Grattan Institute
News & Politics
About
Everything you need to know about Australian public policy.Grattan Institute is dedicated to developing high quality public policy for Australia’s future. Our podcasts cover a range of public policy topics focusing on the main issues facing Australia. Our podcasts concentrate on budget policy, economic growth, energy, health, institutional reform, household finances, school education, and disability policy.
Episodes
- Budget 2026: The Grattan Verdict
The Grattan Podcast features Grattan Institute experts discussing the Federal Treasurer's 2026 budget, delivered under the Albanese government. The episode covers the budget's contents and omissions.
- Budget 2026: Why this one matters
Grattan Institute CEO Dr. Aruna Sathanapally and Deputy Program Director Hamish McKenzie discuss the Australian 2026 federal budget, highlighting the complex economic and geopolitical factors influencing its decisions and the potential for…
- Democracy: How to strengthen Australia’s democracy in turbulent times
Grattan Institute experts discuss their report 'For the people,' highlighting global democratic decline and outlining five key areas for strengthening Australia's democracy.
- The Prime Minister's Summer Reading List 2025 - Event Recording
Grattan Institute launched its 2025 Prime Minister's Summer Reading List at State Library Victoria. The event featured discussions on six selected books with Grattan CEO Aruna Sathanapally, journalist Tom Crowley, and author Cordelia Fine.…
- How to improve school attendance in Australia
In Australia, 11% of students are absent on a typical school day, amounting to significant missed learning over time. Education experts Amy Haywood and Molly Chapman discuss ways to improve school attendance.
- How to make psychosocial disability support fairer in Australia
Australia is failing more than 130,000 people with significant psychosocial disability – despite spending billions every year on the NDIS. This gap is fuelling a growing problem. People without adequate supports are more likely to experien…
- How to fix hospital funding
Spending on Australia’s public hospitals has increased by an average of $3 billion every year in the past decade. Yet hospitals are still under strain. Ambulances are ramping outside emergency departments, waits for surgery are getting lon…
- Want to fix the housing crisis? Build up
Housing in Australia’s cities is among the least affordable in the world. For decades, we have not built enough housing where people most want to live. A lack of well-located homes is dividing families and communities, and robs younger Aus…
- How Australia can expand carbon pricing
Australia will fail to hit its climate change target of net zero by 2050 unless it imposes a constraint on emissions from the electricity sector. In this podcast, our energy and climate change policy experts Alison Reeve and Tony Wood talk…
- Why fixing the workforce gender balance matters
Australia's workforce is almost evenly split between men and women, yet fewer than one in four Australians work in a gender balanced occupation. But why does it matter? Turns out, it’s bad for workers, businesses and the economy. In this p…
- How to build a better tax system: Economic Reform Roundtable recap
This week, the Economic Reform Roundtable met to discuss how to boost Australia's productivity, where Grattan Institute's CEO spoke on four key areas for tax reform. A robust tax system plays an essential part in creating a competitive and…
- Grading the 2025 NAPLAN results
Over 1.3 million students sat the NAPLAN tests in March, which provides a health check on Australia's education system. Now, the results are in. But what do they reveal about the state of education in Australia? In this podcast, host Kat C…
- Gas: Love it or hate it? It's complicated...
