Grattan’s impact

Our work has had a significant impact on a wide sweep of public policies.

Budget policy

  • The 2026 federal Budget includes measures to limit negative gearing, broadly in line with Grattan’s recommendations, originally published in our recommendations in our 2016 report Hot property: negative gearing and capital gains tax, and continued advocacy over the decade since – and introduces a different model for reducing the capital gains tax discount, but to similar effect.

Health and aged care

  • In 2026, the federal and state governments committed to Australia’s first target for adult vaccination, and to targets for areas with low child vaccination rates. We recommended adult vaccination targets in our 2023 report A fair shot, and in 2026 we renewed our call for vaccination targets in communities with low child vaccination rates.

  • In 2026, the Victorian Budget funded a secondary consultation system, where GPs can get advice from specialists, reducing the need for referrals. We recommended this in our 2025 report, Special treatment.

  • In 2026, the federal and state governments committed to develop new ways of funding public hospital care, including new prices to promote same-day surgeries, and a review of the current national price. Governments also agreed to fund the transition to new models of care that improve efficiency. These changes were recommended in our 2025 report, Smarter spending.

  • In our 2022 report A new Medicare, we recommended a national review to identify the barriers stopping primary care workers from safely using all their skills. The Scope of Practice Review was commissioned in 2023 and released in 2024. It proposes many regulatory, funding, and other changes, several of which are being taken up by governments.

  • In 2026, the federal and state governments committed to joint governance, planning, and commissioning between Local Hospital Networks and Primary Health Networks, to better integrate the system and fill gaps in access to care. We recommended this in our 2023 submission, Putting the ‘reform’ in the National Health Reform Agreement.

  • After receiving the ‘Strengthening Medicare’ taskforce report, Health Minister Mark Butler announced that the government would change the way GPs are paid, as we recommended in A new Medicare.

  • The 2026 Budget includes a range of measures to increase vaccination rates, including SMS reminders, in line with our 2023 report, A fair shot: How to close the vaccination gap, where in where we recommended a range of measures to boost vaccination rates, including SMS reminders.

Energy and climate change

  • The Federal Government has strengthened the so-called Safeguard Mechanism to reduce industrial emissions, in keeping with our recommendations on how Australia can get on the path to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. See our Towards net zero series of five reports in 2021.

  • Grattan has argued for reform of the so-called Safeguard Mechanism since 2016. Our reports Climate phoenix (2016), Towards net zero (2021), and The next industrial revolution (2022) outlined practical changes to underpin carbon emissions reductions. Reforms passed by parliament in 2023 included several of our recommendations: declining caps on industrial emissions, fairer and more effective ways of calculating these caps, credits for facilities that emit less than their cap allows, and barring coal and gas facilities from access to government financial support.

  • In 2023, the newly elected NSW Government announced it would establish a clean energy transition authority for the Hunter region, in line with recommendations in our 2022 report, The next industrial revolution.

  • In 2023, the federal government announced it would introduce a carbon-emissions ceiling on new car sales, as recommended by Grattan in our Towards net zero series of reports (2021) and in The Grattan car plan (2021).

  • In 2022, the federal, state, and territory governments agreed to update the National Construction Code to ‘ensure that new buildings are designed, constructed, and fitted out to enable the installation of renewable energy and electric vehicle charging’. Grattan recommended this in a 2021 report, Towards net zero.

  • In June 2023, in our Getting off gas report, we recommended that governments ensure gas appliances are replaced with electric ones when they break. In December 2024, the Victorian Government announced its intention to legislate this for heaters and hot water heaters.

  • In the 2026 Budget, the federal government announced it would ‘work with industry to introduce a new market measure to help drive demand for the domestic production of low carbon liquid fuels’. • In our 2021 Report, Towards net zero: Practical policies to reduce transport emissions, we called for ‘a renewable fuel standard for diesel, aviation fuel, and shipping fuel, using a market mechanism, to drive development of renewable fuels’.

Disability

  • The 2026 Budget confirmed the commencement of work on functional capacity assessment tools for the NDIS, with access changes based on functional capacity to begin from January 2028. In 2025, we recommended that the federal government ‘remove diagnosis-based access lists’ and use ‘a fair and robust assessment process’ to assess people’s eligibility for the NDIS.

  • The 2026 Budget includes $3 billion over five years for additional foundational supports outside the NDIS, with funds to be matched by states and territories. Our 2025 Saving the NDIS: How to rebalance disability services to get better results report, we called on the federal, state, and territory governments to establish a ‘new, ambitious tier of foundational supports’ outside the NDIS.

Education

  • In our 2025 report, The Maths Guarantee, we called for mandatory maths checks in the early years of school. The Victorian Government subsequently announced that maths checks will become mandatory in Year 1 in all public primary schools from 2027.

  • The Federal Government has created 5,000 scholarships to attract high-achievers into teaching degrees and is working with state governments to improve teaching career paths, in keeping with Grattan recommendations, including in our 2019 report Attracting high-achievers to teaching.

