Grattan Institute

COVID has compounded the effects of career breaks for women. Just six months out of work can add another $100,000 to the average $2 million lifetime earnings gap between men and women with children in Australia. This International Women’s Day, listen to Danielle Wood, CEO, Kate Griffiths, Fellow, and Tom Crowley, Associate, on how the COVID recession has affected women, now and into the future, and what we can do to ‘build back better’. Read our full report: https://grattan.edu.au/report/womens-work

It’s no exaggeration to say that COVID-19 has changed how we travel forever. Now that offices are reopening, many people are driving to work in order to avoid public transport. But do any of us want to go back to the office after discovering the flexibility of working from home? Or maybe, you’ve just decided to join the lycra clad brigade of MAMILS on their bikes. However we commute, it’s almost certainly going to look different to pre-pandemic transport. Listen to Kat Clay, Head of Digital Communications, in conversation with Owain Emslie, Senior Associate.

Australia’s border closure was one of the Morrison Government’s best decisions in responding to the pandemic. It was a big decision, but the right one. Tight border controls have given Australia the best of both worlds: little community transmission and a domestic economy largely unencumbered by COVID. Now, Victoria has just emerged from a five day lockdown caused by a breach in hotel quarantine. That follows similar breaches in Sydney, Brisbane, and Perth over the summer months. At the same time there have been fresh calls each week for more people to arrive in Australia from overseas. Citizens unable to return home. Universities desperate for international students to return. Workers from the Pacific to pick the harvest, otherwise left to rot in the fields. So, how can we fix hotel quarantine? And what do the current arrangements mean for migration in the coming months? Listen to Kat Clay, Head of Digital Communications, in conversation with Brendan Coates, Household Finances Program Director, and Hen

Are you worried the age pension won’t exist in Australia by the time you retire? Turns out you’re not alone – more than half of Australians are worried about the pension disappearing. Watch Brendan Coates, Household Finances Program Director, in discussion with Kat Clay, Head of Digital Communications, and why you might not need to be worried about the pension disappearing.

With the recent release of data from the Australian Electoral Commission, political parties in Australia collectively received $168 million in income for the last financial year. Yet more than half of the funding for the major parties remains secret. In this week's podcast, Institutional Reform experts Kate Griffiths and Tom Crowley discuss where the money is going, what it does, and how to reform the political donations system.

Climate change policy is in for a rocky ride in 2021. And sometimes it’s hard to make sense of where Australia stands on climate change. How are emissions going? And what do our politicians need to do to get to net-zero emissions by 2050? Listen to Tony Wood, Energy Program Director, discuss the year ahead for climate policy in Australia, and his latest piece in the Griffith Review, titled Remaking the Balance: Accords and antagonisms: Making progress in the combat for climate policy. Hosted by Kat Clay, Head of Digital Communications.

Listen to CEO Danielle Wood, in discussion with renowned journalist and broadcaster Geraldine Doogue, as we reveal our top six thought-provoking, diverse, and relevant books and articles from 2020. It’s been an extraordinary year, and these are extraordinary reads – not only for the Prime Minister, but for all Australians interested in public policy. Featuring an introduction by CEO of State Library Victoria, Kate Torney, and interviews with four of the featured authors, Alex Miller, Clare Wright, Evelyn Araluen, and Marian Wilkinson. Grattan’s 2020 list is: The Carbon Club, Marian Wilkinson, Allen & Unwin Fire Front: First Nations poetry and power today, edited by Alison Whittaker, UQP Good Economics for Hard Times, Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo, Public Affairs How the dark gets in, Clare Wright, Meanjin Max, Alex Miller, Allen & Unwin Men at Work: Australia’s Parenthood Trap, Annabel Crabb, Black Inc. You can read more about our list here: https://grattan.edu.au/news/announcing-grattan-institutes-

2020 was an enormous year for Australia, but it's also been a big year for the Grattan Institute. We've seen bushfires, the coronavirus crisis, and the huge fiscal and societal effects of the pandemic. In a special podcast, Grattan Institute CEO, Danielle Wood, reflects on the year that was, the enormous impacts that Grattan has had on public policy, and the future of our research for 2021. To donate to Grattan, visit: https://grattan.edu.au/donate

Australia is getting hotter, and Australians’ health is being harmed. Our health sector must do more to adapt to the reality of climate change. This podcast discusses Grattan's last report for the year, Climate change and health: preparing for the next disaster, with Will Mackey, Senior Associate, and Kat Clay, Head of Digital Communications. Read the report: https://grattan.edu.au/report/climate-change-and-health-preparing-for-the-next-disaster/

In 2020, the out of sight, out of mind attitude to older Australians had deadly consequences. By the end of Australia’s second wave in October 2020, there had been about 2,000 COVID-19 cases and 680 deaths in residential aged care – mostly in Victoria – accounting for about 75 per cent of Australia’s COVID-19 death toll. This rate of deaths in residential care is much higher than many comparable countries. Back in October of this year, Anika Stobart, Associate, and Kat Clay, Head of Digital Communication, discussed the rights of older Australians on the podcast, and our proposed rights-based framework for reforming the aged care system. This time, they discuss Grattan's newest report: Reforming aged care: a practical plan for a rights-based system.