Some people love it, some people hate it. But whatever you feel about gas, Australia urgently needs a gas strategy. Listen to our energy experts Alison Reeve and Tony Wood discuss the highly contested role of gas as Australia strives for n…
- How to save the NDIS
The NDIS is a vital part of Australia’s social fabric, but the scheme has grown too big, too fast. Grattan’s new report, Saving the NDIS: How to rebalance disability services to get better results, presents a four-step plan to make the NDI…
- Why superannuation tax breaks need to be cut
Over decades of compulsory contributions, Australians have amassed $4 trillion in retirement savings. But behind this headline success lies a range of unresolved policy problems. The promise was a more comfortable retirement. The reality i…
- How to improve Australians' access to specialist care
No one looks forward to seeing a specialist—whether it’s a cardiologist, paediatrician, or psychiatrist. A referral often signals your GP is concerned about a serious health problem: a suspicious lump, a complex condition, or a health issu…
- The Maths Guarantee: How to Boost Students' Learning in Primary Schools
Australia has a maths problem: one in three Australian school students fail to achieve proficiency in maths. When maths is taught well, children and the nation benefit. But taught poorly, students are robbed of a core life skill. Adults wi…
- Election 2025: Evaluating the housing policies
Whether it’s increasing rent or mortgage repayments, the surging cost of buying a house or simply finding a secure place to live, Australians are struggling more than ever with housing costs. And with a federal election around the corner,…
- Analysing the 2025 federal Budget
Is the 2025 federal Budget right for these economic times? In this special pre-election Grattan podcast, our experts give their verdict. Host Kate Griffiths is joined by Grattan CEO Aruna Sathanapally and health policy expert Peter Breadon…
- Orange Book 2025: Policy priorities for the federal government
As Australia prepares for the 2025 federal election, our new Orange Book identifies the big reforms needed to set Australia on a more prosperous path. Find out what policies should be on the agenda of whoever wins the election – whether La…
- How to boost child vaccination rates
For decades, Australia has been a global leader in child immunization efforts. Vaccination has protected millions of children from preventable diseases like diphtheria, measles and whooping cough. But after child vaccination rates peaked i…
- The RBA has cut rates. Now what?
Last Tuesday, the Reserve Bank of Australia delivered its first rate cut in over four years. For many, the tumultuous years of rate rises have felt like a cost-of-living gauntlet. Inflation has driven up the cost of household bills, grocer…
- Why Rent Assistance needs to rise
Most Australians have enough to enjoy a comfortable retirement. But too many retirees who rent are being left behind. Today, two thirds of retirees who rent privately live in poverty, including more than three in four single women. And a g…
- What are 'GP deserts' (and how to fix them)?
Some communities are “GP deserts”, where there are too few GPs to ensure everyone can get the care they need when they need it. These communities are typically sicker and poorer than the rest of Australia, but receive less care and face hi…
- The Wonks' List: The Best Technical Policy Reads of 2024
Each year, our staff curate the Wonks' List, a selection of the best technical reads for policy enthusiasts. From the housing crisis to trade policy, each of these works sparks discussion on pressing economic issues. On this podcast, Senio…
- Super stressful: how Australia can simplify retirement incomes
Do you find the idea of planning for your retirement overwhelming? If that’s you, you’re not alone. Our new report shows about 80 per cent of Australians find retirement planning complicated and about 60 per cent of Australians expect that…
- Crunching the numbers on the Coalition's nuclear plan
Peter Dutton has released the costings for the Coalition's nuclear energy plan, proposing to build seven nuclear power stations at the sites of current coal plants. The Coalition says its plan would be markedly cheaper than Labor's plan to…
- Prime Minister's Summer Reading List 2024
Each year, Grattan Institute selects its best books of the past 12 months – recommended reading for the Prime Minister, and indeed all Australians, over the summer holidays. From the history of democracy to the stars above, each of these r…
- What the Annual Climate Change Statement means for Australia
Every year, the federal government releases a Climate Change Statement, which documents progress towards Australia’s climate targets. This year’s statement shows Australia’s emissions have fallen and that we are on track to meet the 2030 e…
- Housing policy heats up
It’s been a big week for housing policy. Federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan both announced policies designed to boost housing supply. Our housing experts Brendan Coates and Matthew Bowes analyse the…
- Should Australia curb negative gearing?
Negative gearing is back on the table with Jim Chalmers asking Treasury to model changes to property tax breaks. It's not a new proposal for Labor, with tax reform a hot political issue in the 2019 election. But at any mention of changes t…
- Should Australia invest in nuclear power?
