The Policy Post

  The PBS is under fire from US drug giants. There’s not much they can do. The drug companies have bought both American political parties. They have not bought Australia.

  Labor’s health pitch (and why it won’t work). Undeliverable promises about bulk-billing ignore an entire health system in slow collapse. Labor has lost its capacity for transformative change and the Liberals are – well, the Liberals.

  Stop worrying about productivity. We’re doing okay. Australia’s productivity ‘crisis’ is not what it seems. We’re just not measuring it properly.

  The great mental health experiment … and why it went so wrong. Half a century ago, governments around the world ditched their old psychiatric hospitals for something they said would work better. It didn’t.

  The Public Service: back in from the cold The Albanese government has begun to rebuild Australia’s shattered Public Service. The government’s fate depends on it – but there’s much still to do.

  Labor: the fightback begins The Albanese Labor Party’s fight to retain government is under way. Despite doomsayers, a swag of evidence points to a second win – and an increased majority.

  Business-as-usual is killing our hospitals. The nation’s public hospital system is even sicker than it looks. There are practical, affordable ways to make it better – but not if governments go on doing the same things.

  The Peter Principle and the Dark Triad: why we have such lousy leaders. The machinations inherent in modern political parties keep many of the best people away from public life and promote some of the worst.

  Have the Greens already peaked? The Australian Greens are betting their future on a high-risk switch to hard-left opportunistic populism. It could backfire.

  Quietly, Albanese springs a $20 billion budget cut on the states. The federal government is slashing its funding for national roads and railways – and shifting the cost to the cash-strapped states.