The Albanese government is being urged to axe Youth Allowance and create a single income support payment rate for all working-age Australians. The call comes amid warnings that people born in the 1990s are at risk of becoming the first generation in modern Australia to be worse off than their parents.
Former ACT Greens leader Shane Rattenbury has warned that Labor and the Greens must put aside their political “tribalism” or risk being paving the way for a Liberal-One Nation partnership that would take the country “backwards” on climate action.
The last 5 years have seen the worst collapse in the value of people’s wages in living memory, and forecasts by the Reserve Bank suggest it will take till 2037 to get back to the levels they were before the collapse, which is why we need state and federal governments to take the lead to speed recovery.
Profits are surging and living standards are not. Will the AI boom be any different?
On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Greg and Angus discuss the carve-out for Queensland and Northern Territory data centres that’ll allow them to run off coal and gas, the skyrocketing profits of some of Australia’s biggest companies, and the east coast vs west coast beef over GST revenue.
This discussion was recorded on Thursday 27 August 2026.
More Fool Me: How the gas industry tricked Australia by Richard Denniss, the latest Vantage Point essay from Australia Institute Press, is available now.
Use the code ‘FOOLME’ on a four-edition Vantage Point subscription to receive a free copy of Richard’s book, Econobabble.
Host: Greg Jericho, Chief Economist, the Australia Institute // @grogsgamut
Host: Angus Blackman, Executive Producer, the Australia Institute // @AngusRB
Quality research, analysis, explainers and factchecks from experts you can trust.
Show notes:
What will we get out of the AI boom? The data suggests lots of noisy, energy-hungry datacentres and not much else by Greg Jericho, Guardian Australia (August 2026)
What do they mean by “energy agnostic?” by Fiona Katauskas, The Point (August 2026)
Wages are not to blame for rising inflation by David Richardson, Greg Jericho & Matt Saunders, the Australia Institute (February 2026)
Australia’s gas giveaway, the Australia Institute
Theme music: Blue Dot Sessions
We’d love to hear your feedback on this series, so send in your questions, comments or suggestions for future episodes to podcasts@australiainstitute.org.au. Subscribe to Dollars & Sense on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts or wherever you get your favourite podcasts.
