Grattan Institute

Political parties spent almost half a billion dollars in the year leading up to the 2025 federal election. Big-money campaigns mean politicians spend more time chasing donations, and risk giving major donors more influence over policy. From next year, new rules will finally put a ceiling on money in Australian politics — but that ceiling is set far too high. In our latest podcast, Grattan researcher Thomas Shortridge talks to our democracy expert Kate Griffiths about her policy brief, 'Decoupling money from power: Getting electoral expenditure caps right', and what a better cap on election spending would look like. Read the policy brief: https://grattan.edu.au/news/decoupling-money-from-power/

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 experience homelessness, be hospitalized, or have their needs escalate, putting pressure on systems that are already under strain. In this podcast, Sam Bennett, Mia Jessurun, and Reilly Polaschek, discuss the latest Grattan report, Bridging the Gap: Meeting the needs of Australians with psychosocial disability. In the report, they outline a plan to build a fairer and more effective system of psychosocial supports. Read the report: https://grattan.edu.au/report/bridging-the-gap-meeting-the-needs-of-australians-with-psychosocial-disability/

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 Australians of economic opportunity. But there is a case for optimism – provided we change planning laws to increase housing density in our major cities. On our latest podcast, Grattan housing experts Brendan Coates, Joey Moloney, and Matthew Bowes discuss their report More homes, better cities: Letting more people live where they want. Read the report: https://grattan.edu.au/report/more-homes-better-cities/

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 podcast episode, host Kat Clay is joined by Jessica Geraghty to discuss her latest research on why fixing the gender balance matters. Read the article: https://grattan.edu.au/news/fixing-the-workforce-gender-balance-is-in-everyones-interest/

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 Clay is joined by education experts Amy Haywood and Molly Chapman to unpack the latest NAPLAN data. They discuss how students are tracking, and what can be done to improve the results across Australia. Donate to Grattan https://grattan.edu.au/donate

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 NDIS sustainable. In this podcast, report authors Sam Bennett, Mia Jessurun, and Hannah Orban are joined by Senior Fellow Alastair McEwin to discuss how to rein in costs while ensuring disabled Australians get the support they need. Read the report: https://grattan.edu.au/report/saving-the-ndis/ Full podcast transcription: https://grattan.edu.au/news/how-to-save-the-ndis/

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 issue that needs specialised attention. For many Australians, it can be a worrying time. And those worries only get worse when faced with high specialist fees and long wait times. In this episode, Senior Associate Elizabeth Baldwin is joined by co-authors Peter Breadon and Dominic Jones to unpack the findings of Grattan Institute’s latest report, Special treatment: Improving Australians' access to specialist care. Together, they explore why specialist care is so hard to access—and what can be done to fix it. Read the report: https://grattan.edu.au/report/special-treatment-improving-australians-access-to-specialist-care/

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, cost-of-living is one of the biggest issues facing voters. Labor is spruiking the housing policies that it legislated over its first term, including the newly expanded Help to Buy scheme. The Coalition is promising to allow first home buyers to use their super to help purchase their home. Both parties are proposing a two-year ban on foreign residents purchasing existing homes. But do the policies on offer from the major parties go far enough to help make housing more affordable for more Australians? In this podcast, two Grattan experts, Brendan Coates and Matthew Bowes, evaluate the housing policies on offer – and suggest that whoever wins the election should pursue more comprehensive reforms. Read the 2025 Orange Book: https://grattan.edu.au/report/orange-book-2025/