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https://theconversation.com/is-it-too-late-to-solve-some-of-our-most-wicked-problems-the-australia-institute-wont-let-us-die-wondering-251045>
"
Review: What’s the Big Idea? 32 Ideas for a Better Australia – edited by
Anna Chang and Alice Grundy (Australia Institute Press)
As I begin this review sitting in a Canberra cafe, there are two blokes on the
next table complaining about the present federal election campaign’s lack of
substance. The complaints of one of them about the Coalition’s fuel excise cut
were the first to catch my ear, but it was soon clear enough that they didn’t
think much of either party’s policy performance.
It was a very Canberra moment. I suppose that if I were eavesdropping in
Melbourne, I would hear about football and in Sydney, property prices. But the
opinions of these Canberra folk would not be unusual outside the capital’s
inner north.
All of this is a roundabout way of saying any think tank devoted to promoting
ideas that are not simply about getting one of Australia’s political parties
over the line on May 3 is doing a public service.
What’s the Big Idea? marks the 30th anniversary of the Australia Institute, a
Canberra-based think tank that has become part of the nation’s policy
architecture and media culture. Its executive director Richard Denniss recently
appeared on the
ABC’s
Q+A, where his gifts as a public communicator were on
full display. This is an outfit willing to get out and about. There is no ivory
tower here.
If there is a Darwinian survival of the fittest at play in the world of think
tanks, as there surely is, the Australia Institute must be one of the success
stories of the present century. It attracts impressive thinkers and good
communicators, and it manages to find enough money to pay them.
It also has a good claim to having exercised clout – in recent times, over
Labor’s redesign of the stage-three income tax cuts that redirected benefits to
low- and middle-income earners. The Australia Institute was relentless in
advocating for this change. It would be unfair, and probably inaccurate, to
deny it a share of the credit."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
