrison government Job-Ready Graduates program, which has seen minimal students choose to swap fields, but in some cases led the cost of university degrees to increase by 117 per cent.

Labor has been in power for more than three years. This is not a new problem and it has delivered what it said it would at the election – the least it could do.

This same week, Penny Wong signed a statement with 23 other countries and the UN calling for an immediate end to the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.

The language used in the statement was much less active, but it is the strongest to date. It is also, the very least Australia could do.

The decision by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) this week, confirming that states have binding legal obligations under international law to prevent climate harm and protect present and future generations, should be a wake-up call for the Australian government. No longer can it argue that Australia’s emissions exported to other nations can be ignored. But new analysis reveals that the extraction of fossil fuels for exports is also making up a growing share of Australia’s domestic emissions.

As the Australian Government prepares to announce a new 2035 climate target under the Paris Agreement, pressure is mounting to show increased ambition. An easy, and often overlooked, place to find real emissions reductions is the domestic footprint of our fossil fuel exports.

Analysis of Australia’s emissions inventory combined with data from the ABS suggests that the process of extracting and shipping all the coal and gas Australia exports is responsible for close to 18% of Australia’s total emissions. That means that if Australia did not export such huge quantities of coal and gas then total emissions in Australia in 2023 could have been 18% lower.

Emissions in Australia from exporting coal and gas have grown rapidly since 2010, doubling its estimated share of total emissions from 7% in 2010. The strong growth was mainly caused by the rapid expansion in LNG exports over the same period, particularly since 2015.

The GST is failing. It was meant to give the states their own independent source of revenue and in the process make them less financially dependent on the federal government.

The problem is that GST revenue is growing slower than the economy and so it has not kept up with the growing costs of providing hospitals, schools, roads and all the other vital services that the states provide.

Australia Institute research has shown that if GST revenue had kept up with economic growth it would have collected an additional $231 billion since it was enacted and $22 billion in 2023-24 alone.

Having an income that grows slower than prices is something that many households have recently experienced. And just like households, the states have found their budgets under increasing pressure.

Early on, states were able to make cutbacks to make ends meet, but over the last 25 years we have seen their collective budgets move from surplus to deficit. At the same time all the cost-cutting has degraded the services they provide.

This has been a lose-lose for Australians.

Some have called for the GST to be increased or broadened to raise more revenue. But that will slug the poor more than the wealthy because the GST is what economists call a regressive tax. But there are other solutions. We could broaden the GST without disproportionately impacting the poor by being selective on what we broaden it to.

On this episode of Dollars & Sense, replacement Matt (Greg Jericho) and Elinor debunk some long-standing myths about the Australian economy, discuss cuts to HECS and examine the latest in Trump’s beef beef.

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

This discussion was recorded on Thursday 24 July 2025.

Host: Greg Jericho, Chief Economist, the Australia Institute and Centre for Future Work // @grogsgamut

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

Show notes:

The biggest voices need to admit Australia is a low-taxing nation before joining the economic reform conversation by Greg Jericho, Guardian Australia (July 2025)

“Gas consumption is projected to decline to 2040 as electrification increases across the economy and renewables and storage take an increasing share of electricity generation”, wrote the Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water (DCCEEW).

This doesn’t sit well with the Prime Minister’s recent claims that more gas is needed for “firming” renewable energy. Figures from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO)’s 2024 Integrated System Plan (ISP) show just how little gas is likely to be required in Australia’s electricity system.

Projections released by the Albanese Government show Australia’s gas consumption is in long-term decline — undermining claims by the Prime Minister that more gas is needed to support the renewable energy transition.

Analysis by the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) confirms that Australia’s gas use peaked years ago and will continue falling as electrification and renewables rise.

“Gas consumption is projected to decline to 2040 as electrification increases across the economy and renewables and storage take an increasing share of electricity generation,” the report said.

Modelling from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) backs this up.

In its 2024 Integrated System Plan, AEMO shows that gas will never again reach past generation peaks and will play only a minor, occasional role in electricity generation in the decades ahead.

Despite this, more than 1,000 new petajoules of gas are scheduled to come online by 2027 — not to support domestic energy needs, but for export.

“Australia is projected to continue exporting significantly more gas than we consume,” said Ketan Joshi, Senior Research Associate at The Australia Institute.

“Gas use in Australia has peaked.

“It is pretty simple: Australia does not need to be expanding its fossil gas production, least of all to run fossil gas power stations.

The court found the Independent Planning Commission failed to take into account the impact of all the carbon pollution associated with the project, including pollution from the exported emissions when the coal is sold and burned overseas.

Mach Energy’s Mount Pleasant coal mine expansion near Muswellbrook is one of the most polluting coal projects that was seeking approval in Australia.

The project is so big it covers an area which would almost cover the entire electorates of Sydney and Grayndler.

The decision comes after a challenge from the Denman, Aberdeen, Muswellbrook, Scone Healthy Environment Group.

While this is a welcome result, the NSW Land and Environment Court will have to consider whether conditions can be imposed that would validate the approval, or whether the project must return to the planning commission.

“There are two other coal mines that were granted extension by the federal government in the Hunter Valley,” said Richard Denniss, Executive Director of The Australia Institute.

“While it is welcome news that one may not go ahead, these approvals are inconsistent with Australia’s climate goals and reinforces the country’s reputation as one of the world’s major fossil fuel exporters.

“To approve huge new coal mines while bidding to host COP31 is a slap in the face to our Pacific neighbors, who have clearly and repeatedly requested that Australia stop expanding fossil fuel production.