The Australia Institute

Video Report: The Fight to Save Murujuga

The Murujuga Rock Art is a unique 40,000-year-old collection of rock engravings on the Dampier Archipelago in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

These irreplaceable petroglyphs are twice as old as France’s Lascaux cave paintings and eight times older than the pyramids.

Murujuga is nationally heritage-listed and could soon be recognised by UNESCO for its world heritage value.

But it is facing destruction from acid rain caused by nearby gas processing. Gas processing that does not need to happen at Murujuga.

The new Australian Environment Minister Murray Watt, however, decided to approve a 50-year extension to Woodside’s North West Shelf gas project. This could have devastating consequences for the rock art.

A video report presented by Stephen Long, Senior Fellow, and Contributing Editor at the Australia Institute on Ngarluma land.

Cinematography and Editing by Elinor Johnston-Leek, Senior Content Producer at the Australia Institute

Featuring:

• Dr Benjamin Smith, Professor of Archaeology at the University of Western Australia
• Dr Ken Mulvaney, Archaeologist
• Raelene Cooper, Mardudhunera Traditional Custodian
• Esther Joy Montgomery, Aboriginal Elder
• Tracey Moffatt, Acclaimed Australian Artist
• Fiona Hall, Acclaimed Australian Artist

Great gas giveaway: $215 billion in royalty-free gas for Woodside’s North West Shelf project

A 50-year extension to the North West Shelf (NWS) project in Western Australia (WA) would see huge amounts of gas given away royalty-free. While the exact volume and value is hard to predict, a basic estimate is that up to $215 billion worth of gas could be given away, royalty-free.

The NWS liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility, specifically the Karratha Gas Plant, producers up to 18.6 MT of LNG each year. At present, it sources around 75% of its natural gas from the royalty-paying NWS gas fields off the coast of WA. These fields are the only major offshore gas project in WA that pays royalties, all others are royalty-free as the Commonwealth Government chooses not to charge a price for the public’s gas.

As we’ve pointed out before, the proponents of the NWS extension, Woodside, have not identified where all the gas will come from, with major implications for WA gas prices. What is clear is that the royalty-paying NWS gas that feeds the Karratha Gas Plant is forecast to decline and it will increasingly be fed by gas from non-royalty paying reserves such as the Browse Basin, as shown in this chart that we first published here.

As shown in the above chart, it is possible that by 2036, none of the gas feeding the Karratha Gas Plant would be coming from royalty-paying reserves, although some gas could be sourced from Waitsia and other onshore or state-waters sources that would pay a royalty.

Below, we conservatively assume that that 70% of Karratha Gas Plant feedstock gas is royalty-free by the mid-2030s, and a price of $8/GJ for gas, which is now common in WA wholesale trades. On these assumptions, the NWS shelf extension will be receiving around $5.1 billion a year in royalty-free gas, or $14 million each day, or $215 billion over the project’s 46-year life. These calculations are shown in Table 1.

Across the 46-year extension of the project, a total $215 billion in free gas will be given away. For comparison, the output of the entire WA economy was $448 billion in 2024.

Why the election’s closest seat went unnoticed: Too close to Calwell

Updated 30/05/2025

The outer-Melbourne electorate of Calwell was named “Australia’s most unpredictable seat” by The Age after the election and was – aside from those going to a recount – the last seat to be called. The AEC labelled the counting process for the seat “likely the most complex in Australia’s history”.

The count is complicated because, while Labor led on primary votes, the Liberals, Greens, and three independents each had a significant share of the vote. The AEC had no idea which candidate would make it to the final two alongside Labor, and then if any of them could win from there. In a very rare case, the AEC had to conduct a full count of the seat to an estimate of the final result, which still hasn’t finished (though Labor now seems assured of victory).

Calwell is extra interesting, because it is diverse. It’s one of the handful of electorates in Australia where most people speak a language other than English at home, as well as having one of the largest Muslim populations. Two independents and the Greens candidate made Labor’s response to the genocide in Gaza a significant issue in their campaign.

Despite how interesting Calwell is, most of the die-hard #Auspol fans wouldn’t have been able to find it on a map, let alone forecast it to be so interesting. There was no significant print coverage during the campaign. Even a keen follower of election news would be forgiven for never having heard of the seat, let alone in the context of being one of the election’s most complicated and potentially marginal electorates.

To have had an idea of how interesting Calwell was going to be before the 2025 election, you would have needed to be closely linked to the Calwell community, maybe even living there.

The lack of coverage is likely related to the fact that Calwell has the fewest local journalists of any seat in the country. According to ABS Census data, there are just four journalists living in the entire electorate.

As the table shows, Calwell is far from unique. Australia Institute research found that outer-metropolitan electorates have fewer journalists than even regional and rural seats. On average there are 31 journos in an outer-suburban seat. More than half of Australia’s 8,500 journalists live in the 43 seats classified as inner-metropolitan.

Of course, journalists can and do cover electorates that they don’t live in. But what Calwell shows is that the lack of local journalists, reflecting the lack of local news more broadly, has meant that Australia’s most interesting electoral race wasn’t covered until voting had closed.

This is all the more problematic and surprising because from early on in the campaign, the Liberals identified outer suburbs as key to Peter Dutton’s potential victory. It was the outer suburbs that journalists talked up as Dutton’s saving grace as late as 5:30pm on polling day.

But in the end, it wasn’t the polls that failed to grasp what was happening in seats like Calwell in Melbourne’s north and Blaxland in Sydney’s west, it was Australia’s political class more broadly. And the reason they didn’t understand is that there is no-one adequately telling the stories of these communities and explaining them to the rest of us.

This isn’t just problematic for election watchers; it’s sad for the rest of us. Why don’t we know what is happening in the communities around us? How can we have a cohesive society if we don’t know what’s going on?

Like many big problems, the answer is simple: more investment in local news. The most obvious place to start is properly resourcing the ABC so it can cover all parts of Australia, especially communities, such as Calwell, which are practical news deserts. Australia’s public broadcasters did direct attention to the suburban north-Melbourne electorate, with the ABC writing about local backlash to Labor’s response to the genocide in Gaza, and SBS highlighting local voter alienation (as well as hosting one of its two Election Exchanges there), but there was no significant print newspaper coverage. The ABC and SBS have shown they can serve communities like Calwell, they just need more resources to fully fill the gaps left by other media’s lack of attention.

But the ABC can’t do everything. Supporting and subsidising local news is an important part of the picture. There’s a lot that Australia can learn from Nordic countries, where journalism is treated as a public good in and of itself and governments have implemented measures to protect smaller independent outlets and ownership diversity.

While the result in Calwell shows that the press has lost touch with the people, the result in Australia shows that the people have lost touch with the press. The Federal Government has many possible avenues of reform which would ensure communities like Calwell are properly serviced by Australian journalism. It’s past time for them to intervene and make the Australian media industry one that genuinely represents the country.

Update 30/5/2025:

SBS contacted The Australia Institute to highlight its Federal Election Exchange program was held at Broadmeadows town hall in the seat of Calwell on April 23. On that day SBS conducted over 60 interviews with candidates for the senate and three electorates – Calwell, Fraser, and Maribyrnong. The election exchange resulted in coverage in SBS Arabic, SBS Vietnamese, SBS Mandarin, SBS Turkish, SBS Greek, SBS Italian, SBS Punjabi, SBS Spanish and NITV Radio.

SBS wrote that it ran its Election Exchange in Calwell “specifically because it is one of Australia’s most diverse seats, and serving Australia’s multicultural communities is part of SBS’ mandate.” The Australia Institute acknowledges that we overlooked SBS’s event in Calwell and note that its interviews provided its audience with valuable information about the views and priorities of local candidates.

SBS did valuable work covering Calwell’s candidates for voters in the electorate, but did not highlight the potential for the seat to become a historically complex election result. While no one can predict the future, SBS covered Calwell because of its mandate around multicultural communities, not because it had locally-based journalists that realised the potential for such an interesting election result.  SBS fulfilled its mandate, but so much more is needed to reverse the decline of local news in Australia, particularly in outer suburbs.

The election exposed weaknesses in Australian democracy – but the next parliament can fix them

Australia has some very strong democratic institutions – like an independent electoral commission, Saturday voting, full preferential voting and compulsory voting. These ensure that elections are free from corruption; that electorate boundaries are not based on partisan bias; and that most Australians turn out to vote. They are evidence of Australia’s proud history as an electoral innovator.

However, there were some sour notes in the election campaign. Voters reported being confused and alarmed by political parties inserting themselves into the postal vote process. Political parties passed confidential data to other groups, without informing voters. And most voters reported seeing misleading advertising on a daily basis.

Australians deserve better. Here are six weaknesses that emerged during the federal election and how they could be addressed.

Lies in political ads

Australia Institute polling research conducted in the last week of the federal election campaign found most Australians saw misleading ads weekly, or more frequently.

That’s backed up by the warring claims of misinformation that played out in the media. Both major parties were accused of selective editing of videos to mislead audiences. Trumpet of Patriots, backed by mining billionaire Clive Palmer, spent “at least $175,000 promoting a misleading two-decade-old video”.

