Bill Browne

Stacked area chart showing JobSeeker/Newstart recipients by duration on payment from January 2012 to June 2025

While there has been an increase in the number of long-term recipients, there has only been a small increase in the total number of recipients. The Incoming Gov Brief does not state a concern with the level of expenditure on JobSeeker data.gov.au/data/dataset...

Tasmania’s result – the most proportional possible Tasmania’s Hare-Clark system is proportional, but it’s not purely proportional. Each division elects seven members, and results are not just about how many votes each party receives &#8…

Pairs nicely with @benraue.com analysis showing last month's Tasmanian election is very proportional -

Even by historical standards for the state, which delivers proportionality via multi-member electorates. www.tallyroom.com.au/61039

Landslide Labor win out of proportion to primary vote Labor won nearly two-thirds of all the seats in the House of Representatives with just over a third of first preferences.

More details on @australiainstitute.org.au website, including a comparison with proportional representation outcomes in the Australian Senate and New Zealand. australiainstitute.org.au/post/landsli...

Labor won almost two thirds of seats despite receiving just over a third of the vote in May. Graph compares UK 2024, Australian House of Reps, Australian Senate and New Zealand 2023. Proportional representation systems deliver more proportional results.

Labor won almost two-thirds of seats at the last federal election, a testament to Australians strongly preferring them to the Lib-Nat Coalition.

But as my colleague @skyelark.bsky.social writes for @australiainstitute.org.au, the gap between primary votes and seats won is historically large.

Australia has a politician problem: not too many, but too few. Each of Australia’s 150 members of Parliament (MPs) must split their attention between more constituents than ever before: 120,659 voters per MP, over six thousand more than in 2022.

More from Skye Predavec on @australiainstitute.org.au website: australiainstitute.org.au/post/austral...

It's a hard sell, but more politicians would be good for Aus:

* Deeper talent pool for committees & ministries
* More access - most Aussies have never interacted with their local MP
* Reverses the growing physical size of rural electorates

Since 1980s, Aus added +11 million people and no new MPs.

Gender parity closer after federal election but “sufficiently assertive” Liberal women are still outnumbered two to one Now that the dust has settled on the 2025 federal election, what does it mean for the representation of women in Australian parliaments? In short, there

Labor, Greens and "teal" community independents have very different approaches to pre-selecting women, yet these groups have put forward as many/more women as men.

Seems clear the problem is with Liberal Party, not what kinds of jobs women are drawn to.
australiainstitute.org.au/post/gender-...

Liberal MP says women prefer hairdressing and men drawn to maths in debate over gender quotas Labor minister likens Longman MP Terry Young’s parliament speech to infamous comments from Tony Abbott

Liberal MP Terry Young says men naturally drawn to jobs involving maths, physical exertion; women to jobs involving "other people".

But politics is all about other people!

So even this sexist generalisation can't explain why Liberal Party elects so few women. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

The Aboriginal Flag at the Tent Embassy in 1974.

Aboriginal Tent Embassy a permanent protest established on 26 January 1972 in response to attempts to restrict land rights. The embassy was forced to move, but in 1992 returned to the original site.

Gough Whitlam visited the site to discuss the embassy’s demands.

In 1982, 1,200 were arrested blockading construction of hydro-electric dam that would flood Franklin River.

Labor PM Bob Hawke campaigned on a promise to stop the dam. Hawke protected the Franklin River as a conservation site.

Deputy President of the African National Congress Nelson Mandela and Prime Minister Bob Hawke, October 1990. Mandela was only recently freed from prison.

Anti-apartheid activists disrupted 1971 South African rugby tour. Protesters “blew whistles, held up placards, and ran onto the field if possible” to interrupt matches.

Sir Don Bradman cancelled 1972 cricket tour: “We will not play them until they choose a team on a non-racist basis”.

The first Mardi Gras entrants from 1978 at the 30th Annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, Sydney, Saturday, March 01, 2008

When the first Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras in 1978 marched beyond permit, 53 were charged. NSW Police bashed protestor Peter Murphy.

Later rallies made police drop charges; parliament changed protest laws, expanded anti-discrimination protections and decriminalised homosexuality.

Protester holds placard saying "LBJ = Hypocrite. World opinion is against US in Vietnam."

Young men protested conscription to Vietnam War by burning their draft cards. Commentators said they were doing it for the attention.

Protesters interrupted US President LBJ, blocked his car: “Hey, hey, LBJ: How many kids did you kill today?”

In 1939 photo, Attorney-General Menzies walks through strikers. Posters include: "Bombs Hurt People".

Port Kembla dockworkers went on strike in 1938 to stop iron exports to Japan - which had committed mass murder of civilians and POWs in China.

Menzies called it "a provocative act against a friendly power" but grateful Chinese-Australians sent food to striking workers.

Jimmy Clements, a Wiradjuri elder, on steps of Parliament House

When the original Parliament House opened in 1927, no Indigenous Australians were invited - but Wiradjuri elders Jimmy Clements and John Noble walked the 93km to the opening.

They came to talk about injustices – including being forced to work without pay and children being taken away.

