Updates, explainers, and news about building a participatory democracy party for Australia.
Australia has spent over $10 billion detaining asylum seekers offshore since 2013 - more per person than almost any other system on Earth. Here's what the evidence actually says about who pays, who suffers, and who benefits.
Read moreAustralia once prided itself on universal healthcare, but bulk billing rates are collapsing across the country - leaving millions of ordinary Australians paying out of pocket just to see a doctor. Here's how we got here, who's responsible, and why politicians keep letting it happen.
Read moreThe NDIS was designed to transform the lives of Australians with disability - and for many, it has. But a scheme originally costed at $22 billion a year is now tracking toward $100 billion, riddled with fraud and mismanagement that both major parties helped create and neither has truly fixed.
Read moreAustralians are paying more than ever for private health insurance - and getting less in return. Here's why a broken system keeps getting propped up, who's really benefiting, and why ordinary people keep footing the bill.
Read moreAustralia has enough doctors - just not where people need them. A federal policy called Distribution Priority Areas is supposed to fix rural healthcare access, but decades of evidence suggest it's making things worse, not better.
Read moreAustralians pay some of the highest out-of-pocket dental costs in the developed world, and successive Labor and Coalition governments have promised - then abandoned - universal dental care. Here's why it keeps happening, and who's benefiting from the status quo.
Read moreAustralia finally legislated minimum staffing ratios in aged care - but without real enforcement, the mandate is little more than a press release. Here's who's paying the price, and why neither major party is in a hurry to fix it.
Read moreAustralians in mental health crisis are waiting up to 10 months for basic care - not because we lack the money, but because both major parties have consistently chosen funding structures that serve providers and bureaucracies over patients. Here's what the evidence shows, and why voters would choose differently if they had a real say.
Read moreAustralians who did everything right - studied hard, got qualified, entered the workforce - are watching their student debts grow faster than they can repay them. Here's why the HECS indexation system is broken, who designed it this way, and why it keeps surviving despite widespread outrage.
Read moreAustralia's schools funding system was supposed to be fixed over a decade ago. Instead, both major parties have repeatedly watered down the Gonski reforms - leaving disadvantaged students behind while private schools continue to receive billions in public money they don't need.
Read moreAustralia's universities depend on an army of underpaid casual academics to teach the next generation - yet these workers have no job security, no paid preparation time, and no voice. This is the policy failure both major parties would rather not talk about.
Read moreIn one of Australia's most spectacular policy failures, federal and state governments handed billions in public money to for-profit training colleges with almost no oversight - and students, taxpayers, and legitimate providers all paid the price.
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