Ian McAuley

The Liberal Party faces a structural dilemma – it cannot govern without the Nationals, yet governing with them pushes it further from the voters it needs. As support for the major parties erodes, Australia is edging towards a more fragmented political future.

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The Coalition’s implosion after the Bondi sitting was not a sudden accident. It exposed long-running tensions between the Liberals and Nationals, intensified by polling anxiety, One Nation’s rise and the limits of Australia’s Westminster conventions.
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There is something weird and unfair in a tax system that requires young and productive workers to subsidise the lifestyle of the old and idle. (more…)

A superficial reading of the polls suggests the Liberal Party should move to the Trumpian right. This is a stupid and dangerous idea. (more…)

Because what is bad for the Coalition is usually good for Australia, Labor’s thumping win in Western Australia must be seen as a good outcome, but it points to a problem in our system of representative democracy. Democracies shouldn’t produce winner-take-all outcomes. (more…)

If the well-off paid their fair share of tax no one would be talking about a cost of living crisis; Dutton weeps as his beloved Home Affairs Department, modelled on the Soviet KGB, is dismantled; how the gambling lobby has become Australia’s equivalent to America’s National Rifle Association. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts, reports and other media on current economic and political issues. (more…)

Coalition plans to join hands with North Korea and fast-track nuclear power, how Melbourne is stretching to the South Australian border, a bipartisan board of censors to purge dirty books from public libraries. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts, reports and other media on current economic and political issues. (more…)

Is the CFMEU just one small part of a dysfunctional and high-cost industry, is Australia immune from populist demagogues, can the Reserve Bank read the market signals, can ABC journalists stop talking about “a cost-of-living crisis”? Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts, reports and other media on current economic and political issues. (more…)

Europeans cast a vote for sanity, the Liberal Party attacks Labor from the left, Malcolm Turnbull shares his ideas on protecting democracy from authoritarian demagogues. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts, reports and other media on current economic and political issues. (more…)

Economists call for a cut in interest rates, but the RBA thinks the unemployment queues are still too short; the Greens and the ABC help launch a far-right political movement and land a blow on secularism; the case for disenfranchising men. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts, reports and other media on current economic and political issues. (more…)

Details of Coalition’s rooftop nuclear initiative revealed, Australia to close borders to all immigrants other than brickies and nuclear scientists, ACCC considering a Coles-Woolworths merger application. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts, reports and other media on current economic and political issues. (more…)

Malcolm Turnbull calls Dutton’s nuclear fantasy a “dangerous and expensive farce”, how the far right won ground in the European elections while the left won ground in Poland, public policy ideas from Pope Francis and Lucy Turnbull. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts, reports and other media on current economic and political issues. (more…)

Dutton re-ignites the climate war and weaponises immigration policy, the economy shows early signs of recovery from decades of the Coalition’s low-wage-low-productivity policy, the struggle between authoritarian populism and democracy heats up. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts, reports and other media on current economic and political issues. (more…)

An unnecessarily conservative budget from the government and a pathetic response from the opposition, how we are so generous to Western Australia, the Coalition and nukes, the disgrace of McBride’s jail sentence. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts, reports and other media on current economic and political issues. (more…)

A peek into the Reserve Bank’s fantasy world, a Labor-lite budget on its way, how the Liberal Party has moved to the left of Labor, students in rapturous joy over HECS changes. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts, reports and other media on current economic and political issues. (more…)

Sorry, economists, people like A Future Made in Australia, the long-term story of violence against women, the case for liberal education, why Jack Welch would have been the ideal RBA governor. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts, reports and other media on current economic and political issues. (more…)

The so-called “cost of living” crisis is a low-wage problem of the Coalition’s making, the dangerously simplified world of central bankers, spooks and cops on the threat from social media, democracy becomes collateral damage from fear campaigns. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts, reports and other media on current economic and political issues. (more…)

An industry policy in development, baby steps towards a carbon price, lessons for independent MPs who want to start a party, the virtue of working less. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts, reports and other media on current economic and political issues. (more…)

Housing inequality has put Australia on a destructive trajectory, how the Coalition blocks economic reform, Australia’s changing politics played out in Tasmania. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts, reports and other media on current economic and political issues. (more…)

What a flat white coffee reveals about our economy, $27 billion on the table for state governments, nothing about the Bruce Lehrmann defamation case, and Labor is slipping in the polls. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts, reports and other media on current economic and political issues. (more…)

Tasmanians show what they think of the old parties and the Coalition retreats to the deep north, inflation tumbles but the media hasn’t noticed, getting the climate change message across. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts, reports and other media on current economic and political issues. (more…)