The Policy Post

  New laws try to kill protests. Here’s why they will fail. Governments can now send non-violent protesters to gaol but face massive backlash. These laws have been tried for centuries – and for just as long, they’ve backfired.

  Crime levels sink. Prisoner numbers soar. What’s going on? In Australia’s smallest state, a natural experiment shows a humane and rational approach to crime works – and tough-on-crime strategies fail.

  Progressive politics always (in the end) wins. Here’s why. Throughout modern history, conservatives have won battles but lost the wars. It’s the other side – the reformists or ‘progressives’ – who eventually shape the world.

  Does gun control work? Australia’s much-praised gun laws have almost eliminated mass shootings. But they’ve done little about the homicide rate, and nothing at all about suicide.

Is our unwritten constitution worth the paper it’s not written on?   When it finally became known that Scott Morrison, in darkest secrecy, had made himself the Lord High Everything Else, the solicitor-general said there wasn’t anything illegal about it. But was there?