Campaigners worked around the already very limited federal misinformation laws. Right-wing campaigners Advance timed their circulation of a flyer “to avoid a ban on misleading campaign material once the poll has been called”.

Parts of Australia have effective truth in political advertising laws. They have existed in South Australia for 40 years, and the ACT adopted them five years ago. They ensure that misleading and inaccurate political advertising is stopped. They strike a careful balance between protecting opinion and preventing lies. They are respected by both sides of politics.

And the Albanese Government has a bill that would implement these laws at the federal level: the Electoral Communications Bill. It innovates on the South Australian model in a couple of ways, including addressing Artificial Intelligence deepfakes and placing responsibility for decision-making with a trusted former judge.

Unfortunately, the Government neglected the bill last year. Will the Government fix the problem this term?

Political parties inserting themselves in the postal vote process

The major political parties ran postal vote campaigns, where they bundle the application form for a postal vote with party advertising material. The form goes back to the party, who are suspected of harvesting the data, before passing the form on to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC).

The AEC has criticised the practice, saying it is the number one source of complaints during election campaigns.

In the last term of Parliament, a multi-party committee recommended stopping this practice by:

1. banning postal vote forms from being bundled with other material and
2. requiring that forms go straight to the AEC, not routed through a political party’s headquarters.

Text message spam and sharing of personal information

Political parties, members of Parliament and (in some cases) candidates get special exemptions to the Spam Act (which restricts unsolicited communications) and the Privacy Act (which restricts the sharing and use of personal information). Parties and candidates also get exclusive access to the electoral roll. The roll has the names, dates of birth, addresses and some other details of almost every adult citizen living in the country.

It is these exemptions and special access that allowed the Liberal Party to share its cache of voter information with the Exclusive Brethren, a secretive religious sect that reportedly “made nearly a million [phone] calls on behalf of the [Liberal–National] Coalition”.

Similarly, it is Spam Act exemptions that allowed the Trumpet of Patriots to send vast numbers of unsolicited text messages promoting the party and its candidates. Text message spam is not unique to one party; both the Liberal Party and Labor Party have in past elections sent out last minute election text messages, when it is too late for them to be fact checked and challenged.

Independent MP Kate Chaney has proposed amending the acts to remove certain exemptions that political parties enjoy – including sending unsolicited text messages. In 2022, the Attorney-General’s Department proposed more limited exemptions.

Territorians miss out on Senate representation

Australia’s smallest state, Tasmania, is represented by 12 senators. The combined population of the ACT and Northern Territory far exceeds Tasmania’s, but the territories only have 4 senators between them.

The number of parliamentarians has not increased since the 1980s, meanwhile the country’s population has increased by over 10 million people. That leaves MPs spread thinly, and makes it hard for communities to hold their local members accountable.

While a large increase in the number of parliamentarians is due, it would be fair if at the very least the territories had more senators.

Unfair playing field for independent candidates and minor parties

Australia’s election laws are skewed towards political parties, and towards major parties in particular.

As well as exemptions to spam and privacy laws already discussed, political parties receive tax-deductibility status year-round, while independent candidates’ tax exemptions are limited to the election period only. In Senate contests, political parties receive a privileged position on the ballot – making it nigh impossible for an independent to win.

Established political parties also receive tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer funding, as do some independent candidates – but only after the election is over. New entrants have to self-fund their campaigns or raise money through donations, while major party competitors have a taxpayer-funded head start.

Unfortunately, the deal between Labor and Liberal parties at the start of the year to change electoral laws has only worsened the situation.

The Australia Institute outlines how to make political finance fairer in our Democracy Agenda for the 48th Parliament.

Australians confused about how the electoral system works

Many Australians are unclear on how Australia’s voting system works. Even election officials are known to get it wrong.

While civics education is important during schooling, the government and AEC should do more to teach adults about the Australian voting system as well. One element of this could be to boast of Australia’s history as a democratic innovator. Another might be to use the ABC’s wide public electoral reach (evident in its Vote Compass tool) to help voters familiarise themselves with the voting process ahead of election day.

At this year’s election, there seemed to be an uptick in disputes and physical contention – not necessarily among candidates, but with volunteers and canvassers, particularly at pre-polling. While there is no substitute for a healthy democratic culture and mutual respect, addressing some of the weaknesses in Australian democracy may take some of the heat out of campaigning.

Australia’s history as a proud electoral innovator means the country is well placed to improve its institutions and processes.

Soft plastic recycling is back in supermarkets! 

For many of us, the end of June will mark the return of soft plastic recycling run by the Soft Plastics Taskforce (SPT), which is made up of the three major supermarkets: Woolworths Group, Coles Group and ALDI. But this may be premature since the joint recycling strategy from the Ministry of the Environment and Water and the Ministry of Climate Change and the Environment and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is still developing a plan to recycle legacy soft plastics that have been stockpiled following the collapse of REDcycle. The bins in supermarkets from June mean shoppers will be able to deposit their soft plastics at the front of participating supermarkets nationwide; however, since the capacity to recycle all plastics is not yet a reality, this will only be a trial.

The country uses around 70 billion pieces of soft plastics each year, approximately 538,000 tonnes. In 2021, 84% of that ended up in landfill while only 13% was recycled. REDcycle was created in 2011 as a national soft plastics recycling and collection program. It operated in 2,000 stores across Australia and collected five million items each day. Customers could deposit their soft plastic waste at these drop-off points. REDcycle collapsed in 2022, leaving behind an estimated 11,000 tonnes of stockpiled soft plastic across 44 locations in Australia. Several issues led to the scheme’s demise, such as supply-chain issues, the COVID pandemic and insufficient product demand.

The SPT’s new trial will begin at 100 Woolworths stores in NSW and 500 additional stores by the end of June. The ACCC has made it clear that this trial does not cover any proposed stewardship schemes with program partners or supermarkets.

Recycling soft plastics

The circular economy is the basis for several of the Department of Climate Change, Environment and Water’s (DCCEEW) recent waste policies. Fundamental to the circular economy is keeping materials at their highest use, in circulation, and out of landfills. By this metric, recycling soft plastics is a win for the circular economy. On the other hand, endlessly recycling soft plastics is not possible for many reasons. The structure of soft plastics gives way to a shorter life cycle than other plastics. They are composed of polyethylene and/or polypropylene, which are hard to recycle. Inadequate demand for recycled materials, downcycling/lower quality products and contamination, such as mixed colours within the soft plastics, can result in poor quality output.

The downgrading of soft plastic recycling means it falls at the first hurdle. Furthermore, according to The Australia Institute’s Plastic Waste in Australia report, recycling plastic carries a toxicity risk and sheds microplastics into the environment. Even worse, the effects of plastic production from fossil fuels, pollution, and microplastics dispersed from production and recycling are not solely environmental. According to medical reports, there are significant health risks to humans, including cardiovascular, respiratory, and gastrointestinal problems, intake of carcinogens, inflammation, and reproductive health challenges associated with microplastics in people’s bodies.

Waste-to-energy / Waste Recovery

Let’s look at a waste-to-energy alternative. This process converts plastic to fuels such as gas or oil using high temperatures. Energy recovery or waste-to-energy is an alternative used by many countries such as Japan, Germany and Sweden. In Japan, 67% of collected plastic waste is incinerated, while 22% is materially or mechanically recycled.

However, conversion processes can release green-house gases (CO2) into the atmosphere, unleash toxic chemicals and also generate microplastics.

Countries such as Germany, Japan and Sweden are some of the world’s most celebrated countries for having the highest plastic-waste management indexes. These accolades are also based on their highly organised and advanced collection and sorting polices and facilities. In Germany, more than 50% of plastic packaging waste is used in waste-to-energy recovery, equating to the combustion of 1.6 million tons annually (6 million tons of plastic is generated annually). And in Sweden, 86% of all plastics are incinerated. By contrast, Australia converts about 1% of soft plastics to energy.

The circular economy principle does not align with this practice. Incinerating plastic, even for energy use, means the materials fall out of the circular loop. It would require consistent input of virgin plastic materials to repeat this process of creating new products that will eventually be incinerated. This is a valid concern, considering one million tonnes of Australia’s annual plastic consumption is single-use plastic. Australia Institute research notes, “… waste-to-energy does not move us away from what is ultimately a fossil fuel economy”.

Returning to first principles, plastic is a fossil fuel product that sheds microplastics in production and recycling, loaded with toxic chemicals, hazardous to human health and the environment and a major pollutant, which leads to the question: does endless recycling or incineration constitute a solution? Boomerang Alliance and its 55 circular economy allies made a submission to the ACCC in January 2025 arguing that the stockpiled soft plastics waste should not be sent to landfill, incinerated or exported to other countries. They conclude that Australia can manage its own waste problems, which is what the SPT would be contributing to with this trial.

Since recycling and incineration are not plausible options, it is time to consider lowering use through systemic reduction of soft plastics. It is also a good time to start looking at material alternatives that are non-toxic and compostable, with a system where these products are reused consistently with supermarket products and elsewhere.

As the Labor government has been re-elected for a second term, it has the opportunity create a strategy that would invest the resources necessary to radically minimise or even end plastic waste. The soft plastics initiative could be a good start.

