Economic and political reform, with John Humphreys and Gene Tunny

In this freewheeling conversation with John Humphreys and Gene Tunny, we delve into what’s gone wrong with modern policymaking—and what can be done about it. We begin with the dysfunctional state of our tax system. I argue we should scrap dividend imputation and cut the company tax rate to attract foreign capital and grow the national pie.

We then explore the systemic malaise of democracy: how spin, performativity, and institutional incentives have crowded out real deliberation and made difficult choices all but impossible. Politicians aren’t uniquely bad—they’re trapped in a system that punishes truth-telling and rewards evasion.

All politicians are against tax and for spending and you can see that in the sea of red ink we're sailing into in Tasmania, Victoria, Australia and the US. That leads to my proposal for a deeper reform: embedding citizens’ juries into democratic life.

We discuss how standing citizens’ assemblies could reorient policy debates on issues like housing, infrastructure, climate and budget repair. This is not about trusting “ordinary people” over politicians—it’s about designing a system that enables public reason to flourish again. (OK, well the AI wrote that sentence, which gives you some idea of why we can't hand over to AIs just yet.)

If you prefer to watch the video (God knows why you would) it's here.