Grattan Institute

On Sunday, Dads across Australia were celebrated by their families for Father’s Day – whether in-person or virtually. But for new dads, Australia has one of the least generous parental leave schemes in the developed world. And Australian fathers have been reluctant to access what little leave is available to them. To coincide with Father’s Day, the Grattan team has released a new report – Dad Days: how more gender-equal parental leave would improve the lives of Australian families. Discussing their report is Danielle Wood, CEO, and Owain Emslie, Senior Associate, with Kat Clay, Head of Digital Communications.

With NSW and Victoria in lockdown, cases rising every day, protesters clashing in the streets, and Delta reaching our most vulnerable remote communities, you might be feeling that the only light at the end of the tunnel is the successful vaccination rollout to Australia. But even the modelling around vaccinations is fraught with differing opinions. At what point should Australia open up? 70% vaccination rate? 80%? Should we even come out of lockdowns if we reach these targets? Listen to Stephen Duckett, Health and Aged Care Program Director in conversation with Kat Clay, Head of Digital Communications, about what’s going on with Australia’s vaccine rollout. For more information, visit: https://grattan.edu.au/

Australia faces the great challenge of climate change. If we keep going the way we are going, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned the earth is likely to see a 1.5C increase in temperature by 2030, resulting in increased catastrophic weather events such as drought, fire and flood. These warnings call for urgent change. In 2020, the industrial sector was responsible for 31% of Australia's emissions. And our emissions in the sector have only increased over the past fifteen years. But how can we reduce carbon emissions in the industrial sector while maintaining jobs and the economy? Listen to Tony Wood, Program Director, Energy and Climate Change, Alison Reeve, Deputy Program Director, and Kat Clay, Head of Digital Communications in conversation about their new report, Towards Net Zero: Practical policies to reduce industrial emissions. Read the report online: http://grattan.edu.au/

Compared to the rest of the world, Australia has fared incredibly well throughout the global COVID pandemic. We have had fewer cases and deaths than most countries, fewer days in lockdown, and one of the shortest recessions. But that’s not to say maintaining this suppression strategy hasn’t been easy. Sydney is experiencing a large Delta outbreak yet; Victoria just came out of its fifth lockdown. With only 14 per cent of Australians fully vaccinated, and vaccine supplies still constrained, it feels like there is no end in sight. Other countries like the UK and US are beginning to reopen and go back to life as normal, yet Australia is still shut off from the rest of the world. But the good news is, vaccines give us a way out. The wonder of vaccines is that they can carry us out of this mess to a world where lockdowns are no longer needed, and COVID is not a major public health threat. Join Tom Crowley, Will Mackey, Anika Stobart, and Brendan Coates, as they discuss their latest report Race to 80: our best

Australia’s governance is going backwards. Without change, there is little prospect for many substantial policy reforms that would increase Australian prosperity. Should we pine for the golden years of Australian policy reform, or is there a way forward from here? Listen to Grattan’s founding CEO, John Daley, in conversation with Kat Clay, Head of Digital Communications, on his last Grattan report, Gridlock: removing barriers to policy reform. Read the report on our website: https://grattan.edu.au/

Australia’s state and territory governments have all committed to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 - or earlier. And the Federal Government has indicated they’d like to meet that goal too. But to get there, Australia needs to dramatically cut its emissions across each sector of the economy. Some sectors, such as transport, have had lower emissions since the COVID-19 pandemic, but those emissions are set to rebound to pre-pandemic levels. Australia is not on track for net zero, and urgently needs good policies to push its emissions down. Join Alison Reeve, Energy and Climate Change Fellow, and James Ha, Associate, as they discuss their new report series Towards Net Zero with Kat Clay, Head of Digital Communications.

The federal government’s Your Future, Your Super Bill, which passed Parliament in June, is the latest in a long line of reforms aimed at reining in Australia’s woefully high superannuation costs. But how many of us really understand whether our super fund is performing well – or not? Join Brendan Coates, Grattan's Economic Policy Program Director, Xavier O’Halloran, Director of Super Consumers Australia, and Kat Clay, Head of Digital Communications, as they break down the complexities of superannuation reform. Your Super comparison tool: https://www.ato.gov.au/YourSuper-Comparison-Tool/

In June 2020, Grattan Institute published a report called COVID catch-up: helping disadvantaged students close the equity gap. What we didn’t know was the impact this report would go on to have across Australia. One year later, half-a-billion dollars of funding has been dedicated to tutoring programs from both NSW and Victorian governments, and students are now getting the very real support they need. It’s proof of the power of good policy research to change Australia for the better. Join Kat Clay, Head of Digital Communications, Jordana Hunter, Education Program Director, and Julie Sonnemann, Education Fellow, as they chart the course of this impactful report – and where education policy can go from here. Take the education survey: http://ow.ly/xR0D50Fex6Q Donate to Grattan: https://grattan.edu.au/donate

Australia’s vaccine rollout has been a train-wreck. Missed deadlines. A lack of transparency. Not to mention, expensive. And data published by The Age and Sydney Morning Herald suggest that a third of Australians are hesitant about getting vaccinated. A lack of information and confusing messages about who can get vaccinated, where, and when, have left everyday Australians reluctant to get the jab. Join Kat Clay, Head of Digital Communications, in discussion with Stephen Duckett, Health and Aged Care Program Director, on how to fix Australia's COVID vaccine rollout. Donate to Grattan: https://grattan.edu.au/donate

