How to contribute to Inflection Points
Inflection Points is actively seeking writers, researchers, and experts interested in contributing essays on Australian public policy. We welcome new ideas, fresh perspectives, and rigorous analysis on building a more abundant and ambitious Australia. We encourage pitches from established experts, emerging voices, policy professionals, academics, journalists, and practitioners from all backgrounds.
What we look for
Inflection Points essays are typically at least 2,000 words with no strict upper limit. Essays are published periodically in compiled issues, usually without a specific central theme.
If you’d like to write an essay for Inflection Points, please send us an email outlining your idea in a few sentences. Submit your pitches via email with the subject heading “Essay pitch – <your pitch title>” to: editors@inflectionpoints.work. Your pitch should succinctly summarise:
What your article will argue or advocate for
Why this topic is important for Australia’s future
What data you will draw on to support your argument
Why you are the right person to write about this
Who would likely object with your point of view
For example, a pitch for a piece advocating for raising the GST to 15% could read:
I’ll outline what a 15% GST could achieve. Raising the GST is often talked about as a solution to move Australia to a more sustainable tax base with a lower average marginal burden. However, the conversation often ends there. I’ll detail which less efficient taxes (like stamp duty) could be abolished, how substantial an efficiency dividend this would yield and what political trade-offs would need to be made for this to be a reality (e.g., other policy adjustments to address equity concerns). In my analysis, I’ll consider the history of GST reform, existing Treasury analysis of tax burdens, alongside the current state and federal budget positions. Critics of this approach would question its equity implications; they would likely suggest that taxes with a higher average marginal burden (like income taxes) would be better placed to address Australia’s structural budget shortfall.
If we find your pitch compelling, we’ll ask for a more detailed outline that expands your argument, including sources, anecdotes, specific examples, and supporting data. Once we review and accept your outline, we’ll work together on a deadline, with milestones for a first draft and final publication. We are able to offer a modest payment for works, thanks to the support we receive from Emergent Ventures and Open Philanthropy.
Topics we’re interested in commissioning
While we’re open-minded and eager to hear original ideas, here are some topics that particularly excite us, across each of our four focus points.
Supporting productivity growth.
How have Macquarie and CSL succeeded globally? Macquarie and CSL compete in markets where Australia has no obvious competitive advantage. Despite this, both firms have become global market leaders (in plasma-derived therapies and infrastructure financing respectively). We want to know what can be learnt from each of these companies’ global success, and the role that policy placed in supporting their success.
How did the macroeconomic reforms of the 80s to 90s improve our lives? The reforms of the Hawke/Keating era are widely well regarded but the narrative is often stuck in the macro. How did these reforms benefit people at the time? How did they affect the prices of goods such as dairy products and cars? How did it affect our purchasing power? What’s the human-scale story of how these reforms improved Australian lives?
The bull case for the future of international students. Australia’s growth of international student numbers is cause for celebration: local Australian businesses developed a strong export good, and benefits accrued to Australian researchers and companies. But integrity and quality concerns have increasingly haunted the sector. We would love to read the case for a healthy, high-integrity international student sector, and the long-term future it could underpin.
Re-articulating the case for a Big Australia. Historically, the vision of a big Australia has been dismissed as political poison. But new challenges, like an aging population, could be addressed by a larger Australian population. We are interested in smart writing about how different population growth trajectories could reshape Australia’s housing, productivity, urban infrastructure, and employment landscapes.
Interrogating small businesses. Research shows that small businesses are often less productive than large ones, and that shifting the mix of consumption to higher-productivity businesses can help drive productivity growth. We are interested in essays that explore either (a) how to increase the productivity of small businesses, or (b) how to improve the allocative drivers of productivity.
What happened with WiFi? Australians love to talk about how we invented WiFi. But we don’t talk about how little of this ground-breaking innovation’s value was captured in Australia. We want to hear the story of how WLAN came to be, why we missed out on commercialisation, and how we could better commercialise our research in the future.
