Law & Order

There’s good money in drugs. $600 million.

Australia is spending $600 million to stop cocaine crossing the Pacific — but the question no one in government is answering is why it keeps coming.

Energy

Government gets out of the way to let the builders build.

A $3 billion gas pipeline just got a regulatory fast-track in Queensland — but the harder questions about supply, jobs, and delivery haven't been answered yet.

Housing

The banks’ role in housing and affordability

Banks made $30 billion last year while renters struggle — but is the Senate inquiry targeting the right villain?

Taxation

Trust tax tightens: the restructuring question Treasury can't quite settle

Treasury's minimum trust tax has a coherent fairness argument — but the escape routes it offers small business may not survive contact with real-world income volatility.

Fiscal Policy

Economy's hot streak poses more questions than answers

Australia's GDP looks strong — but nearly half the spending jump came from one category. What that says about the rate rise coming in September.

Health Policy

1,400 patients trapped in hospitals as aged care crisis deepens

1,437 Queenslanders are clinically ready to leave hospital but can't — and the fight over who's to blame may be obscuring what it would actually take to fix it.

Housing

Victoria Fast-Tracks Housing Approvals — But Only If You Build the Approved Way

Victoria's new four-home fast-track sounds like planning reform — but the ten-day promise disappears the moment a project steps outside the code.

Regulation

Coal mine for sale, only $2

Queensland is reviewing the rules that make miners pay for cleanup — and the industry practice that makes loosening those rules so dangerous.

Law & Order

Victoria's road gangs: Good for roads, bad for business

Victoria wants prisoners mowing verges so skilled crews can fix potholes. The budget logic works — but what happens to the contractors who do that work for a living?

Labour Market

$5.3m in wage theft across aged care — and that's probably just the start

Thirteen of 22 investigated aged care providers broke workplace laws — and the FWO was only looking at a fraction of the sector.

Housing

Queensland rewrites planning rules to unlock housing - Is that ok?

Queensland's planning rules haven't been seriously updated since 2017 — now the government wants to rewrite them. What's actually in the proposal, and what would it take to work?

party-policy

Algorithm opt-in is really a platform opt-out

Australia's Greens want to make social media algorithms opt-in. But what happens when the algorithm is the whole point of the app?

technology

Help us AI, you’re our only hope.

Treasury has set a stark productivity range for Australia's AI future — and the gap between the low end and the high end depends almost entirely on what businesses do next.

Government Spending

Pokie money can’t buy the love

Queensland hands out $60 million a year in pokies-funded grants — and calls it giving back. The incentives tell a different story.

Government Spending

Closing the gap takes more than money

Australia has commissioned another Closing the Gap review — but the terms of reference may be asking the wrong question entirely.