Last week the Victorian Government announced a $5.4 billion dollar Big Housing Build, billed as a ‘landmark investment in social housing.’ The plan will build more than 12, 000 new homes in Victoria, including more than 9300 new social housing properties, and upgrades to existing public housing facilities. Likewise Western Australia, Tasmania, and NSW have all announced social housing building projects as part of their economic recovery strategies. But why is building social housing both an economic and societal win? Listen to Brendan Coates, Household Finances Program Director, in conversation with Kat Clay, Head of Digital Communications, on why social housing is good stimulus.

Far from fuelling the recovery from the COVID recession, natural gas will inevitably decline as an energy source for industry and homes in Australia. Listen to Tony Wood, Energy Program Director, and Guy Dundas, Energy Fellow, bust the three biggest myths around a gas-led recovery in their latest report: Flame out: the future of natural gas in Australia. Hosted by Kat Clay, Head of Digital Communications. You can read the report in discussion here: https://grattan.edu.au/report/flame-out-the-future-of-natural-gas

Australian governments are currently fast-tracking transport projects, hoping for an infrastructure-led recovery from the COVID-19 recession. But our infrastructure pipeline is already bulging with several megaprojects underway across the country. And the history of such projects in terms of cost is not great. Governments have often ended up spending millions - and even billions - more on these projects than they first told the public they would. Listen to Senior Associates Owain Emslie and Greg Moran, in conversation with Paul Austin, about their latest report: The Rise of Megaprojects: Counting the cost.

This week Victoria reached 0 COVID cases and 0 deaths – in what has affectionately been dubbed ‘Donut Day’. It’s been a hard-won road with the dramatic shutdown of the entire state for 112 days. Hospitality, retail and the arts have been hard hit, not to mention the tragic deaths and illnesses due to the virus itself. But in reaching zero, Victoria has achieved a world first. No other place in the world has tamed a second wave this large. Listen to Kat Clay in conversation with Tom Crowley, Grattan associate, about how Victoria's response compares to other countries around the world. Read the article in discussion on our website: https://grattan.edu.au/news/at-zero-new-cases-victoria-is-on-top-of-the-world/

With this week’s release of the historic 2020 Federal Budget, economic stimulus seems to be all about high-vis and hard hats. But what about the hardest hit? In this podcast, three Grattan Institute experts give their extended take on what can only be described as one of the most significant budgets of our generation. Listen to Danielle Wood, Grattan's CEO, Marion Terrill, Transport and Cities Program Director, and Stephen Duckett, Health Program Director, as they evaluate the 2020 Federal Budget.

By September this year, there have been about 2000 COVID cases and 500 deaths in residential aged care, which accounts for 70% of Australia's COVID death toll. At the same time, we are faced with the horror stories of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, that include a lack of dignity, neglect, abuse, and the inappropriate use of chemical and physical restraints. And yet, there have been a multitude of reports and proposed reforms into aged care through the years that have gone ignored. Kat Clay, Head of Digital Communications, discusses the latest Grattan Report, Rethinking aged care: emphasising the rights of older Australians, with Anika Stobart, Associate in Grattan's health program.

In early September, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the reform of the energy system to aid Australia’s economic recovery from COVID-19. Much of this announcement focussed on gas as they key to stimulating manufacturing and investment in Australia. But is this really the case, and could Australia be missing an opportunity to move to more renewable energy sources? Two of Grattan's energy experts, Tony Wood, Energy Program Director, and Guy Dundas, Energy Fellow, shed light on these recent announcements in our latest podcast. Donate to Grattan Institute https://grattan.edu.au/donate

Faced with the hard task of economic recovery from COVID-19, governments need to prioritise policy changes that makes a difference, while minimising the political cost. But Australian policy has stagnated under the lack of prioritisation. The failure to prioritise has been labelled as one reason for the failings of the Rudd Government, the Abbott Government, and the Shorten Opposition. In today’s special prioritisation podcast, Senior Fellow John Daley discusses his latest report, Prioritising a Government’s Agenda, with Fellow Kate Griffiths. You can read the report in discussion here: https://grattan.edu.au/report/prioritising-a-governments-agenda/

A big part of the Morrison Government’s response to COVID-19 has been allowing people early access to their superannuation. At the same time, compulsory super contributions are legislated to climb from 9.5 per cent of wages to 12 per cent over the next five years. We’ve all been told we need to put more money into super, so letting people have access to their superannuation early sounds like a bad idea. But is it? And does it justify higher compulsory contributions? On today's Grattan podcast, Household Finances Program Director Brendan Coates discusses the early super release scheme, and whether or not super should rise to 12 per cent.

COVID-19 is the biggest issue of our age, and one of the biggest questions is how can we best fight coronavirus? Can we realistically get to zero active cases in Australia? Or should we just let it rip? On today's podcast, Stephen Duckett discusses his new report "Go for zero: how Australia can get to zero COVID-19 cases", the Victorian roadmap to COVID Normal, and how other states can do the same, with Paul Austin. You can read the report in discussion free online: https://grattan.edu.au/report/how-australia-can-get-to-zero-covid-19-cases/