What do political think tanks do?

The revamping of the Green Party’s “Institute” prompts examination of what party think tanks do and their value to Australia’s party system.

Defending democracy

Despite the welcome defeat of Hungary’s Victor Orban, democracy is under threat and in decline around the world and Australia is not immune from the challenges it faces, so what can be done to revitalise its appeal?

An uncertain alliance

Australian hasn’t yet been seriously tested by the second Trump administration. If or when it is, regardless of which option Australia chooses, one thing is clear: there’s no going back to how the world used to be.

Chalk and cheese

The Liberals are losing voters to One Nation’s surge and have no strategy to reclaim urban seats lost to the teals, while One Nation is cannibalising the Nationals in rural seats, so can their new leaders work together to save their Coalition?

The gold standard?

Bob Hawke remains the longest serving and most successful Labor Prime Minister but a new book explores whether the Hawke government was really the ‘gold standard’ for reform?

Progressive or what?

To what extent are “progressive ideas” being translated into beneficial and lasting social, economic, cultural and environmental outcomes?

Markets on the front line

Markets are the frontlines of strategic competition and the foundation of Australia’s national power. We must therefore engage them with greater strategic clarity, sharper statecraft, and a stronger sense of national purpose.

Move fast and break government

The “prototyping” approach to product making in Silicon Valley, in which products are rushed out and amended on the fly rather than properly tested, has spread to the government sphere with potentially catastrophic consequences.

One Nation 2.0

The dramatic success of One Nation in the South Australian election is better calculated by its seismic effect on the right of politics across the country, rather than the paltry number of seats won outright.

The South Australian earthquake

Peter Malinauskas’s Labor government won a second term with a landslide win in the South Australian state election but the bigger story was the eclipse of the Liberal Party and a powerful surge by One Nation.

What does One Nation want?

The leaders of One Nation are seldom interviewed on the nation’s news and current affairs programmes, which may play to its advantage with a public tired of politics, so what does the party actually believe?

Learning the lessons from “robodebt”

If we want to avoid another Robodebt, the government needs to look at broader reform on automated government decision-making and measures to strengthen the public service.