Australia faces new challenges. Fragile prosperity built on a boom. Far too many kids left behind. A changing climate. A divided culture. Knee-jerk responses to real security threats. The underlying causes are also new: increased mobility, interdependence, and the breakdown of old economic structures.
Year after year conservatives have failed to tackle these threats. Current responses aren’t working because they’re based on tired ideas. They’ve failed to design markets that encourage investment in the drivers of future prosperity. Short-term solutions are propping up the nation’s profit-and-loss while running down its balance sheet.
These challenges require fresh thinking and pragmatic responses, grounded in hard evidence. Progressives are looking to emerging fields – like behavioural economics, energy technologies and paediatric neurology – for new ways to manage complex interactions between family and society, citizen and state.
That’s where Per Capita comes in. The people, ideas and evidence are out there. We intend to draw them together, combining intellectual rigour with popular appeal.
We will produce major research papers. But we’ll also run conferences, debate ideas on radio, TV and in print, and publish insightful pamphlets and books. We’ll shape public opinion so politics follows.
Real problems, new ideas, progressive solutions.
That’s Per Capita. Let’s begin.