Nuclear energy is a hotly contested topic for the upcoming election, with both sides of politics looking for a plan that enables Australia to hit net zero emissions by 2050 while maintaining an affordable, reliable energy supply. Peter Dut…
- How to prevent gambling harm in Australia
Gambling is everywhere. And Australia's lax approach to gambling regulation shows. We have the highest gambling losses in the world. While the federal government is considering banning gambling advertising in the wake of the Murphy Inquiry…
- How to reform NDIS housing and support
The National Disability Insurance Scheme is failing many Australians with profound disability. More than 43,000 people with intensive support packages are seeing little benefit from a scheme that was supposed to give them greater choice an…
- Unpacking the 2024 NAPLAN results
The 2024 NAPLAN school test results show one in three Australian students are not on track with their learning. The results also reveal deep inequities in Australian schools. Indigenous children, children from disadvantaged families, and c…
- Will interest rates ever stop going up?
Over the past two years, it's been hard to see an end to interest rate rises. Homeowners have been slogged with one mortgage increase after another. Despite a couple of months of calm, another potential rate rise is looming on the horizon,…
- How to boost GPs' patient vaccination rates
Vaccines save lives. Yet the likelihood an older Australian is vaccinated varies hugely by GP. For some GPs, 90 per cent of older patients are vaccinated for flu. For others, only 40 per cent are vaccinated. For COVID, shingles and pneumoc…
- Analysing the 2024 NSW Budget
This week, the NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey handed down his second budget since Labor took office. At the same time, the NSW government is facing rising inflation and cost of living, increased public sector wage expenditure, and the worst…
- Should Australia abandon the Paris Agreement?
The federal government's 2030 emissions reduction target is under serious threat. Under the International Paris Agreement, Australia has committed to reduce its emissions to 43 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. But the government is not…
- How to reform points-tested visas
Skilled migrants contribute greatly to Australia's prosperity, shaping our diverse society, making us more productive, and boosting Australians' earnings and government's budgets. Points-tested visas account for almost two thirds of all pe…
- Budget 2024: The Grattan verdict
What's Grattan's verdict on Budget 2024? CEO Aruna Sathanapally and a panel of Grattan experts, including Dr. Sam Bennett, Alison Reeve, and Brendan Coates, critically assess Australia's 2024 federal Budget. Has the government got the bala…
- Why Australia needs a sugary drinks tax
Australia: it's time for a sugary drinks tax. Sugary drinks are the biggest single source of sugar in our diets, and they increase people’s risk of developing obesity and type 2 diabetes. While Australian health experts have been calling f…
- How Australia can navigate to a post-coal future
Most Australians don't spend much time thinking about the electricity system, as long as the lights turn on. But the National Energy Market (NEM) is going through big changes as it moves away from coal generation towards renewables. And Au…
- Will this bill get the NDIS back on track?
The future of the NDIS – Australia’s world-leading scheme to support people with disability – is in doubt because the costs are exploding. Now the federal government is acting. The Getting the NDIS Back on Track Bill proposes a massive ove…
- Is Australia running out of gas?
The Australian Energy Market Operator has published its annual Gas Statement of Opportunities report. The report forecasts difficult times ahead for Australia’s east coast gas market, with a risk of shortfalls on peak demand days in 2025 a…
- Why Australia should trial multi-school organisations
School principals can make a big impact. A highly effective principal can raise student achievement by up to seven months a year for a typical student, and even more for a disadvantaged student. But running a school well is a difficult job…
- Australia's gender pay gap revealed
The release of Australian gender pay gap data by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency has highlighted the big discrepancies in women's salaries, the absence of women in traditionally male dominated industries, and the lack of women in seni…
- Is 2024 the year of the renter?
Rents keep going up and up, and it doesn't seem like a reprieve is coming any time soon. The Reserve Bank has indicated that rent inflation is likely to remain high over the year ahead, before easing gradually. But with a federal election…
- Why Australia needs a 'Reading Guarantee'
Australia has a reading problem. A third of children can't read proficiently. In the typical Australian school classroom of 24 students, eight can't read well. This has huge flow on effects for their success in life and costs Australia bil…
- Grattan's Summer Series: Micheline Lee on Lifeboat: Disability, Humanity, and the NDIS
Each year Grattan selects its best books of the past 12 months as recommended reading for the Prime Minister and all Australians over the summer holidays. In this summer series, we discuss some of the works on the list with the people who…