Stewart Sweeney
Stewart Sweeney is a writer and public policy advocate with a longstanding interest in the evolution and future of capitalism. He migrated from Scotland to Adelaide in 1975 to work with Premier Don Dunstan on industrial democracy. A former academic and trade unionist, he continues to contribute to public debate on economic justice, democratic reform, and sustainable development. His work reflects a deep commitment to the common good and the role of public purpose in shaping Australia’s future.
Stewart Sweeney's articles (61 total)
Glen Hansard and the Ireland that learned to sing in its own voice
Glen Hansard’s life traced Ireland’s journey from poverty and emigration to global confidence, while never losing sight of those excluded from its prosperity.
Construction corruption: does not stop at the bottom so follow it to the top
Victoria’s construction royal commission must investigate crime, intimidation and labour abuse on building sites – but also the political, financial and procurement systems that allow corruption to flourish.
Labor should talk about the cost of capitalism
Labor’s promise to ease living costs and cut taxes may offer relief, but it avoids the deeper question of who owns, controls and profits from the systems making life insecure.
Albanese sees the problem. Labor still cannot name the system
Anthony Albanese acknowledged structural problems in the economy at its National Conference, but Labor still treats capitalism as a system to be repaired rather than transformed.
Australia needs a capability state
Australia has immense natural, financial and scientific wealth, but has failed to turn enough of it into productive industries, skills and long-term national capability.
Productivity is the symptom. Rentier capitalism is the disease
Australia’s unfinished economic reform goal should be to make Australian capitalism work better by directing capital towards productive enterprise and away from dependence on asset inflation.
The new geography of migration is reshaping economic success
The world’s geography of migration is changing, and with it our understanding of economic development, national success and the role of public policy.
After the heartbreak, what the penalty kick teaches us about courage
After the Socceroos' World Cup heartbreak, the penalty kick offers a brutal lesson in pressure, failure and courage – especially when an 18-year-old is willing to step forward.
The four missed moments: when social democracy failed to change course
The Sanders, Corbyn, Ardern and Shorten moments were missed chances to renew social democracy through structural reform, leaving genuine economic grievances to be harvested by the populist right.
Power without power: Is Farrellism Labor’s solution or its problem?
Labor’s challenge is not simply to defeat One Nation or win the next election, but to move beyond a centrist settlement that has become skilled at gaining office while losing sight of transformative purpose.
Fifty years of ABC Classic and a nation still listening
ABC Classic’s fiftieth anniversary gives this year’s Classic 100 added resonance, celebrating not only great music but a shared cultural ritual that brings Australians together through listening.
Australia keeps feeding a housing system that cannot deliver
Australia’s housing crisis reflects not just a shortage of homes but the structural limits of a system that relies overwhelmingly on private developers and speculative market incentives to deliver essential social infrastructure.
The two-party system is breaking under the weight of capitalism
Election results in Britain and Australia point to a deeper crisis in the two-party system, as economic power drifts further beyond the reach of democratic control.
The King’s speech: hereditary power comes to rescue democracy
King Charles’ address to the US Congress highlighted the tension between democratic ideals and inherited power, revealing deeper strains in the western political and economic order.
America owes itself and that is the problem
The US debt debate often focuses on foreign creditors, but the real issue lies within America’s own political and economic system.
NDIS and the moment Labor blinked
The NDIS overhaul is not just about costs and governance – it is a test of whether Labor still believes in the social guarantees that have defined its reformist tradition.
AUKUS and the sunk cost trap beneath the surface
As warfare shifts decisively toward autonomous and distributed systems, Australia’s massive investment in nuclear submarines risks locking in a costly and inflexible strategy.
Tax reform isn’t enough – Australia needs an economic reset
Tax reform is necessary, but on its own it cannot fix an economy shaped by housing speculation, resource dependence and weak productivity.
Allegra Spender reopens the tax debate – but the real divide is wealth, not generations
Australia’s tax debate often frames reform as a struggle between younger and older generations. But the real divide lies between wage earners and those who derive growing advantage from assets, wealth and capital income.
Thirty years on, the Howard legacy still defines our limits
John Howard marks 30 years since the Coalition’s 1996 victory with a familiar story of stability and economic management. But the deeper legacy is the set of political and economic defaults both major parties now treat as common sense.
When both sides chant 'lower tax', the country pays in division
As the Coalition reasserts “lower tax” as political identity and Labor rushes to deny the high-tax label, Australian politics is losing the language needed to fund shared purpose, rebuild trust and sustain public life.
The moral animal in a world of power
Values shape meaning and legitimacy, but history is driven by organised power. Moral language only delivers change when it is backed by institutions, leverage and accountability.
Australia looks like a winner – but we’re losing where it counts
Australia remains wealthy but structurally fragile – highly dependent on raw exports and poorly positioned for a more complex, decarbonising global economy. Economic complexity is a warning signal we can no longer ignore.
Choosing hope in an uncertain world
In an age of political, ecological and social strain, hope is often mistaken for denial. But real hope is neither passive nor naïve – it is a choice to keep acting, even without guarantees.
The next century will be shaped by resistance, not inevitability
Across six centuries, power has claimed inevitability while resistance has redrawn the possible. As the world enters a century defined by climate, inequality and democratic strain, the forces that push back from below may once again shape the future.
The real winners of Australia’s under-16s social media ban
Australia’s social media ban for under-16s is sold as child protection, but its most tangible effect is a transfer of power away from global platforms and back to legacy media interests.
