2025-07-03
The Australia Institute’s recent book What’s the Big Idea? contains 34 bold ideas from well-credentialed progressive thinkers. This review highlights six of them that resonate strongly with our Greens’ priorities, starting with the overarching idea of the urgent need for less caution from our leaders.
By Rob Delves, a member of the Green Issue Editorial team
To celebrate its 30th anniversary, The Australia Institute has published a book entitled What’s the Big Idea? 34 ideas for a better Australia. 34 ideas to celebrate 30 years: this prolific campaigning and research organisation is obviously capable of generating more than one Big Idea every year ‒ and all of us Greens and others committed to progressive values and policies are very thankful for that.
The authors include very well-known Australians such as Fiona Stanley, Peter Doherty, Brian Schmidt and Sally McManus, friends of Australia such as Anote Tong and Jose Ramos-Horta, as well as two former Greens leaders, Bob Bowne and Christine Milne. I learned heaps of new ideas (and much useful info and inspiration about existing ones) from nearly every chapter. In the spirit of the theme of this June edition of Green Issue (The elections are over, what next?), I’d like to share my personal top six from the Australia Institute’s menu – all very Greens-friendly, of course. I’d argue that they are probably also The Greens top six priorities, though bold reforms to health care would also be very high on our list.
1. TIME FOR BRAVERY, NOT CAUTION
The two contributions by Amy Remeikis and Polly Hemming have so much in common that I’m treating them as one Big Idea. They clearly resonate with The Greens’ ongoing call for Labor to stop tinkering around the edges and take the bold steps needed to address the huge problems that have festered and worsened over many years. Both writers list their four top priorities as climate/biodiversity, housing, justice for First Nations people and eliminating poverty/inequality. Amy Remeikis adds tax reform and Polly Hemming adds addressing domestic violence.
So, what’s stopping us from taking the necessary strong action on these issues? For Amy Remeikis it’s the post-1980 neoliberal-era relentless drift to the right of the supposed “sensible centre” ‒ that accepted way of doing things which progressive politicians believe they must not challenge if they are realistic about getting elected. So, make sure you don’t offend anyone, especially those with wealth and power, just make tentative reforms that don’t upset the status quo.
Polly Hemming focuses on the fear of a backlash from the immensely powerful vested interests, especially in media, mining and housing. She argues that Labor focuses too much on their alleged power, when the real issue is the failure to stand up to them. Her solutions? Acknowledge that there’s enough money to solve the big five problems. Take heart from the success and praise heaped on the bold political reforms of the past, such as gun laws (Howard), Medicare (Whitlam and Hawke), Vietnamese asylum seekers (Fraser) and a carbon price (Gillard). Take hope from the fact that most Australians agree that the crises in climate change, housing affordability and inequality are indeed severe, even life-threatening – that knowledge should be enough reason to throw away “the caution that is killing us.”
Amy Remeikis (the “more bravery, please” chapter) is a well-known political journalist at Guardian Australia and the ABC. Polly Hemming (the “caution is killing us” chapter) is Director of The Australia Institute’s Climate and Energy Program
2. FACE THE TRUTH – OUR CLIMATE’S IN CRISIS (and much worse than most of us realise)
Joelle Gergis’s chapter is a heartfelt cry of desperation from a world-renowned scientist at the forefront of climate research. Desperation at the extent to which we seriously underestimate the time left to avoid disaster – “net zero by 2050” encourages a dangerously comfortable slow speed. Desperation at our false assumption that two degrees of heating is somehow safe, ignoring the science that tipping points can be triggered by warming below two degrees.
Desperation at our false belief we can just adapt to the changes that are inevitably coming if we don’t take much bolder action – especially the extent of sea level rise and destruction of agriculture systems and forests that will result from our current 3.5 degrees trajectory. The reality is “it will not be possible to adapt to such levels of global warming – in fact it is delusional and dangerous to pretend that we can.”
As a citizen, she understands that the enormous power of the fossil fuel industry makes shutting it down politically difficult, but as a scientist she understands that “trying to ‘adapt’ to an uninhabitable world will be infinitely harder.”
Her solutions? Citizens need to keep relentless pressure on political leaders to enact science-based climate policies. These policies should begin by putting a hefty price on carbon to accelerate the clean energy transition away from fossil fuels.
Joelle Gergis is a well-known Australian climate scientist and was a lead author of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report.
3. RESILIENT (MEDIUM-DENSITY) CITIES FOR A CLIMATE IN CRISIS.
Lucy Turnbull’s ideas are very similar to Brad Pettitt’s low-emissions city – it turns out that the same design features that produce a low-emissions city also make that city more resilient to the effects of climate change. This is especially true when it comes to reducing vulnerability to heatwaves, the main focus of her Big Idea.