  • The NSW Government is procuring high-quality shared curriculum materials for schools and piloting new approaches to using administrative staff in schools. In making the announcement, it cited our 2022 report, Making time for great teaching.

  • Federal Education Minister Jason Clare has put Tackling under-achievement  on the agenda for the panel working on the next National School Reform Agreement, saying our report contained ‘ideas about the sorts of reforms the panel could look at to boost student outcomes – particularly for those from disadvantaged backgrounds’.

  • In February 2024, in our Reading Guarantee report, we called for ‘explicit instruction’ in all schools. In July 2024, NSW became the first state to mandate ‘explicit instruction’ throughout the curriculum.

  • In February 2024, in our Reading Guarantee report, we called for a mandatory Year 1 phonics screening check. In December that year, the Victorian Government announced a mandatory Year 1 phonics screening check.

  • In March 2024, in our Spreading success report, we recommended that each state should trial multi-school organisations. We defined MSOs as “strong ‘families’ of schools, bound together through a united executive leadership that is accountable for students’ results”. In January 2025, the Tasmanian Government announced it was “getting ready to trial a multi-school organisation model”. It defined MSOs as “strong ‘families’ of schools, bound together through a united executive leadership that is accountable for students’ results”.

  • On 13 April 2025, we published a report calling on all state governments to commit to a ‘Maths Guarantee’, to boost student achievement in numeracy. On 15 April 2025, the South Australian government committed to a ‘Numeracy Guarantee’, to boost student achievement in maths. In making the announcement, the SA Education Minister said: ‘These efforts are aligned with the latest Grattan Institute report The Maths Guarantee, which calls for better teacher training, more support for schools to teach maths, and making improving maths a priority in all schools.’

Housing

  • The 2026 Budget announced a new $2 billion Local Infrastructure Fund, which is one of the measures that will pay the states to loosen restrictive planning laws and boost construction productivity. This is in line with Grattan’s 2025 More homes, better cities: Letting more people live where they want report, we recommended that the federal government incentivise states to relax planning controls that restrict housing supply.

Migration

  • In 2023, federal Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil announced the lifting to $70,000 of the wage threshold for temporary skilled migrants, as recommended in Grattan’s 2022 report, Australia’s migration opportunity. In making the announcement, she noted that we had called $70,000 the ‘Goldilocks’ threshold.
  • In its Migration Strategy released in December 2023, the Federal Government announced major changes to the Temporary Graduate visa, in line with recommendations in our October 2023 report, Graduates in limbo.

  • In our 2021 report, Rethinking permanent skilled migration after the pandemic, we called for the Business Innovation and Investment visa to abolished, and for the Global Talent visa to be reviewed. In its 2023 Migration Strategy, the Federal Government announced that it will replace these visas with a new Talent and Innovation visa.

  • In the 2026 Budget, the government announced its intention to ‘reform the permanent migration points test, to select better-educated, higher-skilled, and younger migrants overall’, in line with Grattan’s 2024 report It all adds up: Reforming point- tested visas.

Government and public integrity

  • The Federal Government commissioned an independent review of the performance of the Reserve Bank of Australia, in line with Grattan’s long-advocated policy. See, for example, Why the Reserve Bank should be reviewed (2021).

Transport and cities

  • In 2023, the federal government introduced legislated reforms to Infrastructure Australia, including a provision for it to evaluate infrastructure projects against the assumptions underpinning the decision to invest. Grattan has advocated for this since 2016.

  • In 2023, the Victorian government mothballed two megaprojects, the Airport Rail Link and Geelong Fast Rail. Grattan had been calling for such a pause since the early days of the pandemic, including in our 2020 report, The rise of megaprojects.

  • In 2023, the federal government announced a stocktake of all infrastructure projects currently on the books, in light of capacity constraints, cost escalation, mounting public debt, and, in some cases, poor project selection. Grattan had been calling for such a stocktake for years, including in our 2020 report, The rise of megaprojects, and our 2021 report, Megabang for megabucks.

Retirement incomes

  • In our 2015 report, Super savings, we recommended that the Tax Office automatically consolidate lost multiple superannuation accounts. In 2019, the government passed legislated enabling this.

  • In another 2015 report, Super tax targeting, we called for the pre-tax and post-tax superannuation contribution caps to be lowered. In 2016, the government lowered them.

  • In Super tax targeting, we also recommended taxing retirement earnings at 15 per cent (instead of them being tax free). In 2016, the government restricted tax-free retirement earnings to superannuation balances up to $1.6 million.

  • In our 2018 report, Money in retirement, we called for a review of the adequacy of Australians’ retirement incomes. In 2020, the government established the Retirement Income Review.

  • In our 2020 report, No free lunch, we showed that higher superannuation means lower wages. In 2020, the Retirement Income Review and the Reserve Bank incorporated that finding into their analyses.

COVID-19

  • Grattan had a major influence on Australia’s world-leading response to the COVID-19 pandemic, starting the national conversation on shutting down hard and fast to limit community transmission. See our March 2020 report, COVID-19: The endgame, and how to get there.

For numerous other examples of Grattan work directly influencing national and state-based policies, see our annual reports and annual impact reports.

Programs