With Australia's borders closed because of the pandemic, it's no wonder that migration is at an all-time low. Yet the COVID crisis provides a unique opportunity to reset Australia's skilled migration program. Listen to Economic Policy Program Director Brendan Coates, and Senior Associate Will Mackey, in conversation with Kat Clay, Head of Digital Communications about their new report: Rethinking permanent skilled migration after the pandemic. Read the report online: https://grattan.edu.au/report/rethinking-permanent-skilled-migration-after-the-pandemic/

Taxpayers end up paying too much for major road and rail projects in Australia because governments don’t drive a hard bargain on contracts with the big construction firms. But what can governments do to make sure they get the best bang for the taxpayer's buck? Join Marion Terrill, Transport and Cities Program Director, Owain Emslie, Senior Associate, and Lachlan Fox, as they discuss infrastructure spending, contracts, and competition.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year – for wonks that is. The Federal Government will soon release their May budget. But with economic recovery high on the agenda in the wake of COVID-19, you might be wondering where the government will be spending big – or slashing costs. Listen to Danielle Wood, Grattan CEO, in conversation with Kat Clay, Head of Digital Communications, on what the upcoming budget might mean for you.

Australia has a new Minister for Women’s Economic Security in Jane Hume. But with an enormous gender gap in lifetime earnings between men and women, the significant job losses for women during the pandemic, and some women facing poverty in retirement, it’s hard to know which issue to start with. Listen to Rebecca Joiner, Tom Crowley and Kat Clay discuss how to fix the lifetime earnings gap.

All of us at some point in our lives have reaped the benefits of Medicare – whether that’s bulk billing a doctor’s appointment or receiving a more serious hospital procedure for free. When Medicare was introduced in the early 80s, the Minister for Health Dr Neal Blewett described it as ‘a simple, fair, affordable insurance system that provides basic health cover to all Australians’. But what about ‘a simple, fair, affordable aged care system that provides basic cover to all older Australians’. We have medicare, so why not a universally funded aged care system? Join Kat Clay and Anika Stobart, Associate, in conversation tackling this big question of why Australia should have a universal aged care system. For more information, visit: https://grattan.edu.au/

Achieving net-zero emissions sometimes sounds like an unachievable dream. With the political football of climate policy, and the current reliance on gas and coal-fired electricity sources, you’d be forgiven for becoming despondent about Australia ever getting to net-zero. But, at least in the electricity sector, there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Join Kat Clay, Head of Digital Communications, with Tony Wood, Energy and Climate Change Program Director, and James Ha, associate, in conversation about their new report, Go for Net Zero: A practical plan for reliable, affordable, low-emissions electricity.

Chances are, if you’re on the market for a new property, or are trying to sell, you might have noticed how bonkers the Australian property market is right now. Queues of thirty people at open inspections isn’t unheard of in metropolitan areas, and prices are skyrocketing due to demand. It’s an unexpected outcome - the start of the COVID pandemic saw predictions that house prices would fall 10-to-20 per cent. One year on and Australian house prices are now surging at their fastest rate since 2003. After all the talk of crashing house prices a year ago, it’s enough to give would-be homebuyers whiplash. Listen to Kat Clay, Head of Digital Communications, and Brendan Coates, Household Finances Program Director, tackle the very real problem of housing affordability.

At the start of March, the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety released its final report into aged care and laid out an extensive plan to overhaul the aged-care system. There’s no doubt that aged care must be reformed. But with an overwhelming number of recommendations, where do we even begin? Listen to this informed discussion with Anika Stobart, Associate with the Grattan Health Program, and Kat Clay, Head of Digital Communications.

COVID has compounded the effects of career breaks for women. Just six months out of work can add another $100,000 to the average $2 million lifetime earnings gap between men and women with children in Australia. This International Women’s Day, listen to Danielle Wood, CEO, Kate Griffiths, Fellow, and Tom Crowley, Associate, on how the COVID recession has affected women, now and into the future, and what we can do to ‘build back better’. Read our full report: https://grattan.edu.au/report/womens-work

It’s no exaggeration to say that COVID-19 has changed how we travel forever. Now that offices are reopening, many people are driving to work in order to avoid public transport. But do any of us want to go back to the office after discovering the flexibility of working from home? Or maybe, you’ve just decided to join the lycra clad brigade of MAMILS on their bikes. However we commute, it’s almost certainly going to look different to pre-pandemic transport. Listen to Kat Clay, Head of Digital Communications, in conversation with Owain Emslie, Senior Associate.

Australia’s border closure was one of the Morrison Government’s best decisions in responding to the pandemic. It was a big decision, but the right one. Tight border controls have given Australia the best of both worlds: little community transmission and a domestic economy largely unencumbered by COVID. Now, Victoria has just emerged from a five day lockdown caused by a breach in hotel quarantine. That follows similar breaches in Sydney, Brisbane, and Perth over the summer months. At the same time there have been fresh calls each week for more people to arrive in Australia from overseas. Citizens unable to return home. Universities desperate for international students to return. Workers from the Pacific to pick the harvest, otherwise left to rot in the fields. So, how can we fix hotel quarantine? And what do the current arrangements mean for migration in the coming months? Listen to Kat Clay, Head of Digital Communications, in conversation with Brendan Coates, Household Finances Program Director, and Hen