Category Archives: Australian Politics

I’m fortunate to have been preselected as the ALP candidate for the federal seat of Fraser (AAP report here). I haven’t been discussing the preselection much on this blog, but it’s been the main thing occupying my attention over the … Continue reading →

Writing on InsideStory, Peter Brent argues: But it is not clear that boat people really had much effect on the election result. When the Tampa arrived, the Howard government had already been steadily improving its opinion poll position from the … Continue reading →

I’ve been writing for nearly a decade (much of it with Justin Wolfers) about the predictive power of election betting markets. So why is it that now I’m running for ALP preselection in Fraser, none of the election betting websites … Continue reading →

In yet another insightful post, Scott Steel (aka Possum Comitatus) blogs on the different ‘worm technologies’ used to follow yesterday’s debate. Is anyone sitting on data that contains both a transcript and the worm level? I’d be curious to see … Continue reading →

Macgregor Duncan and I have a piece out today in the Australian Literary Review, looking at what Australian politicians should and do read. Full text here, and results from our survey of federal politicians here. We had a lot of … Continue reading →

Macgregor Duncan and I have written a piece on politicians’ reading habits, which will be out in the Australian Literary Review on Wednesday (at which point I’ll post the full spreadsheet of results on my academic website). In the meantime, … Continue reading →

In politics, death is a remarkably potent card to play. But its rhetorical power needs to be matched by a bit of substance. Every year, about 130,000 Australians die. Each of these deaths are tragic (I’m not saying this lightly … Continue reading →

For politix junkies, I can highly recommend Andrew Norton’s two posts on whether the Posner thesis of conservatism’s collapse applies in Australia as it does in the US (shorter AN: no).

Craig Emerson gave a wide-ranging speech to the Sydney Institute on Thursday night, discussing early childhood intervention, trade liberalisation, and innovation. A little unusually for a Labor MP, the speech also contained a robust defence of Adam Smith.

As part of its budget cuts, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is scaling back several overseas posts. As the SMH reports it. During the Senate hearings, Mr Chester revealed the department had withdrawn five more diplomatic positions since … Continue reading →

My AFR oped today is on the 2020 summit. Full text below (and remember – contributors don’t write their own headlines).

Just to echo what other economists have already said, the mooted cuts to the Australian Bureau of Statistics budget seem to me a false economy. As economist Barry Hughes told SMH journalist Jessica Irvine: This is a very bizarre time to … Continue reading →

My AFR oped tomorrow is on the summit. I’ll post it in the morning, but here are a few quick observations. A little to my surprise, I found talkfest 2008 to be a very worthwhile exercise. An exercise like this … Continue reading →

Former ACER researcher Molly de Lemos just emailed me her 2020 ideas for the education/productivity stream. They’re over the fold. And a regular commenter also drew my attention to the submission from the Catholic Social Service and Justice Agencies, which … Continue reading →

ANU has today released the results of our first ‘ANU Governance Poll’. Full results are on the poll website, but here are a few of my favourite facts: The environment has shot up the rankings. The graph below shows the … Continue reading →

Today brings the sixth and final bunch of Imagining Australia ideas: focusing on inequality and social policy. While Australia has long prided itself as a fair, just, and egalitarian nation, the reality is that our social fabric is not what it … Continue reading →