What will Labor do with power? And what happened to the Greens? | Richard Denniss on ABC News

Big Gas is taking the piss | Television Ad

Around 80% of Australia’s gas is exported as liquefied natural gas (LNG), the gas industry pays ZERO royalties on more than half the gas exported.

Australia has an abundance of gas. In fact, Australia is one of the biggest exporters of gas in the world, alongside Qatar.

Australia Institute research shows over half (56%) of gas exported from Australia attracts zero royalty payments, effectively giving a public resource to multinational gas corporations for free.

It’s time the gas industry started paying its fair share.

There is no gas shortage

The gas industry loves to pretend that we have a shortage of gas. The reason? To use as cover to open new gas fields, most of which will feed their export plants.

We thought we’d better make an ad for that too.

To add insult to injury, these exports are driving up gas and electricity prices for Australians.

University is expensive, especially so for humanities students

Students of communications, humanities and the arts are particularly bad off since the Morrison government came up with the controversial Job-ready Graduates package (JRG) in 2020. JRG increased the cost of law and commerce courses by 28% and saw the cost of humanities subjects more than double. At the time, ministers argued that price incentives would redirect students to STEM, nursing, teaching and other areas.

Before JRG, fees for degrees were justified by some combination of the cost of teaching (for example, teaching dentistry is more expensive than history) or the graduate’s expected earnings (for example law and business graduates tend to earn more than those in creative arts and social sciences). JRG tossed away these justifications. Arts subjects are cheap to teach, and graduates have relatively lower earnings.

JRG even failed on its own terms. One analysis found that less than one in fifty (1.5%) students swapped their field of study because of the change. Students are still enrolling in courses targeted by the Morrison government but face astronomical debt for doing so. Perversely, JRG universities now get less overall funding than they need to deliver STEM courses.

JRG compounded what was already a dire situation for graduates. Between 2006 and 2024, the average HECS/HELP debt for people in their 20s grew from $12,600 to $31,500. The time it takes to repay that debt has also blown out, from an average of 7.3 years in 2006 to almost a decade in 2023.

Repealing JRG would make a real difference to the cost of living for arts, communications and law students and graduates over the long term. It would also remind Australians that universities are not just factories for pumping out skilled workers.

Commonwealth parliamentarians shouldn’t need to look far for justification of the value of an arts degree — more than a third of MPs in the 47th Parliament were arts graduates. For them, higher education was either free or significantly more affordable than it is today. If the next parliament wants to show that it is serious about helping graduates with the cost of living, it would scrap the unfair Job-ready Graduates package.

Nearly 40 years of efficiency dividends, and what have we got to show for it?

The Coalition doggedly promised to cut 41,000 public servants in Canberra. Public service minister and Labor’s ACT Senate candidate Katy Gallagher said the number of public servants was “about right”, but as the ABC pointed out, she “did not rule out cuts altogether”.

Her exact words were: “there may be some changes across departments and agencies as programs finish and other priorities ramp up”.

There’s an obvious question here: if there’s still room for greater efficiency in the public service, what good does the annual efficiency dividend on the public service do?

The efficiency dividend was brought in by the Hawke Government in 1987. It forces government departments and agencies to find enough savings and efficiencies in their operations to accommodate a 1% cut in their budget each year.

It’s been around for nearly forty years now, and governments dial it up or down depending on whether they think there’s political advantage in it. But whichever way you look at it, they haven’t worked as intended.

As the Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister & Cabinet Glynn Davis remarked a few years ago, the efficiency dividend puts a handbrake on the public service’s capacity to learn from the past and rebuild after crises.

Many smaller agencies, including Canberra’s cultural institutions, are barely able to function anymore without emergency funding top-ups to mitigate the effects of the efficiency dividend on their budget. Their job is to grow and collect, while also cutting their operational costs each year. That’s a pretty difficult balancing act for anybody to manage.

Efficiency dividends are supposed to make the public service more streamlined and responsive to the needs of the public. It hasn’t worked as intended. Some agencies benefit from the benevolence of governments who want to make a show of their priorities, while the smallest agencies on the frontlines of public engagement tend to suffer from ministerial diffidence.

Independent ACT Senator David Pocock has been a critic of unfair efficiency dividends in the recent past. The minister may be unmoved by arguments about public service capacity and institutional fairness, but surely the politics are obvious.

A closer look at the Coalition’s economic promises

Weirdly for a party that has been criticising the ALP for being big spending, and putting pressure on inflation, the coalition announced that both 2025-26 and 2-26-27 would have bigger budget deficits.

They countered this by forecasting smaller deficits in the final two years of the forward estimates – but one of those year will be after the next election so it is less a forecast and more some numbers that no one thinks there is any hope of being accurate.

So where are the big “savings”? They estimate they will save $17.2bn over 4 years from cutting 41,000 public servants from Canberra.

Apparently, this will not involve cuts or voluntary redundancies or frontline staff or anyone from Defence or security agencies. As Jack Thrower noted, given in December 2024 there were only 69,438 APS jobs in Canberra, once we exclude those areas we are left with 46,293 jobs. So the Coalition costing assumes that nearly 90% of Canberra’s APS will resign over five years. If the Dept of Health counts as frontline, then we’re assuming 99.2% of people quit, and we know the Coalition loves the War Memorial, so if that is also excluded the Coalition is now assuming that over 100% of the remaining public servants will resign.

There was no costing on the nuclear power other than to note it will all be off-budget in a fund, because apparently a nuclear power plant that have no commercial viability will deliver a return on their investment.

The Coalition also promises to raise a tax on electric vehicles, and end the restriction on sales of vapes which they hope means they’ll raise $3.6bn from people smoking.

They also promised to spend $21bn on defence by 2030, these costings go to 2028-29 and only have $12bn, which means I guess that they plan to spend $9bn extra in 2029-20?

Little wonder they released them on Thursday. These costings might “add up” in a spreadsheet, but they revealed a distinct lack of policy acumen.

5 ideas for a better Australia (missing from the election campaign)

1 . Make it illegal to lie in a political ad

Rival claims of misleading advertising from both sides of politics are the inevitable consequence of the absence of Truth in Political Advertising laws.

Almost 9 out of 10 Australians (89%) support Truth in Political Advertising laws, according to research from the Australia Institute.

It’s far from an outlandish idea. In fact South Australia has had truth in political advertising laws for almost forty years. The ACT has had similar laws since 2020. They work.

If the Government and Parliament are serious about addressing misinformation and improving debate, they could pass truth in political ad laws in time for the next election.

2. Reform negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount

The combination of these tax concessions for housing investors has inflated house prices well beyond incomes and made it harder for people to buy a home to live in.

Reforming these two would rebalance the housing market by reducing demand from investors and make it easier for first time buyers.

These two tax concessions are also enormously skewed towards the wealthiest Australians: the richest 10% reap more than half of the benefits.

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3. Make the gas industry pay their fair share

Much like the fact that there is no shortage of gas in Australia, the Australia Institute has no shortage of ideas on how to stop the rort of polluting industries that profit from extracting our resources, while giving very little benefit back.

• We could fix the woefully inadequate Petroleum Resource Rent Tax, that raised about half as much as the Beer Excise ($1.45 billion vs $2.75 billion in 2024-25).
• We could charge royalties on the 56% of gas that is exported royalty-free
• We could create a levy on fossil fuel exports to compensate for climate damage

4. Increase welfare to reduce poverty

One in eight Australians (13.4%) live in poverty, including 761,000 children. It doesn’t have to be like this. Australia is a rich country.

The COVID supplement, a $550 per fortnight payment to welfare recipients, lifted 650,000 people out of poverty overnight, including 120,000 children.

This shows that poverty is a policy choice. If governments choose to, they could end child poverty and ensure that all older people have a dignified retirement.

5. Strengthen the National Anti-Corruption Commission

Reform is needed if the NACC is to win the confidence of the Australian people.

Its decision regarding Robodebt was subject to adverse findings, and crucially, it is yet to hold a public hearing.

Corruption thrives in the dark. It is time for Australia to correct a culture of secrecy, and let the NACC hold public hearings when there are matters of public importance.

Nine thousand Australians have signed a petition calling for five key reforms:

• Immediately bring forward the independent review of the NACC
• Give the NACC the power to hold public hearings when it is in the public interest
• Expand the Inspector’s powers to review more of the NACC’s operations
• Ensure no party has the majority vote on the NACC’s parliamentary committee
• Implement a Whistleblower Protection Authority

What’s missing?

All of these reforms are practical and largely popular. All that’s left is some political courage.

On courage, Polly Hemming said this in her address to the Climate Integrity Summit:

Power and resistance flow through everyday acts of courage. Together, we hold quite a lot of power. The only difference is whether you want to use it to uphold the status quo, or to change it.

On the eve of Australia’s next Parliament, it’s a message that we would do well to take to heart. Have a listen.

Five reasons why young Australians should be pissed off

1. Uni graduates pay more in HECS than the gas industry pays in PPRT

University used to be free but is now more expensive than ever. After graduating with an arts degree a young Australian will now repay the government around $50,000.

Meanwhile, Australia is one of the world’s largest gas exporters, but multinational gas corporations pay almost nothing for Australia’s gas. Uni graduates now pay back much more in student debt (HECS/HELP) repayments than the gas industry pays in Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT). In 2023-24 Australians paid more than 4 times on HECS/HELP than gas companies did on PRRT.

