The Inflection Points Podcast

Recorded live at Hope Street Radio in Melbourne, Danielle Wood—Chair of the Productivity Commission and former CEO of the Grattan Institute—joins Jonathan O’Brien to discuss what stagnant productivity is costing an ordinary household, as well as what the Sydney lockout laws teach us about governing at speed, and why “hamburger-with-the-lot” procurement can end in a $1.7 million public toilet.They also look ahead: to how government should think about data centre regulations, and to why Australia, as a small open economy, might not need an overarching AI Act.Read Danielle’s essay in Inflection Points: https://inflectionpoints.work/articles/the-red-tape-impulseAnd subscribe wherever you get your podcasts: Apple Podcasts – Spotify – Pocketcasts – RSS – Substack Get full access to Inflection Points at stack.inflectionpoints.work/subscribe

Auckland is the world’s most well-studied example of upzoning and planning reform. It’s the landmark story of how loosening restrictions enables more homes to be built—and yet the history of how it happened is not well understood. Join New Zealand’s own Stuart Donovan for an in-depth chat about the Auckland upzoning, the housing crisis, and what it takes to get good policy over the line. Get full access to Inflection Points at stack.inflectionpoints.work/subscribe

It’s not the same as social housing, and it doesn’t help those most in need. Australia is spending big on ‘affordable’ housing—but we shouldn’t.The reality is that ‘affordable’ housing is deeply, intrinsically flawed. It is a wasteful use of public funds that redirects government support away from the people who need it most. It provides those who do benefit with help they don’t particularly value, and the criteria and rules set up to administer it result in bizarre outcomes. Most importantly, the policy is wholly ineffective at delivering the outcome Australians actually want: not ‘affordable’ housing, but inexpensive housing. Dominic Behrens co-authored “Against ‘Affordable’ Housing” with Ethan Gilbert, and is our guest on today’s show.Hosted by Jonathan O’Brien, Editor-in-Chief of Inflection Points.Read the article: https://inflectionpoints.work/articles/against-affordable-housing Get full access to Inflection Points at stack.inflectionpoints.work/subscribe

In October 2023, Jim Chalmers told the Sydney Morning Herald about his chocolate-eating habits. He said: "I don't do moderation, in anything. I'm always going 100 miles an hour. If I eat a piece of chocolate, I eat a block of chocolate."On Tuesday night, he stood up in the House and ate chocolate.He scrapped the fifty per cent capital gains tax discount. He quarantined negative gearing on existing homes. He cut the growth of the NDIS from ten per cent to two. He pulled the private health insurance rebate off the over-65s and shovelled the money into aged care. He put two billion dollars on the table for states and councils brave enough to reform planning.It's the most interesting Budget since the Howard-Costello era.It’s not quite a whole block of chocolate. But it’s a start.Matt Bowes — Senior Associate at the Grattan Institute. Matt will take the reigns on infrastructure and housing.Jessy Wu — Founder and Managing Director at Encour, a comms agency for the AI era. Jessy leads us through productivity and innovation.Manning Clifford — Founding Editor-at-Large here at Inflection Points. Manning will steer us through state capacity and human flourishing. Get full access to Inflection Points at stack.inflectionpoints.work/subscribe

Alain Bertaud has worked in over forty cities across the world. He has seen what happens when cities try to function without land markets — in Moscow, in Beijing, in post-apartheid Johannesburg. He has seen what happens when planners restrict the market's ability to produce floor space — in Mumbai, in New York, and, indeed, in Australian cities.In 2018, he synthesised sixty years of field work into a book: Order Without Design: How Markets Shape Cities, published by MIT Press. It became, quickly, one of the most important books in the canon of housing and land use reform, providing the most robust framework available for combining urban economics with urban planning.In two hours of conversation, we cover the functioning of cities as labour markets, what communist cities taught him about what markets actually do, and how to diagnose a city the way a doctor diagnoses a patient — with specific numbers, rather than adjectives. We also got, at the very end, an admission from Bertaud: that leaving the importance of urban design out of Order Without Design was a mistake, and Australia, of all places, is the one that convinced him this was so.Purchase Order Without Design: https://yimby-melbourne.square.site/product/order-without-design-how-markets-shape-cities-alain-bertaud/PQ5DV6J7VMNTEI3SC7W5XEDE Get full access to Inflection Points at stack.inflectionpoints.work/subscribe