Articles

Published in Social Europe

For years, JobSeekers using Workforce Australia Online have generally faced a monthly mutual‑obligation target of 100 points.

Published in The Daily Telegraph

Picture a young worker in her twenties. She works in childcare, hairdressing, disability support or aged care. She likes her job, but the pay is modest and her costs keep rising.

Next Tuesday, Australia will do something both impressively ambitious and remarkably detailed: counting everyone.

Imagine being told you have to obey a rule, then being asked to pay to read it.

Published in The Saturday Paper

Productivity policy is often imagined as a search for the next big breakthrough.

Adam Smith saw it 250 years ago. ‘We rarely hear,’ he wrote, ‘of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen’.

Australia will be more productive when good ideas travel faster.

In My Brilliant Career, Miles Franklin gave Australia a portrait of frustrated talent in the figure of Sybylla Melvyn.

Published in The New Daily

Published in the Australian Financial Review

Australians know the feeling.

Artificial intelligence is everywhere. It is drafting marketing plans, writing code, preparing legal briefs and advising small business owners on pricing strategy.

At a pharmacy in Belconnen or Tuggeranong, the moment is easy to miss. A card is tapped, a receipt prints, and the price is lower than it would have been a few years ago.

In the early days of electricity, households judged its value by how brightly it lit their homes. Few imagined it would reshape manufacturing, healthcare, communications and entertainment.

Until mid‑2022, many Australian drivers discovered that owning a car did not always mean controlling who could repair it.

You know the moment. You click ‘buy’, feeling quietly pleased with yourself for finding a decent deal. Then, at the final screen, the price jumps. A service fee appears from nowhere.

After a decade of Coalition inaction, grocery prices soared while competition was left in the bargain bin.