2. It’s almost impossible to save for a house deposit.

House prices are growing quicker than wages, so the amount a deposit costs has grown faster than most young workers can save. Our Chief Economist Greg Jericho has worked out that for most people, if you started saving for a house 10 years ago, you are now further from having a home deposit than when you started.

He found that in 2014, you needed $154,600 for an average Sydney house deposit. By 2024, an average deposit is over $280,000, meaning that even if you managed to save $126,000 over ten years, you need another $155,404!

3. Younger people pay more tax on the same income than older people

The amount of tax you pay is mainly based on your income. But there are a number of ways that older people end up paying less tax on the same amount of income.

The first is that younger people are more likely than older people to have a HECS/HELP debt. This debt is taken out of their pay at the same time as income tax. That is, it comes out before it arrives in their account. While this is technically a repayment of debt and not tax, for the person making the repayment it acts and feels exactly like paying extra tax.

This comes on top of the fact that most older people paid less for their higher education than younger people. This includes people who went to university when it when it was free from 1974 till 1989.

Older people also get more benefit from tax concessions. Tax concessions are tax loopholes that allow taxpayers to pay less than the full rate of tax. The Federal Government gives many Australians tax breaks, also known as tax concessions. Included are details about some tax concessions that are based on age – these are worth $105 billion per year.¹ It shows that people 65 years and older get $27 billion, or 25% of these tax concessions. People under the age of 30 get $6.5 billion, or 6% of these tax concessions.

Older people get a much larger benefit from these tax concessions because most of their benefit goes to the rich, and older people are on average more wealthy than younger people. The result of this is that older people are able to use these tax concessions to reduce the tax they pay considerably more than younger people.

4. Young people are forced to buy private health insurance to help make it cheaper for older people to get medical treatment

Private health insurance is directly subsided by the government – it cost the Commonwealth $7.6 billion in 2024-25. But the Commonwealth subsidises private health insurance in another way that benefits older people at the expense of younger people.

If people who earn more than $93,000 per year fail to take out private health insurance, the Commonwealth government charges them the Medicare levy surcharge, which is a higher rate of income tax that costs more than a basic private health insurance policy. The effect is that young people who earn more than $93,000 per year are forced to buy private health insurance.

On average, young people are less likely to actually use private health insurance than older people. This means that private health insurance companies pay out far less on claims for young people, and far more on older people. Without the Medicare levy surcharge many young people would choose not to buy health insurance. Losing these highly profitable younger people would mean that private health insurance companies would need to put up premiums on older people. The younger customers pay for the older ones.

The result is that younger people earning more than $93,000 per year are effectively subsidising older people’s private health insurance.

5. Same job, less pay

Even after a young person turns 18 and becomes an adult, legally allowed to vote, drink, smoke, serve on a jury and be deployed to fight in a war, they can still be paid less than other adults.

Australia’s industrial relations system mandates minimum wages across the economy, many of which allow for ‘junior rates’ that mean staff under 21 years old can be paid less than older workers.

Junior rates are often defined as a percentage of the ‘full’ minimum wage. For instance, under the National Minimum Wage, an 18-year-old employee can be paid just two-thirds (68.3%) of what someone aged 21 or over is entitled to. Workers under the age of 18 are also not guaranteed superannuation contributions unless they work 30 hours a week. Almost 9 in 10 workers under the age of 18 (87%) are on junior rates, and about one in three young adult workers (34% of 18-20-year-olds) are on junior rates.

Other countries have moved away from junior rates and towards directly experience-based criteria. For example, in New Zealand, 16- to 19-year-old workers can be paid a ‘starting-out’ minimum wage if they do not yet have six months experience with a single employer. This means that workers are paid according to their ability, not their age. Proponents of junior rates argue that lower pay is necessary to encourage employers to hire younger workers. But over the past decade New Zealand has had broadly similar levels of youth unemployment as Australia, which suggests that junior rates do not lead to higher levels of youth employment.

Power in numbers

This election, Millennials and Gen Z voters will make up 47% of the electorate, which makes them the single largest voting bloc. But young people are being let down by timid governments that are unwilling to make policy changes that would improve their lives. Young people need real action on housing, real action to lower the cost of tertiary education, real taxation reform, and real action on climate change. If Australian governments are unwilling to make these changes, then what incentive do young people have to vote for them?

¹ The tax concessions used are superannuation contributions, superannuation earnings, capital gains tax discount, senior and pensioner tax offset, cost of managing tax affairs, franking credits, Medicare levy low-income threshold, individual deductions for gifts and donations, work-related expenses, and tax benefit of rental deductions.

Letter to the UN to assess Tasmanian salmon farm environmental damage

On Sunday in Hobart over 6,000 people protested against the harmful practices of foreign owned salmon industry in Tasmania. The Australia Institute’s Tasmanian director, Eloise Carr, spoke to rally participants about recent changes to national nature laws and how the Institute has raised this issue with the UN.

Seventeen civil society organisations have written to UNESCO and the IUCN asking for World Heritage Centre officials to visit Tasmania to assess the damage the salmon industry is doing to Tasmania’s Wilderness World Heritage Area.  This would be a huge international embarrassment, but it needs to happen. Macquarie Harbour and the endangered Maugean Skate are running out of time and options.

The Australian government has weakened the nation’s environmental laws for its own cheap, domestic political purposes. It was rushed, mismanaged, completely devoid of scrutiny, and rammed through parliament in the dead of night, with the support of the opposition, while Members of Parliament were focused on the federal budget.

The world is watching in horror as the Australian government puts World Heritage wilderness and a globally renowned native species – also recognised for its World Heritage value – at risk of extinction. It is shameful, and the world must hold the Australian government to account.

Five priorities for the next parliament if we want a liveable Australia

The environment doesn’t care who’s in government — but Australians should. If we want to avoid catastrophic climate and biodiversity collapse, the next parliament has a clear path forward.

Here are five urgent, evidence-based actions ready to go.

No new fossil fuel projects

Australia’s fossil fuel projects are already contributing to climate change. New projects will add to the impact.

Every new fossil fuel project locks in emissions for decades. Every year we delay deeper cuts, we shrink our chances of a liveable future.

Australian governments continue to approve coal and gas developments, and there are around 100 more ‘under development’ according to government sources.

Australia does not need to approve new gas and coal projects for energy. In fact, most of Australia’s gas and coal is exported to other countries. But no matter where in the world it is burned, it still contributes to the climate change Australians want to avoid.

Despite the narrative that the fossil fuel industry is critical to the Australian economy, it actually contributes very little in terms of revenue and employment and is heavily subsidised. In 2024–25, Australian governments provided $14.9 billion worth of spending and tax breaks to assist fossil fuel producers and major users. This is money that could be spent on health, education, and clean energy.

To put it simply, the fossil fuel industry’s political influence in Australia is far greater than its economic significance.

New fossil fuel projects exist only on paper. Ending approvals now would be no different to past decisions Australia has made to ban harmful industries like asbestos, whaling, and engineered stone — clear steps to stop known damage before it grows worse.

Treat environmental protection as national security issue – because it is

Biodiversity loss is a global crisis comparable to climate change in its severity.

Australia has a particularly poor track record of safeguarding biodiversity. Invasive species, land clearing and climate change have resulted in substantial habitat loss.

The cost of restoring and protecting the environment has been estimated at $1–2 billion a year, with one estimate placing it as high as $16 billion a year for extensive restoration of bushfire-damaged areas.

To be clear, this is not a lot. The Australian Government arbitrarily allocates over 2% of Australia’s GDP to defence spending as a ‘policy target’, receiving record funding of AU$55.7 billion in 2024–25. This is an arbitrary spending choice driven by political preference, not need.

A safe environment is critical to human health. It is a national security issue — there is a far stronger argument for spending billions of dollars on it than war toys. As former Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg noted, “Everything is affordable if it’s a priority.”

Australia does not need complicated, flawed market-based systems to address biodiversity loss. Direct, sustained funding — investing straight into farmers, Traditional Owners, and communities — is faster, fairer, more effective, and delivers real economic returns.

Other countries, such as Costa Rica, New Zealand, and Germany, have shown that direct investment models work. Australia has had successes in Landcare, Indigenous ranger programs, and targeted bushfire recovery funding,  demonstrating that when public investment is sufficient and sustained at a national scale, the environmental returns are real and lasting.

End native forest logging

Despite widespread public opposition and a collapsing economic case, native forest logging still continues across parts of Australia. Each year, tens of thousands of hectares of native forest are logged, with operations still active in New South Wales, Tasmania, and on private land in Victoria — often under outdated agreements that prioritise extraction over conservation.

Protecting our native forests can play a very significant role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and protecting critically endangered species like the Leadbeater’s Possum, Greater Glider, Swift Parrot and koalas.

The logging industry is not bound by Australia’s environment protection laws and can clearfell publicly owned native forests without even having to comply with Australia’s national environment legislation, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC Act).

Polling by The Australia Institute shows that seven in ten Australians (69%) support an end to native forest logging on public land across Australia.

