Health and the election: Band-aids when surgery is needed
Health policies are out and there is little difference between the two major parties. The policies definitely help patients afford to see GPs and get medication.
Recent articles in Policy
17 April 2025
Australia urgently needs to get serious about long-term climate policy – but there’s no sign of that in the election campaign
The federal election should be an earnest contest over the fundamentals of Australia’s climate and energy policies.
17 April 2025
Trump: a ridiculous ego and incredibly ignorant
The analysis underpinning Donald Trump’s tariff policy is fatally flawed. Thus, it will fail to achieve its objective of restoring the living standards of his MAGA supporters.
15 April 2025
How to lose friends and help rivals
If the US wanted to thrust Indonesia into the strategic political orbit of China, it couldn’t have found a better way than imposing a 32% tariff on imports from the archipelago.
13 April 2025
Good migration policy pays — this is what it looks like
Migration can continue to be a transformative benefit for Australia if it can look past the myths to develop policy that will pay off.
12 April 2025
AUKUS turning point – Sydney Morning Herald calls for review
Since the AUKUS deal was signed in 2021 Pearls and Irritations has led a high-profile debate on the $368 billion deal, questioning whether it serves our interests. This week we saw a significant turning point. An editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald calls on the Australian Government to follow the UK lead, and launch an inquiry into the deal. Below is the full text of the editorial.
11 April 2025
A statement by the minister for the environment in the new Australian Government
My fellow Australians: you cannot exist, and your grandkids will not exist without a safe, healthy, habitable Earth for us all to dwell upon.
10 April 2025
If I was immigration minister, I would develop a population plan
If there is one thing politicians should have learnt in the last three years, it is that Australians expect them to manage long-term net migration and thus our rate of population growth.
10 April 2025
How Australian education was captured by arms dealers
Australian universities, technical institutes and schools are becoming militarised. The power of defence industry money combined with government policy and public underfunding of education have created an avalanche of defence funding and profound influence over our education system and the people who emerge from it.
8 April 2025
Albanese and housing 2022-25: hyperactivity without a plan
Yet again, as a federal election approaches, we look set for a national debate in which competing housing policy offers will take centre stage. The Greens began to unveil their pitch back in 2024 and the Coalition has now started to follow suit.
7 April 2025
Small policy, big impact
It's too early to predict the outcome of the election – notwithstanding the swing back to Labor reported by recent published polls. Anything could happen to change voting intentions in the last weeks of the campaign.
5 April 2025
AUKUS – the bucktooth cousin hidden in election blather
In French, buck teeth are called dents à l'anglaise, literally English teeth. Stay with me. The connection to the old dart, France, and the dishonourable origins of AUKUS will be revealed.
4 April 2025
‘It's back to the (fossil fuel) future for Peter Dutton’
It’s only the first week – and if you thought Peter Dutton’s election campaign looks chaotic, dishevelled, and thin on policy substance, you’re right.
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The Grandmother Effect, an evolutionary lesson for housing policy
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