Newspaper clippings: "Chained up! Two women explain bar protest" and "2 Women chained to hotel bar rail"

In 1898, two hundred women "invaded" the Legislative Council club room to "pressure members to pass a women's suffrage bill".

Sixty years later, feminists locked themselves to a hotel bar they weren't allowed to drink at. The paternalistic law was repealed.

The proud Australian tradition of disruptive protest Australia has a proud tradition of impolite, inconvenient protest for worthy causes.

Australia has a proud tradition of disruptive protests -- for @australiainstitute.org.au I look at eight protest movements that were controversial in their day but celebrated now. australiainstitute.org.au/post/the-pro...

Australia Institute Live: YouTube officially part of under 16s social media ban, climate still tricky. As it happens The government has announced Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, X and YouTube will all be part of the under 16s social media ban, following advice from the eSafety Commissioner. But there is still...

Lots happened overnight and @amyremeikis.bsky.social is awake, caffeinated and blogging

live.australiainstitute.org.au/2025/07/aust...

Hobart Mercury Hobart Mercury - 2025-07-28

Former Liberal adviser Greg Barns in The Mercury:

"A power-sharing arrangement in Tasmania must include a commitment to… reducing corporate welfare, and ending regulatory capture which is most evident in the case of the salmon industry." todayspaper.themercury.com.au/html5/reader...

Is Tasmania governable? • Kate Crowley National trends and local factors have combined to make forming government an immensely complicated process

Quotes Kate Crowley in Inside Story:

Australian "power-sharing governments ... vary markedly, take time to negotiate, and typically result in the crossbench pursuing resources, reforms and occasionally ministries. "
insidestory.org.au/is-tasmania-...

Australia Institute Live: Climate woes continue for both major parties. All the day's events, as it happens. Both parties are experiencing climate policy woes – the Coalition in finding a position at all, and Labor balancing its gas ambition with climate action. All the day's events, with fact checks, live.

Power-sharing negotiations are ongoing in Tasmania, as the seat count is finalised.

More on what's at stake on the @australiainstitute.org.au live blog: live.australiainstitute.org.au/category/aus...

Australia Institute Live: Climate woes continue for both major parties. All the day's events, as it happens. Both parties are experiencing climate policy woes – the Coalition in finding a position at all, and Labor balancing its gas ambition with climate action. All the day's events, with fact checks, live.

On @australiainstitute.org.au live blog -- First successful prosecution for National Anti-Corruption Commission.

But without public hearings, we don't know which - if any - of the major scandals of the past several years are being investigated. live.australiainstitute.org.au/category/aus...

More of our research on how truth in political advertising laws would work on the Australia Institute website: australiainstitute.org.au/initiative/t...

Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Communications) Bill 2025 Helpful information Text of bill First reading: Text of the bill as introduced into the Parliament Third reading: Prepared if the bill is amended by the house in which it was introduced. This...

Read the new bill here: www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentar...

Australia Institute Live: Parliament returns for its second week. As it happens The 48th parliament has returned for its second week

"Independent reminder that truth in political advertising is unfinished business" - I join @australiainstitute.org.au live blog to discuss new bill from @davidpocock.bsky.social @zalisteggall.bsky.social live.australiainstitute.org.au/2025/07/aust...

The Limits of CGE Modelling Economic modelling is a central element of economic and policy debate in Australia. Yet the assumptions that underpin the most commonly used macroeconomic

Features @australiainstitute.org.au research on the limits of economic modelling: australiainstitute.org.au/report/the-l...

"The great contradiction of modelling is that, while you have to be really good at maths to run a model, ... the economy you end up modelling is so grossly oversimplified it’s like a world inhabited by stick figures."

Ross Gittins www.rossgittins.com/2025/07/roun...

Royal Commissions and inquiries prompted by ABC journalism Public interest journalism from the ABC has placed scrutiny on issues that governments would prefer to ignore, prompting numerous government inquiries and investigations – what Josh Taylor, writing in...

Thanks to ABC, Macquarie Group-backed ATMs are being pulled out of illegal tobacco stores.

Another example of effective ABC reporting. Two years ago @australiainstitute.org.au identified Royal Commissions and inquiries prompted by ABC investigations. australiainstitute.org.au/report/royal...

Australia Institute Live: Senate expresses its official 'displeasure' over Greens senator Gaza protest on first day of parliament business. As it happened. The pomp and ceremony is over, so it's time for the 48th parliament to get down to business. All the day's events, with fact checks, as it happens.

With UK lowering the voting age to 16, Skye Predavec explains what it would mean for Australia to follow suit - on @australiainstitute.org.au live blog with @amyremeikis.bsky.social live.australiainstitute.org.au/2025/07/aust...

$500m government bill looms for Chevron oil field cleanup The $2.3 billion-plus decommissioning on Barrow Island will be part-funded by the Federal and WA governments returning about half the royalties they received over six decades.

Turns out our governments aren't just giving most of our gas away for free to foreign owned gas corporates

They're also handing back the meagre royalties they do bother to collect!

Big Gas has captured out governments.
www.boilingcold.com.au/governments-...