The native forest logging industry has collapsed in most Australian states. Where it survives, it is kept afloat by government subsidies. It now costs more to keep the native forest logging industry alive than it would to end it — despite the benefits that ending it would deliver.

The federal government has the power to intervene by applying national environment laws, removing exemptions under the EPBC Act, or refusing export approvals for native forest products. The tools are already there — it’s a choice not to use them.

End the free ride for polluters

Polluters — particularly fossil fuel companies and industries driving deforestation, industrial agriculture, and mining — are directly responsible for climate change, biodiversity loss, and negative health impacts.

At present, the cost of this damage is overwhelmingly paid by the public, not the industries responsible

The Australia Institute’s Climate of the Nation 2024 shows that Australians want greater accountability from the private sector, particularly when it comes to taking responsibility for environmental damage and making a fair economic contribution to Australia.

The “polluter-pays principle” is a concept of environmental law that requires the party responsible for producing pollution to bear the costs of the damage they cause. When properly implemented, it reduces pollution, incentivises cleaner practices, and raises public revenue to fund environmental and social programs. A vast majority of Australians (70%) support the implementation of a polluter-pays mechanism in Australia.

Australia’s own carbon price, introduced in 2012, raised around $6.6 billion in its first year and was projected to generate $24 billion over four years. The revenue was almost entirely recycled: over half funded direct payments and tax cuts for households, with additional support for business transition and clean energy investment.

Australian experts, including organisations like the Superpower Institute, have developed detailed models for updated carbon pricing that the next parliament could adopt. These proposals are designed to drive down emissions, raise revenue, and ensure that industries causing environmental harm contribute fairly to Australia’s future resilience.

Plan and build for a different Australia

Climate adaptation — preparing for and managing the unavoidable impacts of climate change — is no longer optional. Even if emissions were cut to zero tomorrow, decades of accumulated global warming are already locked into the system, driving more extreme weather, biodiversity loss, inequality and public health threats.

Adaptation funding is a core responsibility of good governance, and essential if communities, economies, and ecosystems are to be protected in a warming world.

Australian governments have recognised the need for climate adaptation in principle for over a decade — but in practice, adaptation has been fragmented, underfunded, reactive, and inconsistent across levels of government.

Fifty per cent of Australians think the Australian Government is not doing enough to prepare for and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

A basic first step would be to release the 2023 Office of National Intelligence Climate Risk Assessment report — Australia’s own classified advice on the external risks of climate change. It’s been two years. Australians deserve to know the facts and understand the scale of the threat to their security.

Other countries offer clear models Australia could follow. The Netherlands has built world-leading flood defences and long-term adaptive water management strategies. New Zealand’s National Adaptation Plan sets clear risk priorities and actions across sectors. Denmark has integrated climate adaptation into urban planning with green infrastructure to reduce flood risk. These examples show that serious, coordinated investment in resilience is possible — and that it pays off economically and socially.

Who votes with whom? Beware claims that use voting records to argue politicians have similar views

Sky News says community independent MP Allegra Spender supports more Coalition motions than Greens motions.

But They Vote for You says Spender votes with Greens MPs more often than Coalition MPs.

That both those claims are made about the same person is proof that voting comparisons are fraught.

It is just as confusing when it comes to the major parties.

We know that most legislation is non-controversial and bipartisan, so how is it possible that Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese only votes with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton 1% of the time?

And earlier this year the Liberal and Labor parties did a deal this year to change Australia’s election laws – so why are most Liberal senators not recorded as voting for the deal? And why on that bill are community independents recorded as voting against 61 Labor MPs but only against four Coalition MPs?

The full story is more complicated

Nick Evershed at The Guardian today has a very good article asking what the data shows about politicians’ voting records. For example, does the voting record of the community independents lean towards the Greens, towards Labor or towards the Coalition? And how often do the major parties vote together?

The real story is that the answer depends on what question you are asking – and Evershed has made the data available so you can play around with it yourself.

Voting comparisons are a poor measure of political position

The broad problem with vote comparisons is that they don’t track what does matter, and do track what doesn’t matter.

• Most votes aren’t recorded. The majority of legislation passes “on the voices”, meaning no votes are recorded.
• Many party MPs skip votes – their colleagues represent the party position. Even when votes are recorded, only a few MPs may show up to represent their party’s position.
• If there are only a few crossbenchers on one side, the division isn’t fully recorded.
• MPs may vote the same way but for different reasons. How do you capture when two MPs vote the same way, but for different reasons? Are they really “voting together”? What if someone votes against legislation because it’s been rushed and poorly drafted, not because they disagree with the principle?
• A single vote may be on several things at once, like an omnibus bill covering several topics at once – an MP that opposes one part counts as opposing the lot.
• A principled stand – like never gagging debate – can look like supporting one party. Many votes are on questions like who gets to speak. An MP who votes against the government censoring debate on principle will vote “against Labor” during a Labor Government and “against Liberal” during a Liberal–National Coalition Government.
• “Who votes with whom” comparisons give equal weight to important and trivial votes. But sometimes, a vote is purely symbolic or procedural.
• Other times, a vote that looks procedural actually has a substantive effect. For years, same-sex marriage was blocked through procedural votes.
• An MP who takes a stand can stop legislation before it’s introduced, so their influence is never recorded in the Hansard voting record.
• Sometimes, an MP not turning up to vote at all has the same effect as voting for or against the topic. But they escape being recorded as voting one way or the other.

For these reasons, I’d caution anyone against relying too heavily on supposed “voting records” – without looking at the context behind those votes and how the data has been interpreted.

The four things (mostly) missing from the major parties housing platforms

The housing crisis continues to grip Australia and it’s a central part of this election campaign. Unfortunately, while both major parties have made housing policies key parts of their election platforms their policies mostly tinker around the edges and fail in four key ways.

1. They do not address Australia’s distortionary, expensive, and regressive tax concessions

Negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount distort the housing market and increase house prices. Tax concessions to property investors encourage and enable investors to outbid others who want to buy a home to live in. These property investor tax concessions will cost the budget around $13 billion just next year, with this figure set to rise each year after. This overwhelmingly benefits high-income earners; over half (56%) of the benefit goes to the top 10% of income earners, while the bottom half get only 13%. Closing these tax loopholes could stop these distortions, improve housing affordability and raise billions that could be spent on pressing social needs.

2. Almost all the policies they have announced would pump up demand, which will only increase house prices

Instead of tackling these causes of the crisis, most new policy announcements will simply pump up demand for housing, and this is likely pushing prices up even further. Labor has announced a plan to guarantee a 5% deposit for first-home buyers. While this might benefit some at the margin, it creates even more demand for housing and pushes prices higher. The Coalition has at least two policies to increase demand for housing, including the plan to allow people to raid their superannuation account for up to $50,000 and creating a new, expensive, and regressive tax deduction for mortgage interest. All of these policies are essentially new versions of ‘first-home buyer grants’, and Australia’s twenty years of experience shows they have wasted tens of billions of public money while making housing even less affordable.

3. There’s some talk about public building but nothing new on social housing 

The best bit of Labor’s announcements is a $10 billion plan to partner with state developers and industry to build 100,000 new homes for first-home buyers. This is a step in the right direction because, rather than simply subsidising the private market, solving the housing crisis is going to require the government to take direct responsibility for housing. Governments can and have directly built housing before; between 1945-1970 government builds accounted for 16% of total national residential construction, but since the mid-1990s they have accounted for just 3%. Unfortunately, this policy will not reverse the decline in public and social housing. There is currently a shortfall of about 640,000 social homes in Australia, and neither major party has a plan to close this gap.

4. Migrants are not to blame for soaring house prices

Both major parties have promised to ban temporary residents from buying existing properties, and the Coalition are promising large cuts to immigration, which they argue is driving up house prices. Over the past decade, the number of residential dwellings has increased faster than the population, and when the borders were shut, property prices boomed. House prices haven’t increased because there are too many migrants, but because there are too many tax breaks for investors.

Busting myths on Q+A | Richard Denniss highlights

Economist Richard Denniss joined ABC’s Q+A to dig into the election promises and explain how we can actually help people who are struggling in Australia.

Will the major parties housing policies actually help?

With calls for more spending to help those struggling the most, what are Australia’s options to collect more revenue?

“Australia is the third biggest fossil fuel exporter in the world. “Norway, which is also a big fossil fuel exporter, they tax their fossil fuel industry and give their kids free university education. “In Australia, we subsidise the fossil fuel industry.”

“We can either collect more tax from the big businesses that can afford to pay it, or we can say, Sorry, Marge, you’ve had it too good.”

Is there a benefit to coming first on the ballot?

Randomising is an improvement on how we did it before 1984 – which was by alphabetical order of surname. Parties preferred “Andersons” and “Brownes” in those days!

When someone numbers 1, 2, 3, etc all the way down the ballot, that’s called a “donkey vote”. It is a valid vote – but not a very thoughtful one.

So do donkey voters give candidates at the top of the ballot an advantage?

Yes – topping the ballot is worth about 1 percentage point. Maybe a little more in electorates with younger voters and where fluency in English is lower.

That’s according to research by academics Amy King and Andrew Leigh – the same Andrew Leigh who is now a federal Labor MP.