How can we enhance the Australian biomedical industry? Australia has a large and largely unexplored biomedical industry, with Melbourne’s Parkville precinct being a global hub of cutting edge research. How did this become the case? And what are the bottlenecks that are stopping us from running all of Asia’s clinical trials?
The untapped beauty of mobility. Moving cities is often one of the most significant ways to generate opportunity, as movers gain access to new jobs and better services. But Australians don’t move as much as people in peer countries, locking them into whatever opportunity happens to exist where they are currently situated. Why is that, and what can we do to improve mobility?
Enabling human flourishing
How did Australia make the world’s best children’s TV show? Bluey is recognised across the world as one of the most watched TV shows for children; it challenges them with emotionally deep episodes, and compelling characters to bond with. What were the conditions which enabled this Brisbane-based dog to become recognised across the world? And why did the ABC fail to capitalise on its brand?
How and why did Australia lead the pack on tobacco industry regulation? Australia’s regulations in smoking regulations—from banning smoking at restaurants, limiting tobacco advertising and implementing a plain packaging scheme—have pushed the window of what is possible for global tobacco regulation. What underpinned this success, and how could we learn from this to address our current regulatory failures?
How do we fix NAPLAN? Our standardised testing reveals two things about Australia: first, that our children are going backwards. And, second, that the structure of our standardised tests makes it almost impossible to identify the cause of this decline. We want to understand what it would take to extend NAPLAN to all years of primary school, and better leverage the data to address the issues faced by Australian students.
Taking inspiration from auditory implants. Australia invented the Cochlear implant, and today Cochlear dominates the market. What led to the development of this exceptional innovation, and what other disability challenges could Australia (with its generous disability scheme) play a leading role in solving?
What can we learn from gun reform in Australia? John Howard’s gun reform efforts have been lauded as an example of both political courage and effective policy. It is often cited in the US as an example to follow for gun reform. We are interested in understanding the conditions that made this reform possible (beyond the Port Arthur massacre), and quantifying how many lives Howard’s reforms have saved.
NDIS reform. Australia pioneered national disability insurance. But the NDIS has grown at a rapid pace over the past 5 years, far beyond what it was intended to be. At the same time, many Australians with a disability are not receiving the quality care they need and deserve from the system. The system is also difficult to navigate, with the many resources required to access some plans making the system ‘reverse means-tested’. We want to understand how a program that should be a source of national pride turned into a shambles.
A progressive Australian national identity. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has pitched the need for a ‘progressive Australian patriotism’, however the substance of this vision is yet to be formed. We want to see examples of traditions, cultural symbolism, and explicit values that could underpin a modern progressive Australian identity. We are particularly interested in how (or if) this can be navigated without Australia becoming a republic.
A long-term view of Indigenous progress. Looking back at the last five years, it seems that there has been little positive movement in the realm of Indigenous affairs: the Voice failed and the gap is widening. We want to understand how bursts of progress like the 1967 Referendum and Mabo got over the line, and what we can learn from them to advance a national reconciliation agenda.
Who is to thank for our declining road death toll? Australia’s per capita road death toll is around a third of the United States. But it’s not necessarily clear why. We want to understand which rules and regulations have driven the greatest success in reducing the road death toll, and how we can replicate those methods to reduce other accident-driven causes of death.
The progressive case for national service. Many developed countries (e.g., Norway, Sweden, Singapore) have compulsory national service. The United States has a well-structured civic form of optional national service (e.g. Peace Corps; AmeriCorps). We are interested in reading the progressive case for national service in Australia.
Increasing state capacity
Where is my bully pulpit? Australia’s biggest political event is the budget—a spectacle led by the Treasurer, filled with numbers, and responded to by pointy-headed economists. Other countries, like the United States, have regular executive addresses to the nation. What role has the bully pulpit played in America’s successes, should Australia develop a bully pulpit, and what might a uniquely Australian version look like?
