Grattan Institute

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 sets the energy market rules.

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 even higher.

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 some of Australia’s most important debates.

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 Wood shed light on how the system is shaping up.

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.

A conversation with Program Director Danielle Wood, Senior Associate Kate Griffiths and Associate Carmela Chivers. Powerful and well-resourced business groups, unions and not-for-profits are influencing policy to serve their interests, sometimes at the expense of the public interest. Stronger checks and balances on lobbying, donations and access would make our politics cleaner and fairer.

A conversation with Higher Education Program Director Andrew Norton and Fellow Ittima Cherastidtham. The graduate gender pay gap in Australia is narrowing, with more women in paid work than ever. Women’s earnings generally outpaced men’s over the past decade. But the pay gap remains large – and the labour market remains tough for young graduates.

Energy policy has played a central role in the removal of another Australian Prime Minister, highlighting our inability to integrate energy and environmental policy. What policies and market structure do we need in this new world and how will they balance energy prices, reliability and emissions? Our panel of experts, including Chloe Munro, Ross Garnaut and Michael Brear, threw light on these questions in the final Future Energy Series of public policy forums for 2018.

Event podcast: this Policy Pitch event looked at the different ways special interest groups – including business, unions and not-for-profits – seek influence over policy. Do political donations buy access? Which groups lobby the most? And who spends the most on public campaigns?

Event podcast: This Forward Thinking event looked at the different ways special interest groups – including business, unions and not-for-profits – seek influence over policy. Do political donations buy access? Which groups lobby the most? And who spends the most on public campaigns?

A conversation with School Education Program Director, Peter Goss on school funding. Do state schools get a fair go? How much should governments give to non-government schools? And how can we assess ‘fairness’ amid all these competing demands and all this heated politics?

A conversation with Health Program Director, Stephen Duckett. A new Code of Conduct for doctors has been drafted by the Medical Board of Australia. Entitled Good Medical Practice it covers issues for the medical profession in Australia such as the fees they charge, the way they deal with patients, and the ethics they practice. But have they got it right?