Three ways Australia can stop tech giants from walking away from journalism that serves us all

The media hold power to account but no business can keep producing without being paid.

Published 16 Feb 2026

News media bargaining codes should be strengthened, not gutted

By entering into negotiations with Ottawa, Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has tacitly conceded that it needs news content and that it is valuable for Meta.

Published 16 Feb 2026

Dilin Duwa Snapshot 4.0

Published 12 Feb 2026

Funding surgery and hormones for trans people can save Medicare millions: new research

For the first time, we’ve shown that gender-affirming care dramatically reduces how much people access mental health care – saving Medicare millions.

Published 11 Feb 2026

Economics

Gender-affirming care could free up $42m in mental health funding

New research from the University of Melbourne shows the potential cost of a gender-affirming surgery is recouped within three years of the procedure.

Published 10 Feb 2026

Economics

Women buy more tickets to movies written by women, research finds

The research found that films with female screenwriters achieve relatively greater box office success in markets where female consumers wield more purchasing power.

Published 01 Feb 2026

Study finds telemedicine use linked to lower antibiotic prescribing

Greater use of telemedicine in Australia, also known as telehealth or virtual medical care, may be helping to reduce unnecessary antibiotic prescribing, according to new research analysing national Medicare data.

Published 22 Jan 2026

It may be a cost-of-living Christmas but there's hope for 2026

Australian households are still reporting budget crunches ahead of Christmas 2025, despite headline inflation – one of the major contributors to the cost-of-living crisis – declining significantly in the last three years.

Published 15 Jan 2026

What sort of economy should be the goal of public policy?

Thirty-six forward thinkers recently gathered at a private symposium hosted by the Melbourne Economic Forum and re-questioned the purpose of government policy as we move into the second quarter of the 21st century.

Published 12 Jan 2026

No control, no regulation. Why private specialist fees can leave patients with huge medical bills

Health Minister Mark Butler has vowed to make specialist fees more affordable in his second term of government. So what exactly is the problem? And how can it be fixed?

Published 15 Dec 2025

Experts push for major overhaul of Australia’s employment services

New research published in the Australian Economic Review calls for a fundamental reversal of the policy directions that have shaped Australia’s employment services for the past 25 years, arguing that the current system fails jobseekers facing the highest barriers to work, including the long-term unemployed.

Published 12 Dec 2025

Design, more than cost drives public support for economic reforms

Governments often assume people reject energy price reforms mainly because the reforms strain their wallets. But new cross-country evidence suggests this is not always the case and that people’s attitudes respond strongly to how reforms are structured and communicated.

Published 08 Dec 2025

There’s more to high cost of energy than the green transition

Australia needs fast and practical action based on facts to address our electricity affordability problem.

Published 05 Dec 2025

Congratulations to Dr Gamarra Rondinel on joining the Parliamentary Budget Office Expert Panel

For Dr Ana Gamarra Rondinel, tax policy is not just her research area, but a calling that is propelling her to the forefront of her field.

Published 05 Dec 2025

What’s working from home doing to your mental health? We tracked 16,000 Australians to find out

Working from home has become a fixture of Australian work culture, but its effect on mental health is still widely debated.

Published 03 Dec 2025

Trusted for the times: the evolution of the Australian Government and public service

Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Dr Steven Kennedy PSM, has presented the 2025 Centenary Freebairn Public Lecture for the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Melbourne.

Published 25 Nov 2025

The Whyalla steelworks might be the best place in the world to make low-cost green iron. Will Labor seize the moment?

If the government is committed to the energy transition and a future made in Australia, the choice that must be made is clear.

Published 14 Nov 2025

Why is the ACCC backing off Big Tech crackdown?

AI increases the urgency of proper regulation. So why did the government defund and disband the competition watchdog’s world-leading team of digital markets experts?

Published 10 Nov 2025

Emitters should pay the price of energy transition; not consumers

What should we make of last Thursday’s announcement by Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen of Australia’s target for emissions reduction and the pathways to achieve this?

Published 06 Nov 2025

The 7th Macro Policy Meeting

On the 30-31st of October 2025, the Melbourne Institute co-hosted the seventh Melbourne Macro Policy Meeting with the Department of Economics.

Published 05 Nov 2025