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Category: Australian Politics
Analysis of Australian political parties, policy debates, and the state of our democracy.
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The Superannuation Wars: Stop Using Our Retirement as a Political Football
Superannuation is one of Australia’s genuine policy success stories. The compulsory retirement savings system — introduced by the Keating Labor government in 1992 and gradually built up to the current 11.5% contribution rate — has created the world’s fourth-largest pool of pension savings, currently sitting at around $3.9 trillion. It has transformed Australia from a…
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Why Does the ABC Cost So Much to Hate?
Few institutions in Australian public life generate more heat and less light than the ABC. The national broadcaster is simultaneously accused of being a left-wing propaganda machine funded by taxpayers, and celebrated as an indispensable pillar of Australian democracy, journalism, and culture. Depending on which media you consume, the ABC is either the last honest…
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Why Don’t We Trust Politicians? Because We Shouldn’t.
Trust in Australian politicians and political institutions has been in long-term decline. Multiple surveys — including the annual Edelman Trust Barometer and the ANU’s Australian Election Study — show that public confidence in government has fallen significantly over recent decades. Political cynicism is at record levels. People routinely describe all politicians as “the same” and…
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Compulsory Voting: Australia’s Secret Weapon Against Extremism
Every time Australia’s political debate descends into culture-war territory, every time you despair at the quality of public discourse, every time you look at what is happening in the United States and wonder how a democracy can become so dysfunctional — remember this: Australia has compulsory voting, and it is one of the most important…
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The Housing Crisis Is Not Complicated. We Just Don’t Want to Fix It.
Here is the thing about Australia’s housing crisis that should make everyone furious: we know exactly what is causing it. We have known for years. The evidence is not contested. The solutions are well understood, extensively studied, and in many cases already working in other countries. And yet here we are, with median house prices…
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Angus Taylor: Centrist Pragmatist or Culture Warrior in a Suit?
When Peter Dutton lost the 2025 federal election — and his own seat — the Liberal Party faced a choice. It could look at the results, absorb the lesson that culture-war politics had comprehensively failed at the ballot box, and rebuild around a pragmatic, policy-focused alternative. Or it could double down, shift further right to…
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The Great Tax Lie: Why Earning $200,000 Doesn’t Make You Rich
Let’s start with a number that will surprise people who’ve absorbed the left’s talking points on tax: if you earn $200,000 in Australia in 2025–26, you will pay approximately $64,838 in income tax, plus $4,000 in Medicare levy. That’s nearly $69,000 gone before you see a cent. You take home around $131,000. Now try living…
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God Didn’t Say That: How the Political Right Weaponises the Bible
Faith is one of the most personal, profound things a human being can hold. For billions of people, religious belief provides comfort in grief, community in isolation, and a moral framework that helps them navigate an often difficult world. Christianity, in its many forms, has inspired extraordinary acts of compassion, courage, and social justice across…
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The Pendulum Always Swings Back: How Left Overreach Is Handing Power to the Hard Right
There is an iron law of politics that the ideologues on both sides consistently fail to learn: push too hard in one direction, and society will eventually push back — hard — in the other. It’s not a theory. It’s not a talking point. It’s history, repeating itself with depressing regularity. And right now, in…
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The United States Is a Warning, Not a Model: What Australia Must Learn from America’s Democratic Crisis
For most of the post-war era, Australians looked to the United States with a mixture of admiration and affection. America was the cultural superpower, the military ally, the land of opportunity and innovation. Its democratic institutions — its constitution, its separation of powers, its tradition of peaceful transfers of power — were held up as…
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