Latest Updates
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Guaranteeing What, Exactly?
Today, Malcolm Turnbull and Josh Frydenberg announced another iteration in the climate policy fiasco – a National Energy Guarantee, scrapping support for renewable energy. It is a policy specifically designed to extend the life of coal fired power stations and slow the growth of renewable energy. Can we talk about what this National Energy Guarantee…
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What Do We Mean By “Everything Is Connected”?
With our conference now a little over two weeks away (get your tickets now, people, before they sell out!), I thought it would be a good time to quickly talk a little more about what we mean by its title: Everything is Connected. The idea of the whole conference is to give us an opportunity to talk…
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Politics and the New Economy: Speech to New Economy Network Australia conference
This is the text of a speech by Executive Director Tim Hollo to the New Economics Network Australia conference, Brisbane, September 3, 2017. What role for politics in building a new economy? I want to start with a slightly provocative question: why are we framing this as an economic exercise instead of a political one?…
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“Common good and the Commons” – speech to Ngara Institute
The below is a speech by Executive Director Tim Hollo to the Ngara Institute, on August 23, 2017. Common Good: Democratic Futures for People and Planet So, common good. I want to talk you this evening about a version of that, a concept which has been much maligned but is a beautiful model for democratic futures…
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Talking About Being Decent To Each Other – Paths To A UBI
When it comes down it, the barest minimum we should all be able to expect in a decent society is to be treated with basic decency, right? A roof over our heads, food in our bellies, and a little cushion to buffer against hard times. It seems extraordinary that so many people, even in Australia…
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Review: Anna Krien’s ‘The Long Goodbye’
Coral reefs are extraordinarily beautiful, diverse, complex ecosystems. It is their diversity and complexity, in no small part, which gives them their beauty – colour and movement, ever changing, ever shifting, something to take your breath away everywhere you turn. It is, of course, that diversity, and the complexity of interplays and connection, which gives…
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Liberté, Égalité, ‘Facebookité’
Today is Bastille Day, the anniversary of a pivotal moment in world history: the storming of the Bastille, marking the beginning of the victory of the French Revolution, and a key point in global democratisation. I wonder, is the democratisation of Facebook one of the crucial next steps towards global democracy? This might sound flippant…
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Brindabella Views Or Billboards? You Choose.
You know what Canberra, our beautiful bush capital, needs? More billboard advertising! Said nobody, ever… … Except Andrew Barr, in a brief thought bubble early this year. Unfortunately, our Chief Minister sent the idea off to a Legislative Committee inquiry and, unless a large number of Canberrans write in urgently to say it’s the last…
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Macdonald Is The Tip Of The Coal Corruption Iceberg
It’s remarkable how often corruption in Australian politics is linked to coal. The jailing of former NSW Resources Minister, Ian Macdonald, last week is the tip of the iceberg. It’s just the most recent in a line of explicit and proven corruption directly linked to the coal industry. But the corruption goes far deeper than…
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Advertising and the budget: the $5 billion tax break that makes us unhappy
This was first published at Independent Australia. They say, with Budgets, the devil is in the detail, and it takes weeks to find. But there’s one huge tax break which we won’t find as we’re poring over the papers – because it isn’t mentioned. The long-standing but completely ignored 100% tax break for expenditure on…