One attractive feature of this Big Idea is that it places social justice front and centre, recognising that those who are already the most socio-economically vulnerable and under the most housing stress are also the most vulnerable to extreme weather events, as they are unable to afford solutions such as insulation, air-conditioning, pale roofs, wide eaves and plenty of shady trees. The government must step in and ensure that it’s not only the well-off who enjoy homes that are well-designed to cope as our cities suffer more and more life-threatening heatwaves.
A good example of this is the provision of cooling areas that the public can access on dangerously hot days ‒ places like shopping malls, libraries and public swimming pools should be promoted as formally designated cooling centres. Most Australian urban areas are well-behind in this – by contrast the best American cities not only provide and promote these centres, but also ensure that there are plenty of them close to public housing projects.
Lucy Turnbull’s biggest idea is that the most climate-resilient neighbourhoods are medium-density, mixed-use with plenty of small and medium sized green spaces and a high walkability index – in other words, the Greens 101program for sustainable cities. The compactness of housing provides good insulation and reduces exposure to the direct sun. The green spaces have a wonderful cooling effect and reduce runoff in heavy rainstorms. The walkability enables people to support each other in day-to-day contacts during hot days.
I reckon that another former mayor by the name of Brad Pettitt would have written an almost identical Big Ideas chapter.
Lucy Turnbull was the City of Sydney’s first female Lord Mayor (1999-2004) and chair of the Greater Sydney Commission (2015-2020).
4. CLIMATE REFUGEES DESERVE MIGRATION WITH DIGNITY
As you’d expect from a Pacific Island leader, Anote Tong delivers a scathing criticism of the response to the climate crisis by wealthy countries like Australia – the chapter is titled An Urgent Call from the Pacific Island People. The contrast is stark: on the one hand, from the world’s scientists after decades of research, the certainty that global heating threatens a habitable planet and therefore the scientists’ increasingly desperate call to action; on the other hand, the dithering and indecision from world leaders shows how narrow national economic interests and a fixation on economic growth have captured their decision making.
However, the Big Idea that grabbed me most from this chapter was the call for “Migration With Dignity” as the foundation of a humane response to what is now clearly “the inevitable displacement of our people.” It’s an arresting, morally charged term. What does Migration With Dignity mean? For wealthy Pacific countries like Australia and New Zealand, it means not just accepting our fair share of climate-displaced people, but more importantly ensuring that in their new home their cultural identity and community cohesion is preserved.
Migration With Dignity is a concept that should be more widely accepted and championed by countries claiming to be good global citizens. It’s related to the much better-known concept of Climate Justice, which Anote Tong defines as follows: “It demands that those least responsible for climate change but most affected by its impacts receive support and solidarity from the international community.”
Anote Tong was the President of Kiribati from 2003 to 2016, is the current Chair of the Pacific Elders’ Voice and was twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
5. HOUSING SOLUTIONS NEED BIG GOVERNMENT
This important Big Idea begins with the now widely-accepted fact that we have an historic housing crisis with two key features: large numbers of people cannot find a secure, decent, affordable home and there is an enormous divide between the housing haves and have-nots. This crisis has been accelerating since around 1980 when we started relying almost totally on the private sector (for-profit developers) to supply and distribute homes.
To bring costs down and guarantee a home for every Australian, we must reverse course. The government needs to take back control of housing and enter the housing market as a major player – delivering homes for rent and sale at affordable prices. It means the government must take the same kind of responsibility it shows in critical areas such as health and education.
What is the evidence that this works? The first is historical – we did this successfully in earlier years, especially the 30 years after 1945. The second is geographical ‒ “There are no comparable countries that have turned around their housing crises, or avoided them altogether, without the government playing a major role.”
Maiy Azize is the national spokesperson for Everybody’s Home and Deputy Director of Anglicare Australia
6. SECURITY REQUIRES SOLIDARITY MORE THAN WEAPONS
Emma Shortis questions the long-standing belief that our security is best achieved by a military alliance with America – supplying troops to support every US invasion and turning our north into part of the American war machine. This unquestioned defence arrangement is believed to make us secure because it ensures that the US will save us whenever needed.
She argues that we need to ask two very big What Ifs about this myth:
1. What if cosying up to the madman and handing (well) over $368 AUKUS billions actually made life less safe/more dangerous for us?
2. What if we don’t need saving?
Her main Big Idea is that we need to rethink what we mean when we talk about SECURITY. For too long we’ve falsely assumed it’s best achieved by projecting military might in lockstep with Uncle Sam. However, security isn’t mainly about avoiding war – it’s about promoting collective human flourishing, grounded in equality and prosperity. This is achieved by working in partnership with other nations on things that do threaten our security – climate change, nuclear proliferation and the inequality gap between rich and poor. Her term for grounding our security in this sort of partnership is Democratic Solidarity.
Emma Shortis is the Director of the International and Security Affairs Program at The Australia Institute
[Opinions expressed are those of the author and not official policy of Greens WA]