Foreword As we do for each new Parliament, we present this volume of short, strategic level snapshots of some of the big issues affecting Australia which are expected to figure in the early months of the new Parliament. The articles have been written to provide senators and members a high level perspective of key public...

In this submission to the Australian Parliament's review of the Defence Annual Report, Lowy Military Fellow James Brown argues for greater parliamentary oversight of defence by outlining just how little reporting defence makes to the parliament and public. Key findings: Defence policy is extraordinarily complex, vitally important, and mistakes have far-reaching consequences. In 2011-12 defence...

This report documents the inputs, processes and outputs of the EmpowerNZ workshop held in August 2012. The workshop created a space for fifty young New Zealanders to explore the nation’s future constitution. They produced a draft constitution; see the resulting workshop booklet.

This report argues that proposed Bills for a new integrity framework for Victoria will significantly diminish the State's integrity system in a number of ways, including by reducing the effectiveness and independence of the Office of the Ombudsman.

This article investigates whether female political representation affects economic growth. Panel estimates for 119 democracies using fixed effects specifications and a system generalized method of moments approach suggest that, over recent decades, countries with higher shares of women in parliament have had faster growing economies.