The Wrap with Ebony Bennett The Australia Institute has had a massive March, full of incredible and exciting events. Over the course of the month, we have hosted prominent thinkers from across the world such as Yanis Varoufakis and His Excellency Anote Tong in celebration of our 30th anniversary, organised speaking tours in major cities,

The Wrap with Ebony Bennett This week, I had the pleasure of interviewing Yanis Varoufakis, the former Finance Minister of Greece, at one of two sold-out shows in Sydney and Melbourne. Yanis Varoufakis was touring Australia as a guest of the Australia Institute as part of our 30th anniversary celebrations. You may also have seen

The Wrap with Richard Denniss The amendments to the Stage 3 tax cuts that passed through the Senate this week marked the culmination of more than five years of work from the team at the Australia Institute. In 2018, literally the day after Scott Morrison announced the biggest and most inequitable tax cuts in Australian

The Wrap with Ebony Bennett The public support for the Albanese government’s bold decision to redesign the Stage 3 tax cuts has shown us that Australians are up for a conversation about tax – and that we understand that policies need to change as our circumstances change. Our research found that Australians’ appetite for tax

The Wrap with Ebony Bennett What. A. Fortnight. People told us it was impossible. But last week Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the Stage 3 tax cuts would be redesigned to make them fairer, redistributing $84 billion that was destined to go to the highest income earners back to people on low and middle incomes.

The Wrap with Richard Denniss As 2023 rapidly draws to a close, the festive season fast approaches. For many, that means thinking about Christmas or, more astutely, the cost of Christmas. With profit fuelled inflation rising faster than most worker’s ‘real wage’ (that is the wage adjusted for inflation), many Australians can’t afford to buy

The Wrap with Ebony Bennett It can be easy to forget this. Often, the path to change isn’t linear and there are setbacks along the way. But the Australia Institute has been a part of three undeniable recent wins. Our work to save the endangered Maugean skate has triggered an EPBC review into salmon farming

The Wrap with Ebony Bennett Today is our annual Go Home on Time Day, when we shine a spotlight on the unpaid overtime of workers across Australia. This year’s report found that employers were stealing more than 280 hours from workers each year, exposing a heavily uneven labour market rife with insecure work and often

The Wrap with Richard Denniss At the same time as Anthony Albanese flew into the Cook Islands to discuss climate action at the Pacific Island Forum, the Australian Parliament was passing the new Sea Dumping legislation. A bill which will allow Santos to pump millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide, 800 kilometres north into the

The Wrap with Richard Denniss While I have no doubt that the votes cast in the recent referendum were validly counted, I have major doubts about the arguments and evidence on which many of those votes were based. Misinformation and lies have always played a role in elections, but new technology has made it so

The Wrap with Richard Denniss This Saturday, October 14, is a crucial day for Australia: the day we vote on whether or not to create an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. The new body, enshrined in the Constitution, will add an Indigenous perspective when the Parliament is drafting laws and making policies that impact Indigenous communities.

The Wrap with Richard Denniss Australia’s governments, both state and federal, usually like to brag about their ability to attract foreign investment and generate exports, but when it comes to growth in fossil fuel exports, they prefer to hide their light under a bushel. But while governments in Australia tend to downplay their enormous fossil

The Wrap with Richard Denniss There has never been a more profitable time to cause climate change. This year, while millions of Australians are struggling with a cost of living crisis, fossil fuel companies operating in Australia made $140 billion in profits. The fossil fuel industry will never tire of making that much money, which is

The Wrap with Ebony Bennett The date for the Voice Referendum has been set and on Saturday 14 October the country will come together to make a choice about the role of First Nations people in Australia’s future. For me, the choice to vote Yes in the referendum is a simple one. First Nations people

The Wrap with Richard Denniss Is something better than nothing, or do we always need to be on the lookout for ways to do better? Should we be proud that the Matildas made the semi-finals or should we be aiming to win the World Cup? Should Government policy be focussed on the politics of today

The Wrap with Richard Denniss The UN Secretary General may think ‘the era of global boiling’ has just arrived, but here in Australia the era of subsidised fossil fuel expansion is already in full swing. Just one new LNG project being facilitated by the $1.5 billion of public money we have given to the ‘Middle

The Wrap with Richard Denniss ‘Continuity with change’ was the presidential campaign slogan from the US satire Veep, and so far it seems to capture the messages emerging from the newly communications focused Reserve Bank of Australia. The new RBA Governor Michele Bullock, like her predecessor, has spent her whole professional life at the RBA

The Wrap with Richard Denniss After more than a decade of work, it was incredible to wake up on 1 July and know that Australia finally had a federal anti-corruption watchdog in place. The role of a think-tank is to make the radical seem reasonable, and one of the biggest challenges in explaining the impact

The Wrap with Richard Denniss The Australia Institute has never been one to shy away from the big fights, but even after decades of fighting against subsidies for the fossil fuel industry and tax cuts for our biggest businesses, our recent fight with the RBA has been a doozy. We don’t pick our battles because

The Wrap with Ebony Bennett Integrity was a key election issue and it’s not difficult to see why. The scandal engulfing PwC has shone a spotlight on just how far the tentacles of the big four accounting firms extend into government, the public service and even into the Australian Federal Police (AFP). So far entrenched

The Wrap with Richard Denniss It’s not true that increasing government spending will make inflation worse. It’s also no accident that those opposed to small increases in unemployment benefits, arguing it will cause inflation and worsen the cost of living, have been strategically silent about the impact of spending $268-368 billion on the AUKUS submarines.

The Wrap with Richard Denniss Budgets, like life, are all about priorities. It’s easy to talk about all the things we can do, but it’s harder to decide where we’re going to channel our efforts. And as in life, sometimes the hardest part of prioritising is telling other people that their priorities aren’t yours. On

The Wrap with Richard Denniss While everyone knows inequality has been rising in Australia, our recent report ‘Inequality on Steroids’ revealed some alarming figures that shocked even me: since 2009, 93% of our economic growth has flowed to the top 10% of income earners. I was always suspicious about claims the benefits of economic growth

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