If you think this is unfair, there is an alternative – called “Robson rotation”. In Robson rotation, the order of candidates rotates so a random ballot paper could have any candidate at the top of the paper. Liberal Senator James McGrath has pushed unsuccessfully for Robson rotation to be used in House of Representatives elections.

When there is a risk of confusion, the advantage of coming at the top of the ballot may be greater than 1 percentage point. In 2013, there were 45 columns on the NSW Senate voting paper – and the “Liberal Democrats” minor party drew first place. They won 9.5% of the vote, and a Senate seat for Senator David Leyonhjelm. Some of those voters likely saw “Liberal” and assumed it was the Liberal Party.

Unfortunately, the major parties responded with heavy-handed restrictions on party names, including a ban on ‘frivolous’ party names, instead of finding a middle ground. As I said at the time: “Words like ‘liberal’, ‘labour’ and ‘green’ describe ideologies and interests found across multiple parties, not just the parties that got there first. Australia has a long history of splinter parties, like the Democratic Labor Party and the Liberal Movement, whose names represent their background and concerns.”

Australia’s paper tigers – the state of news competition

A competitive and diverse news industry is key to a democratic society, keeping institutions accountable and transparent. But the ability of Australia’s Fourth Estate to perform that role is increasingly in doubt.

Australia was once labelled the “land of the newspaper” by British visitors, with a flourishing and diverse news industry, but for over a century its newspaper market has only become more concentrated and less competitive. In 1903 there were 21 daily newspapers in the capital cities, with 17 different owners; By the 1950s it was 15, with ten different owners. Now it’s even worse.

In recent decades, Australia’s media landscape has rapidly become more concentrated. The widespread adoption of the internet, and subsequent rise of online news, hit the news industry hard across the globe. Australia reacted to those shocks by moving in the wrong direction. Since the turn of the millennium, governments have significantly relaxed Australia’s media competition laws twice – by Howard in 2007, and by Turnbull in 2017 – allowing this country to have the second worst level of newspaper concentration in the world, behind only Brazil.

Today, Australia has just ten daily newspapers in the capital cities, owned by four companies.

Four of those newspapers are in Sydney and Melbourne, where Nine and News Corp compete in the daily news market, but in Australia’s other capital cities there is no daily competition. In fact, out of this country’s 20 largest cities, 18 lack competition between two comparable print media outlets. Ten million Australians, 39% of the population, live in those 18 uncompetitive newspaper markets.

If you go to a cafe, a newsagency, or the supermarket in one of those cities and want to get some daily news about the city you live in: there’s only one newspaper available. You might then search for an online alternative, but the largest online outlet is probably the same as the single newspaper. The smaller websites that do exist are subject to the same financial constraints that have rocked the industry for decades, all the while competing against better-resourced rivals, which means they don’t represent a like-for-like replacement for print competition.

News outside the biggest cities isn’t faring much better. Swathes of regional outlets have shut since 2019, and over a quarter of Australian local government areas – all in regional areas – now have no independent local news.

The media empires that control so much of Australia’s news industry have become hollow: focusing more and more on the capital cities and leaving regional areas lacking.

While News Corp boasts an impressive 119 news outlets registered with the Australian Press Council, only 19 remain as separate newspapers with their own print edition or website. The other 100 have been transitioned into a “digital-only” (as News Corp describes it) model, and are not really living publications, instead they exist in a kind of undead state. They still post on social media pages and in subsections of a capital city daily (such as the Daily Telegraph, or Courier Mail), but they don’t have their own websites or print editions.

Of the 100 undead papers, 75 are zombies – they were once their own newspaper, but were shut down and brought back to “life” digitally, losing any semblance of a separate identity (either in print or online) in the process. The other 25 are phantoms – they never even had a presence of their own and have always existed only as social media and a subsection. The zombie papers were generally in regional areas before their untimely demise, shut down in the last five or six years, and News Corp purports the phantom papers to be an expansion of their regional catalogue. However, neither the zombie nor phantom papers are any substitute for what many of the communities they serve had less than a decade ago – a living, breathing local newspaper.

While the other conglomerates don’t use this undead “digital-only” model, they aren’t faring much better. Australian Community Media, for example, published 170 local and regional newspaper titles at its peak in 2019, a number which shrank to just 62 by 2024. Earlier this year ACM shuttered even more outlets and announced a plan to shift its remaining daily newspapers to a weekly format by the end of the decade.

These changes come at a cost. At its best, local reporting is a centrepiece of the community, especially in regional areas; it keeps people informed, local government accountable, and can bring community issues to national attention. While regional newspapers have declined, so too have the number of journalists in regional areas: 57% of journalists live in inner-metropolitan areas, where only 30% of Australians live, and only 15% in rural where a quarter of Australians live. A community in central Sydney or Melbourne is, far more likely to have its stories told first-hand by locals who understand their community, while rural areas are often left with drive-in-drive-out journos.

At the time of writing, Australia is in the middle of an election campaign where the major parties and media are paying increasing attention to electorates in outer-metropolitan and regional areas. Peter Dutton has staked his victory chances on being able to understand those electorates as part of his “forgotten people” strategy. But with the country’s journalists concentrated in the inner cities, how can the news industry effectively cover such an election?

The rapid changes in the news industry have left only a handful of big conglomerates standing, and loosened ownership laws have allowed them to tighten their grip, now owning 84% of Australia’s newspaper market. Conglomerates are not serving the country well. Australians need news that reflects the diversity of the country, and to achieve that the industry needs journalists who live is a range of locations. Right now, it falls well short.

The role of the ABC, a national broadcaster not beholden to the same financial incentives as privately-owned media, is becoming increasingly vital. However, the national broadcaster has been implementing cuts to its regional services thanks to a reduced budget, so without intervention – in the form of more funding – the concentration of Australian news in only a handful of places will continue.

The Fourth Estate is one of the pillars that holds democracy upright. If it can’t perform its functions, making Australian society transparent and its institutions accountable, adequately then this country’s democracy is on wobbly footing indeed.

Full preferential voting means you can’t waste your vote

Full preferential voting is a proud Coalition reform – one that benefits every political persuasion

Compulsory voting and full preferential voting make up the backbone of Australian democracy, and protect us from voter suppression and disengagement seen in other countries. We owe both to the parties of the centre-right, what would become the Liberal–National Coalition.

Compulsory voting ensures that most Australians participate in elections. It removes the incentive for nasty campaigns to demoralise people so they do not bother to vote at all and deliberate maladministration to make voting so unpleasant for targeted groups that turnout is suppressed.

Both deliberate voter suppression and poor voter turnout are seen in countries without compulsory voting.

The reform was introduced federally in 1924 via a private member’s bill from the Nationalist Party reformer HJM Payne, nine years after a conservative government adopted it in Queensland. In the 1922 election, voter turnout was just under 60%; In 1925 – the first under compulsory voting – it rose to over 90%.

Why full preferential voting ensures your vote can’t be ‘wasted’

As for preferential voting, its great benefit is that it ensures that Australians cannot “waste” their vote. Under full preferential voting, Australians number every candidate according to their preference.

The full distribution of preferences confirms that between the last two candidates remaining, the majority prefer the ultimate winner. An elected representative can be confident that they are preferred by the majority over the runner up – even if they started with a lower primary vote.

New South Wales is the one state that uses optional preferential voting instead of full preferential voting. Voters must give their first preference to a candidate but may then stop numbering. Most stop after a single vote, meaning that many voters forfeit their right to influence the final election result.

The switch from full preferential to optional was made in the 1980s in an attempt by the Labor Government at the time to hobble the conservative parties – who have historically depended on preferential voting to win elections.

Some history

In the 1910s, conservative liberal parties and country parties were eating each other’s lunch. Under “first past the post”, conservative voters were splitting the vote between Liberal (or several variations thereof) and Country candidates. Labor candidates were winning even in electorates where the majority of voters clearly preferred a non-Labor member.

On its election in 1917, the Nationalist Party (precursor to the modern Liberal Party) wasted no time in bringing in full preferential voting, and immediately felt its benefit. In the 1918 by-election for Corangamite, the Labor candidate won 43% of the primary vote while four conservative parties split the vote: 26%, 23%, 5% and 4%. The vast majority of conservative voters preferred the Victorian Farmers candidate over Labor, and their preferences propelled him to a comfortable 56%–44% win.

Historically, full preferential voting benefited the Coalition. Data from Antony Green shows that between 1949 and 2010, Coalition candidates won 125 seats from behind thanks to preferences – more than double the 53 Labor candidates who did the same and far more than the 6 independent/other candidates in the same position.

Since 1998, Labor has won more seats from behind thanks to preferences than the Coalition, and in 2022 more independent/minor party candidates won from behind than either Labor or Coalition candidates.

Overall, since the modern Liberal Party’s first election in 1946 the Coalition won 128 seats from behind, Labor 97 and crossbenchers 23.

The most audacious seat win – where a candidate from the lowest primary vote ended up winning the seat – was Country candidate Arthur Hewson in McMillan in 1972. He won from third place with just 17% of the primary vote to Labor’s 46%. He won because he was ultimately preferred by 52% of voters to Labor’s 48%.

