The Policy Post

  Shocks and aftershocks 1: Five tipping points that made the modern world. Global change happens slowly, then all at once. And it’s driven by ordinary people shouting: “What about me?”

  Shocks and aftershocks 2: The undeliverable promise of liberalism. The difficulties besetting the world today can be traced back to their origins in the speculations of the 18 th century Enlightenment.

  Shocks and aftershocks 3: Freedom for the wolves. Between 1789 and 1860, Europe was transformed. Industrialisation and liberal economics fused into a kind of new feudalism.

  Shocks and aftershocks 4: And then the world ended. As the 19 th century progressed, reforms were minor and grudging, doing little for the great mass of the people. Finally, in 1914, the edifice collapsed.

  Shocks and aftershocks 5: After Armageddon, rebirth. Socialism turned out to be much worse than liberalism. Then a new way appeared … for a while.

  Shocks and aftershocks 6: Peace, love and company profits The upheavals of 1968 presaged the ultimate triumph of liberalism. Personal freedoms were finally realised – but neoliberal economics failed just as badly as ever.

  Shocks and aftershocks 7: The post-liberal malaise Liberalism has run its course. The US is no longer the ‘indispensable nation’. Other countries must find their own new way.

  Does Albanese lead a reformist government? Or not? He can leave taxes alone, or he can change Australia. Not both.

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

  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.

  Can liberal democracy survive? Yes, actually. The fear and angst in western democracies is palpable. The threat from populists of the right is serious. But the reasons driving all this aren’t the ones you’ve been told.

  Australia as an industrial superpower? Well, yes … The Albanese government’s Future Made in Australia project is one of the most misunderstood and misrepresented policies of recent times. It may also be the most important.

  How not to run a government. There’s a reason Tasmania’s hospitals and essential services are the nation’s worst. It’s because the state government underspends its own infrastructure budget by 27%.

We need to talk about Gina and Andrew. Natural resources are owned by the people of Australia, but mining companies don’t like paying us for the resources they take out of the ground. And when they look like having to pay more, their response is swift and brutal .

  The huge cost of inequality. The two richest people have as much wealth as the bottom 5.5 million. The tax system is one of the world’s least progressive. Essential services are failing. This is Australia.

  Defusing the population bomb. Can global economies just keep growing forever? Or will we finally reach the ultimate limits of growth – with disastrous consequences for humanity?

The increasingly unacceptable faces of capitalism. The corporate world has seldom been held in more contempt than right now. It goes far beyond Qantas and PWC to strike at the heart of the way global business functions.

What’s the Intergenerational Report really for? Projecting 40 years ahead is nonsense. The Intergenerational Reports have quite a different purpose – to justify what the government has already decided to do.

  Labor has one last chance to save public hospitals. But will they? Only the federal government has the capacity to put the hospital system back together. And a disaster unfolding in one state reveals what is already beginning in all the others.

  Neoliberalism is dead, killed by the GFC. A new, fairer era has begun. As Australia swings dramatically away from trickle-down economics, the rich are getting a smaller slice of the pie. Those in the middle are doing better – but not, yet, those right at the bottom.