Grattan Institute

Event podcast: In this Policy Pitch event at the State Library of Victoria, Council of Homeless Persons CEO Jenny Smith, Residential Tenancies in Victoria inaugural Commissioner Dr Heather Holst and Grattan Institute Fellow Brendan Coates discussed the best way to help low-income earners deal with rising housing costs and reduce the number of Australians who are homelessness.

Event podcast: In this Forward Thinking event, Grattan Institute’s Brendan Coates and The Australian Financial Review’s Joanna Mather discussed what the winner of the May 18 federal election should do to fix superannuation, and the retirement incomes system more broadly.

A conversation with Grattan CEO, John Daley. Many have interpreted the Coalition’s surprise victory in the 2019 federal election as signalling the end of substantial policy reform in Australia. But in this podcast conversation, Grattan's CEO shows that policy inaction is not a viable option, and he identifies priority areas where Prime Minister Scott Morrison might – and should – pursue reform.

Event podcast: The 2019 election has been branded the ‘generational election’. Beyond the hyperbole about an ‘age war’, there are serious questions about the economic future of today’s young Australians. In this Policy Pitch event the panel debated the contentious issue of intergenerational inequality, and identified what if anything we should do about it.

Event podcast: In this Policy Pitch event at State Library Victoria, Grattan Institute’s tax, energy, health, housing, retirement incomes, and transport & cities experts considered the issues in their field and nominate the choices that would really make a difference to Australia’s future. The discussion drew on Grattan’s Commonwealth Orange Book 2019, which identifies policy priorities for the ne...

A comprehensive conversation with the contributors to the Grattan Commonwealth Orange Book 2019 breaking down the key policy priorities for the next federal government. Drawing on 10 years of Grattan research and reports, the Orange Book recommends that Australia's next federal government should defy the national mood of reform fatigue and stare down vested interests to pursue a targeted agenda to...

A conversation with Danielle Wood, Budget Policy Program Director. The 2019 budget was delivered on the cusp of the federal election. So, even more than normal, this budget is a political as well as economic document. Danielle Wood unpacks what the budget might mean for Australia and Australians over the next three years and beyond.

Event podcast: In this Forward Thinking event, the panel discussed: what teaching expertise looks like; how access to expert teachers could help every teacher improve their practice; what support expert teachers themselves need; and the benefits and risks of embedding expertise into teacher career paths.

A conversation with Health Program Director Stephen Duckett and Senior Associate Matt Cowgill. Australia should introduce a Medicare-style universal insurance scheme for dental care, so all Australians can go to the dentist when they need to. It would cost $5.6 billion a year and should be phased in over 10 years.

A conversation with Senior Associate Kate Griffiths and Associate Carmela Chivers. Once a year, the Commonwealth releases information on Australia’s political donations system – who donates to political parties and how much? The data isn’t timely but the information contained in this data dump does give clues as to who is funding Australian democracy and who our political parties are most reliant...

Event Podcast: In this Forward Thinking event, Grattan Institute’s budget, energy, and transport and cities experts considered the issues in their policy area and nominate the choices that would really make a difference to NSW’s future. The discussion drew on Grattan’s State Orange Book, which identifies policy priorities for state and territory governments across the nation.

Event podcast: Two million Australians delay or miss out on dental care each year because of cost. What should be done? Part of the answer is improving the value of existing public dental services. But part of the answer is that the Commonwealth should expand its role and establish a universal dental scheme paralleling Medicare. This Policy Pitch heard about both of these approaches.

Event podcast: 200,000 Victorian customers lost power on 25 January 2019, begging the question: is this the new normal? To answer this question, Grattan Institute's Guy Dundas was joined at this Policy Pitch event by Paul Austin from the Australian Energy Market Operator, the body that manages the electricity market, and Suzanne Falvi from the Australian Energy Market Commission, the body that set...

A conversation with Energy Fellow Guy Dundas and Senior Associate Lucy Percival. The idea that electricity supply is less reliable with more renewables is wrong. Almost all outages are caused by problems in transporting electricity, and have nothing to do with how the power was generated. It’s also a dangerous idea, because if politicians panic and intervene in the market, power bills could rise e...

Event podcast: At this Capital Ideas event, moderator, ANU Energy Change Institute Director Ken Baldwin and our panel, Grattan Institute’s Tony Wood, Warwick McKibbin from ANU and the BCA’s Jessica Wilson discussed if there is any prospect of credible energy and climate change policy in Australia before the next election.

Event podcast: Every year Grattan Institute releases a summer reading list for the Prime Minister. It recommends books and articles that the Prime Minister, or any Australian interested in public debate, will find both stimulating and cracking good reads. Melbourne-based journalist Madeleine Morris joined Grattan Institute CEO John Daley in Melbourne to discuss how this year’s titles illuminate so...

A conversation with CEO John Daley and Fellow Brendan Coates. The conventional wisdom that Australians don’t save enough for retirement is wrong. The vast majority of retirees today are financially comfortable, and our modelling shows this is likely to be true for most in future. This has big implications for policy.

Event podcast: Following the release of our State Orange Book 2018, this Policy Pitch event, featuring a number of Grattan Institute Fellows and Program Directors, examined some of the policy recommendations from ten years of Grattan Institute reports and outline what state and territory governments should do to improve Australia

Event podcast: At this Forward Thinking event, Dineli Mather, a Pro Vice-Chancellor at Deakin University, Phil Lewis, an Emeritus Professor at the University of Canberra, and the Grattan Institute’s Ittima Cherastidtham discussed if higher education is still a good option for young people. Which courses are the best insurance against poor employment outcomes?

At this State of Affairs event Marion Terrill from the Grattan Institute, Matt Collins, who’s leading the Queensland Government’s Cities Transformation Taskforce, and moderator Steve Abson, who is Chief Executive of the Infrastructure Association of Queensland explored the state of Queensland’s cities and where to from here.

A conversation with the contributors to the Grattan State Orange Book 2018. State and territory governments can do more to improve the lives of Australians. In many cases, states are different because their governments adopted better policies. Every state should learn from the others and do better.

A conversation with School Education Program Director Peter Goss and Fellow Julie Sonnemann. Our new report card on NAPLAN results reveals big differences between the states on students’ learning progress through school. Governments should investigate why students make more progress in some states, to identify teacher practices and school policies that produce the best results

Event podcast: Marion Terrill from the Grattan Institute, Peter Mares, a journalist and migration expert who’s just published a book on housing policy, and Miriam Slattery, who heads Strategy and Partnerships at the City of Melbourne and is a transport enthusiast, explored the state of Melbourne and where to from here at this Policy Pitch event.

Event Podcast: In the last two years we’ve seen actions by Governments and others to improve the security and reliability of our power system. Grattan Institute, in partnership with the State Library of South Australia, hosted a public policy forum to discuss what we’ve learned and how things look for the coming summer where AEMO’s Audrey Zibelman, ElectraNet’s Steve Masters and Grattan’s Tony Woo...

A conversation with Transport Fellow, Hugh Batrouney. Australia’s urban commuters have little to fear from population growth, if recent experience is any guide. The average commute distances and times barely increased over the five years to 2016, even as Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane’s populations grew strongly.