Such victories are rarer under optional preferential voting because more voters stop numbering after identifying a single preference. However, they still happen. In the NSW state seat of Murrumbidgee in 1984, National Adrian Cruickshank started in third place on 25% of the vote but leapfrogged an independent and the Labor candidate to finish with 52%.

Full preferential voting made the Coalition feasible across Australia – because it allowed Liberal and Country/National candidates to run against each other without sabotaging the Coalition’s overall prospects. One of the great losses from optional preferential voting in New South Wales is that Liberal and National candidates are reluctant to run against one another, limiting the choices for regional conservative voters. Cases like Adrian Cruickshank’s are getting less common as the Coalition parties fear voters will stop after numbering one candidate.

Is preferential voting at risk?

Unfortunately, some conservatives now see independent and minor party candidates winning on preferences and are tempted to abandon full preferential voting, or even preferential voting at all.

Short-term political advantage is a poor guide for reform. Just as NSW Labor came to regret dropping full preferential voting in that state, there is every chance that abandoning one of the Coalition’s signature contributions to Australian democracy would hurt the Coalition just as much as it does Australian voters.

Australians can be thankful to the Liberal Party for preferential voting, but the Liberals should be thankful to preferential voting too.

Data sources

Australian Electoral Commission (2022) Tally room archive
Bonham (2019) 2019 House of reps figures finalised
Green (2010) Preferential Voting in Australia
Green (2013) Preference Flows at the 2013 Federal Election
Green (2016) Preference Flows at the 2016 Federal Election
Green (2019) Preference Flows at the 2019 Federal Election
Green (2022) 2022 Post-Federal Election Pendulum

Liberal Party will miss its decade-long target for female representation

It’s a reminder that despite women making up half the population, men outnumber women in most Australian parliaments and most party rooms.

Ten years ago the Liberal and Labor parties set the same target for women’s representation: 50% of parliamentarians to be women by 2025, this year.

While the Labor Party meets that target, the Liberal Party is far short of it.

When The Australia Institute crunched the numbers last year, male Liberal parliamentarians outnumbered female Liberal parliamentarians more than two to one.

The Liberal Party used to lead on women’s representation. Eight of the first 10 female federal MPs and Senators were Liberals.

Gough Whitlam’s “It’s time” win in 1972 included 93 male MPs and Senators – and not a single woman.

While things soon improved (it was not possible for them to get worse), it would be another three decades before the Labor Party was consistently more gender-representative than the Liberals at the federal level.

Nor were early Liberals opposed to quotas. As former Liberal senator Judith Troeth notes, “from 1944 the Liberal Party had reserved 50 per cent of the Victorian Division’s executive positions for women”.

The argument that quotas do not allow women to be selected on “merit” is facile: Coalition Cabinets always have a quota for National MPs.

For more details, see last year’s article here.

Commonwealth Budget 2025-2026: Our analysis

The Centre for Future Work’s research team has analysed the Commonwealth Government’s budget, focusing on key areas for workers, working lives, and labour markets.

As expected with a Federal election looming, the budget is not a horror one of austerity. However, the 2025-2026 budget is characterised by the absence of any significant initiatives.
There is very little in this budget that is new, other than some surprise tax cuts, which are welcome given they mostly benefit people on low incomes

There are continuing investments in some key areas supporting wages growth where it is solely needed and for rebuilding important areas of public good. However, there remains much that needs to be done in the next parliament, whoever is in government.

“The budget does deliver a welcome tax cut targeted towards those on low incomes” Chief Economist Greg Jericho notes, “but the lack of new spending and initiatives highlights the need for policies from all political parties in the coming election campaign that address inequality and the needs of people who have been most hurt by cost of living rises over the past three years.”

Read our full budget briefing paper for more information

Budget 2025 Winners and Losers – The Australia Institute

Winners

Well, everyone who earns more than $18,200. Everyone gets a tax cut – up to $268 in 2026-27 and another one in 2027-28. It’s a smart tax cut – mostly benefitting those earning less than $45,000.

People who go to the doctor/use the PBS – as was previously announced – cheaper PBS medicine, cheaper GP visits (hopefully) and the energy rebate is extended for another 6 months (tune back in 6 months to see if it gets extended again).

Beer drinkers – the Government will pause indexation on draught beer excise and excise equivalent customs duty rates for a two‑year period, from August 2025 – also previously announced.

Gas companies who are projected to pay less PRRT over the next 4 years – $1.95bn than $1.8bn then $1.65bn then $1.45bn. As a result, beer drinkers – even with the pause of excise indexation will still pay $4.8bn more than gas companies do on PRRT over the next 4 years.

Wealthy people who live using the superannuation system to avoid paying tax – no changes to the super tax concessions.

Wealthy people who like using the tax system to speculate in the housing market. No changes to that nor negative gearing.

Fossil fuel companies – the fuel tax credit continues to grow from $10.8bn this year to $13.1bn in 2028-29. And it is forecast to keep rising because the government “expect an increase in the use of fuels that are eligible for the fuel tax credit scheme” – ie the credit scheme encourages the use of fossil fuel.

Losers

Unemployed – no increase in Jobseeker. They will continue to exist on an amount that is around 38% below the poverty line.

The Maugean Skate and the environment. The Treasurer did not mention climate change once in his speech. Nor did he mention the Maugean Skate, whose existence is under critical threat due to laws rammed through the house today that enable the salmon farming to continue in Macquarie Harbour. The government does allocate $2.4m on a breeding program for the Maugean Skate spread over 202-627 and 2027-28. How do they pay for it? By cutting spending in the Department of Environment and Climate Change in 2025-26 by $2.4m. Golf claps all round.

People wanting to ever afford a home. The wait for the removal of the distortions in the housing market continue. Sure there is some money being spent on shared equity but it’s all just fiddling on the roof – a burning roof.

Commonwealth live music inquiry: sing along with the chorus now…

The Australian Government’s latest report into the state of live music – “Am I Ever Gonna See You Live Again?” – makes some great recommendations, including for:

• tax offsets to be given to venues that host live music;
• training and education programs to help foster a love of music among young people;
• a rebate or voucher scheme to incentivise younger audiences to attend live music (which, as Australia Institute research has shown, is an approach that has been successful in Europe).

But, for these recommendations to have any weight, they’ll need to be backed up with adequate funding; the March budget is an opportunity for just that.

As Australia’s once healthy festival circuit collapses, the report highlights Triple J’s “One Night Stand” as an example of what success looks like. It notes that, when the event was held in Mt Isa in 2017, it brought a $3 million dollar boost to the local economy. Crucially, it goes on to point out that the ABC (i.e. the public) pays for these events and, therefore, its success “is likely unattainable for commercial festivals.” Where private business can turn a profit, monopolistic behaviour has become a problem, which is why the report recommends consumer law be amended to protect people from “dynamic pricing”, and why it calls for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to monitor the Australian music industry for anti-competitive conduct.

The inquiry is attuned to how much has changed since The Angels sung the song after which the report is named. It recommends that comprehensive research be conducted “into changes in audience behaviour and generational attitudes and behaviours that have affected demand for live music” and, relatedly, “on business models for live music that do not require dependence on the sale of alcohol.” Going to a pub to see a band is not the social staple it once was. More people are spending more time online, which is the source of another problem: Australians are unlikely to be streaming Australian music, and when they do, streaming services don’t pay artists enough. To this end the committee recommends that “legislation be strongly considered to mandate and enforce higher proportions of Australian music on these services.” But that would only address half the problem. If the music business model is broken, who is going to pay to fix it?

People – young and old – now expect to get as much recorded music as they like for free; so it won’t be them. Streaming services haven’t filled the pockets emptied by the terminal illness afflicting the record industry; so not them either. And, despite the band t-shirts and selfies with Swifties, our Commonwealth representatives have yet to put their money where their mouth is. It is worth remembering that the Australian Government (albeit one of a different party) held a different inquiry into live music in 2019. That was just six years ago, before the pandemic laid waste to public gatherings. Between their two inquiries, the two major parties are singing from the same song sheet when it comes to supporting the Australian music scene. But the funding is still falling well short of where it needs to be.

Last year, the Albanese Government announced new spending of $8.6 million for its ‘Revive Live’ program, intended to help live music venues and festivals. This is a start, but funding the recommendations of the inquiry will cost a lot more. A tax offset to encourage live music would cost somewhere between $60 and $230 million a year (but it would also bring benefits to government of $90 to $120 million). A rebate or voucher scheme would cost about $66 million a year. A live music event-related training program for young people would cost about $7 million over four years. If the major parties are serious about addressing the situation that both have acknowledged, they’ll need to fund the solutions they say will work.

This wouldn’t be unprecedented. Back in 1972, the Whitlam Government was elected with a firm commitment to invest more in Australia’s cultural sector. It made good on that promise, boosting funding to the Australia Council for the Arts (as it was then called) threefold in two years. The rich cultural output of the era –which included the inception of Triple J – speaks for itself. It’s telling that the title of the report comes from a song that was first released in the same era. If the Commonwealth is serious about revitalising our music scene, they must recognise the generational change – in tastes, values, technology, and social habits – that has already taken place. Triple J’s Hottest 100 used to be the red letter day of the Australian music calendar, but this year it included the fewest Australian artists since its inception.