How did the Federal Treasury win such immense talent in the 1980s? The Australian Treasury has a long list of alumni in the top echelons of Australian business, academia, and government. Many of these people (e.g., Martin Parkinson, Ted Evans, David Morgan, Ken Henry, Larry Kamener) were all recruited by the Treasury in the 1980s. We want to understand how government attracted such talent, and how the public service today could evolve to create an even more effective talent pipeline.
Growing our military workforce efficiently. With Australia growing military spending to 3% of GDP, it will require more people to serve. But Australia’s military has long struggled to effectively recruit enough troops. As Australia rapidly increases its military spending, we want to understand what opportunities exist to do so (a) cost effectively and (b) in a way that supports career development for those who enlist.
Building public finance capabilities to lower borrowing costs. Australia’s long-term public debt trades at a significant premium compared to peer countries, despite having sound and well-documented public finance processes (like BPORs and the Charter of Budget Honesty). We want to know how the Australian Office of Financial Management and Treasury could evolve our public finance processes to close the gap between us and our peers, and bring our cost of borrowing down.
The case for bureaucratic freedom. Journalists used to talk extensively to mid-level bureaucrats, who would brief them on the topic of the day. But today, many public servants are barred from speaking on the record, either by their employment contracts or by cultural norms. What would it take to return openness to our public sector, and how might it impact internal policy deliberations?
The grantification of policy. Nearly every program announced in Australia today has a big number associated with it, typically describing the total size of a grant pool. But evidence about the effectiveness and impact of grants is scant, and they cost the government a lot of money. We want to know (a) whether grants are an increasingly common form of economic policy locally & worldwide, (b) whether there is evidence that they work, and (c) if voters are actually swayed by them—or whether staffers just think they are.
Strengthening ties with Indonesia. Indonesia is our largest neighbour and a critical regional partner, and yet it is an underrepresented country-of-birth for the Australian diaspora. Bahasa Indonesia—or Indonesian—is a language scarcely taught in Australian institutions. We’re interested in essays that explore why this gap between Australia and Indonesia exists, and what can be done to close it.
Building infrastructure and housing
Why are Australia’s public sector construction costs so high? Australia’s infrastructure costs are much higher than peer countries, especially those outside of the anglosphere. What drives this difference, and what tradeoffs would the government have to make to bring costs down? And at a lower cost, how much additional infrastructure could we deliver for our nation?
What have we learned from our world-leadership of PPPs? Public Private Partnerships have become an increasingly common method for financing Australian infrastructure. And we’re renowned across the world for our successful use of these financing methods. But we hear very little about the successes and failures of such projects after completion. We are interested in reading a comparative case that details when PPPs do and don’t work in Australia.
Against protectionist mandates for government projects. Mandating local inputs to state projects has significant dispersed costs for very localised gains. How can governments manage the politics of leveraging international trade and comparative advantage for the sake of more efficient infrastructure delivery?
What the hell happened to hydrogen? Nearly ten years ago, Alan Finkel spruiked hydrogen as our future energy export industry. But it hasn’t gotten off the ground. Was the failure technological or strategic, and what lessons can we learn for energy and industrial policy in the future?
How did Rudd deliver so much housing? As the government considers ways to improve the Housing Australia Future Fund, we’re interested in looking back at the government’s last major social housing construction blitz. We want to understand what lessons can be learned from the delivery of 20,000 social housing dwellings in the aftermath of the GFC, and how the HAFF could take advantage of these lessons.
What will it take for High Speed Rail to not be a dumb idea? High speed rail is widely thought of as a folly vanity project, with no long-term business case under any reasonable assumptions. But will it always be this way? We wonder what conditions (for instance, changes in population distributions, reductions in construction costs, innovations in governance and financing) would need to be true for high-speed rail to get off the highly optimistic drawing boards and into the realm of reality.