The great failure of the property industry
In every era, certain industries become so large, so politically embedded, and so culturally unexamined that their performance ceases to matter.
When evidence stops leading policy-making
The Coalition has walked away from evidence. Labor still listens – but only up to the point where action becomes politically uncomfortable. That may prove just as dangerous.
Australia’s science crisis reveals a century of structural failure
Private capital will not build Australia a world-class science system. Only the public sector can do that. And it must do so at a scale that matches the challenges ahead.
From Whitlam to AUKUS: Sovereignty silenced
When governor-general Sir John Kerr dismissed Gough Whitlam on 11 November 1975, Australia lost more than a government. It lost a measure of its independence a loss that still shadows our politics half a century later.
The last Boomer
Somewhere around 2075, even the longest lived baby boomer will die. But their story is not, in the end, a story about age.
'A national humiliation': Australia at bottom of new renewables ranking
As the Coalition abandons net zero, Andrew Forrest has quietly moved on not just to net zero, but to real zero.
Game, set and match to the property industry – unless we change everything
The contradiction at the heart of Australian politics has never been clearer. On the one hand, the Albanese Government has rediscovered the language of national renewal of making things again, of manufacturing revival, of “A Future Made in Australia.
From proletariat to boxetariat: The new working class
When Holden shut its gates at Elizabeth in 2017, Australia lost more than a car factory. It lost a symbol of national self-belief that we could design, build and export complex, high-value goods from Australia.
War without end, peace without justice
The Gaza war has become the most searing mirror of our century’s political and moral contradictions.
Trump’s war for peace: How the Nobel became his battlefield
Donald Trump’s pursuit of the Nobel Peace Prize has been one of the most grotesque spectacles of the modern era – a man trying to win a peace prize by promoting war.
Quantico’s verdict: The silence that stripped Trump bare
Donald Trump has always measured power by applause. Rallies, ratings, and ovations have been his fuel, the noise that kept the illusion of command alive. But at Quantico, facing the nation’s military brass, the noise stopped.
Labor has a narrow window to effect change
Australia is a quarter of the way into the twenty-first century and stuck on a trajectory that cannot last.
The world in 2050 is already here
Dr Mike Gilligan has reminded us that Australia’s defence and foreign policies are pulling in opposite directions: we preach “equilibrium” in the Pacific while binding ourselves ever more tightly to Washington’s war plans against China. His warning is timely, but we must go further.
Gas is not a climate policy
South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas has thrown himself into a fight that is not his own.
Why the planet now needs China
The World Bank’s Reboot Development report has belatedly confirmed what scientists have warned for decades: humanity is breaching the safe operating limits of the Earth.
Starmer’s collapse and the rebirth of a movement
In British politics, collapses come slowly and then all at once. Sir Keir Starmer, elected on the promise of competence after the chaos of Johnson, Truss and Sunak, has now seen his credibility unravel in record time.
The retreat of social democracy and the rise of the hard right
From Warsaw to Melbourne, from Berlin to Texas, the streets of many OECD countries are witnessing anti-immigration rallies and the surge of far-right populism.
Still talkin’ ’bout My Generation
The first time I heard The Who’s My Generation, I was a teenager and it sounded like a punch in the face.
Bringing government back – but not all the way
The Albanese Government wants Australians to believe that the era of market dogma is over.
Will Labor take Australia further from the global core?
As Anthony Albanese opens a new term and Treasurer Jim Chalmers signals a renewed focus on “abundance,” Australia stands at a pivotal juncture. Will Labor seize the opportunity to lead the nation into a high-value, sovereign economic future—or simply double down on the market-led path that has kept us stranded in the semiperiphery?
Slaying the juggernauts
Barbara Preston’s recent reflection on Australia’s school funding system offers a quietly devastating insight into the paradox of public education reform.
Even Ken Henry’s best ideas can’t fix a system addicted to growth
“Growth for growth’s sake is the ideology of the cancer cell.” – Edward Abbey
Boomers bashing again: Change the rules
A departing editor-at-large from The Australian Financial Review, off to head the IPA, warns of an “intergenerational tragedy” facing young Australians.
Labor’s Left majority: A defining moment
The May 2025 election delivered something quietly historic. For the first time since the 1970s, the Labor Left faction holds a majority in caucus.
Earlier Articles (11 more)
| Date | Title | Categories |
|---|---|---|
| 2025-06-19 | Not yet born: America at the crossroads | defence, politics, usa |
| 2025-06-16 | Australia's dependence on the US does not end with Trump | defence, economy, politics |
| 2025-05-31 | Beyond the sensible centre: A critical reflection on political imagination in … | policy, politics |
| 2025-05-27 | Dee Madigan and the art of the possible: Branding progress or boxing it in? | media, politics |
| 2025-05-26 | Australia’s billion-dollar blind spot | economy, politics |
| 2025-05-23 | From campaign genius to nation-builder? Paul Erickson and Labor’s long game | politics |
| 2025-05-22 | Factional comfort gazumps innovation courage | politics |
| 2025-05-20 | After the victory: Kelty’s warning and why it’s still not enough | politics |
| 2025-05-19 | The vanishing elders of Australian politics | politics |
| 2025-05-17 | Still waiting for the Asian Century? The world-system has moved on | politics |
| 2025-05-13 | Productivity with purpose: Roy Green, structural reform and Australia’s place in … | economy, politics, world |