Last week the Albanese Government confirmed that it will release a budget in March, before an election in May. If it weren’t for Cyclone Alfred, this probably wouldn’t be happening. The Commonwealth now has an opportunity to back up the recommendations of its own inquiry by funding the solutions it says will help the Australian music industry. And when a night out can set you back as much as your car rego, this too is a cost-of-living issue.

Inquiries are good at putting the spotlight on a particular issue. With its latest one into the Australian music scene, the Commonwealth has asked “Am I Ever Gonna See You Live Again?” But unless it’s recommendations are funded, the answer might as well be “no way, get f***ed.”

Analysis: Will 2025 be a good or bad year for women workers in Australia?

In 2024 we saw some welcome developments for working women, led by government reforms.

Benefits from these changes will continue in 2025. However, this year, technological, social and political changes may challenge working women’s economic security and threaten progress
towards gender equality at work Here’s our list of five areas we think will impact on women workers’ economic security in 2025.

1. AI and the digital transformation of workplaces

2024 was the year artificial intelligence really started making its presence felt in Australian workplaces. The take up of AI is likely to accelerate in 2025. Alongside benefits from innovation there are some significant risks for workers, including in sectors dominated by women.

Job displacement is likely. Some new jobs will be created but job loss and casualisation are big risks for workers unless active effort goes into planning, training and support. In numerical terms, the greatest displacements are expected to be in retail trade, administrative and support services, professional, scientific and technical services and health care and social assistance, all female-dominated sectors.

Other risks are to job quality, as algorithmic management spreads from app-driven gig work into traditional workplaces. Assisted by electronic surveillance, AI is being used in selection and recruitment of staff, allocation and direction of work, and evaluation of performance of workers.

We are already seeing negative impacts like discrimination in selection, loss of autonomy for workers, and work intensification from algorithm-driven processes in various industries. 2025 is the year when it will be decided what rules we want around AI and who will benefit from AI innovation. Consultation with workers will be vital to good policy and law making

2. Closing the gender pay gap

The gender pay gap has slowly been closing in Australia. The gender gap in total remuneration in larger workplaces (with over 100 employees) is nearly 22%.

2025 is likely to see further closing of the pay gap as a result of wage increases in some lower paid female-dominated industries. Final pay increases for aged care workers come through in 2025.

Following recent reforms to the Fair Work Act (FWA), a review of wage rates in other female-dominated awards is underway. New cases to address gender undervaluation of work are before the Fair Work Commission (FWC), including for nurses and midwives.

Early childhood education and care workers will also receive pay increases of up to 15% this year, because of a new agreement made through multi-employer bargaining.

In total, hundreds of thousands of women workers and their families will benefit from the pay increases already awarded in care sectors. The Commonwealth Government’s preparedness to fund these pay increases has been critical, and continuing commitment will be essential to further narrowing the gender pay gap.

3. Work, care and flexibility

Some large corporations are winding back working from home arrangements for their employees. In 2025 we may see other employers follow their lead. This week the Opposition Leader Peter Dutton announced a coalition government would stop public servants working from home.

Working from home has supported better work-life balance for many people. This is especially so for workers with parenting and other care responsibilities. These arrangements also have productivity benefits for workplaces.

Despite the recent moves by some employers, we think it unlikely 2025 will see a widespread return to five days in the office. Work being done by the FWC to develop a working from home clause for industrial awards should help employers and employees manage this flexible work practice.

A formal Right to Disconnect – designed to limit contact from work outside work hours – and new strengthened rights to flexible work both came into effect in 2024. In 2025 we should see reductions in overwork and unpaid overtime, and greater access to flexible work, as these provisions are used by workers more frequently. There are already some signs that the Right to Disconnect may be shifting work cultures in a positive direction.

Many part-time hours jobs are made insecure by lack of certainty and predictability of working time (and income). This is particularly problematic for workers with caring responsibilities. In 2025 there are new options for casuals to convert to more stable permanent employment. The FWC will also be looking at ways to tackle the problems of very short hours work and irregular rostering that undermine workers’ economic security in many feminised industries.

Changes to childcare subsidy arrangements made in February (and taking effect in 2026) abolish the parental “activity test” that was a barrier to lower-income families. The changes provide all families with an entitlement to at least three days a week of subsidised early childhood education and care (ECEC), bringing Australia a step closer to having a universal ECEC system.

4. Young women’s economic security

Economic insecurity for young women, whilst not a new problem, is potentially a new frontier for urgent action in 2025.

Stagnation in real wage growth affecting most workers, has been particularly bad for young women. Research shows young women are feeling more stressed and overwhelmed by finances and money than their male counterparts and they are less likely to be able to raise funds in an emergency. They are more likely to have a debt to a ‘buy now pay later’ scheme. In June 2025,
new laws will place greater scrutiny on these deferred payments schemes. However, further action will be needed, including to address the targeting of young women by the schemes.

In 2025 we hope to see more action to limit the negative impacts of increases in university fees, which have outstripped inflation. Debt accrued through tertiary education is a significant burden for many young people and 60% of those with an outstanding HECS debt are women.

Annual indexation of HECS debts impacts disproportionately as the gender gap in hourly, annual, and life-time earnings means women’s debts are paid off slower and grow faster.

A one-off reduction of 20% in all outstanding HECS debt to be applied in July 2025 will be particularly helpful to women. Fee-free tertiary education may not be on the agenda for 2025, but we hope to see further action to limit indexation.

5. Diversity, equality and inclusion in workplaces

President Trump’s campaign to stamp out diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies in the USA may have reverberations in Australia in 2025.

Internationally, some large companies have abandoned their DEI programs following Trump’s move. To date, some large Australian corporates have reaffirmed their ongoing commitment to
diversity and inclusion, but there are signs commitment may be weakening.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton has made it clear he is not supportive of these programs. This is concerning given most of the positive developments for women at work in Australia in the past year – and the promise of further progress in 2025 – depend on commitment and action by the Australian government.

Small Islands making waves of change: Legacy of AOSIS – Ilana Seid | Climate Integrity Summit 2025

H.E. Ilana V. Seid, the Chair of AOSIS & Permanent Representative of Palau to the United Nations will highlight how nations with small populations like Palau can wield significant diplomatic influence in shaping global policy outcomes, and how AOSIS has been at the forefront of international negotiations, playing a pivotal role in shaping the Paris Agreement and amplifying the voices of small island states on the global stage.

Watch:

Presented by Her Excellency Ilana Seid, Chair of Alliance of Small Island States & Ambassador and Permanent Representative for the Republic of Palau to the United Nations

Holding Leaders to Account – Richard Denniss | Climate Integrity Summit 2025

“Demanding better from our leaders is often met with threats like ‘well if you push too hard then you’ll get nothing’.”

“Ignore this. It shows you’re winning.”

Watch:

In his opening remarks, Richard shows how far we have come since the Australia Institute’s first Climate Integrity Summit 3 years ago.

Wrapping the Summit up, Richard explains the power that each of us hold, and can use to hold our leaders to account.

Watch:

Beyond the Energy Security Myth: Japan-Aus LNG – Yuki Tanabe | Climate Integrity Summit 2025

Far from addressing regional concerns in good faith, Australia’s efforts to justify and perpetuate Australia’s fossil fuel exports, undermine regional decarbonisation and human security.

Watch:

Yuki Tanabe, a Program Co-ordinator from Japan Center for a Sustainable Environment and Society provides insights into the reality of Japan-Australia LNG relations, the risks of ongoing investment in fossil fuels for both countries and how Australia’s trade relationship with Japan could constructively contribute to regional decarbonisation.

Presented by Yuki Tanabe, Sustainable Development and Aid Program Coordinator, Japan Center for a Sustainable Environment and Society

The Shifting Geopolitical Order – Dr Emma Shortis | Climate Integrity Summit 2025

As new powers and alliances emerge, the traditional dominance of the US comes into question and Australia’s unwavering allegiance to the United States risks aligning climate and security strategies with a partner that is failing to lead on the most pressing issue of our time.

Watch:

By acting more independently and forging stronger partnerships with nations and blocs to advocate for genuine decarbonisation and adaptation funding, Australia has an opportunity to play a meaningful leadership role on the global stage. By embracing this potential and asserting itself as a proactive and innovative leader in the fight against climate change, Australia can secure its own prosperity and influence in a rapidly changing world.

Presented by Dr Emma Shortis, International & Security Affairs Director, The Australia Institute

Redefining Global Security – Dr Helder da Costa | Climate Integrity Summit 2025

Highlighting the link between climate change and global security, Dr Helder da Costa will emphasise how global challenges like climate change exacerbate conflict, undermine stability, and disproportionately affect fragile and conflict-affected states, and how to pursue resilience therein. Wealthy nations play a pivotal role in supporting the g7+ goals, and achieving true ‘security’ through genuine partnerships, enhanced climate financing, and knowledge-sharing.

By aligning its efforts with countries affected by conflict and fragility, Australia can not only contribute to global stability but also strengthen its own domestic security by addressing the far-reaching impacts of climate-driven instability. This session will underscore the urgency of collective action and the mutual benefits of prioritising climate resilience in places affected by conflict and fragility as a cornerstone of global and national security.

Presented by Dr Helder da Costa, General Secretary, The g7+ Secretariat