Climate change and energy policy, same-sex marriage, tax cuts and welfare payments: these were just a few of the subjects of heated debate in Australia in 2017. And the debates weren’t always based on the facts.
So, who got it right and who got it wrong in 2017?
The Conversation would like to thank each of the academic FactCheck authors who gave so generously of their time and expertise to delve into the evidence for and against these and many more contentious claims in 2017 to bring you information you can trust.
And we’d like to thank you, our readers, for taking the time to read and share quality information, and for helping hold Australia’s leaders to account.
Read the full FactCheck quiz articles here:
Is Australia below the international average when it comes to school funding?
Are bulk-billing rates falling, or at record levels?
Is Australia on track to have the oldest pension age in the developed world?
Was it four degrees hotter 110,000 years ago?
Do 679 of Australia’s biggest corporations pay ‘not one cent’ of tax?
Do Australian banks have double the return on equity of banks in other developed economies?
Does Australia have one of the highest progressive tax rates in the developed world?
Will 700,000 workers be ‘ripped off’ by penalty rate cuts, as Bill Shorten said?
Are Indigenous Australians the most incarcerated people on Earth?
Are rates of drug use 2.5 times higher among unemployed people than employed people?
The facts on birth rates for Muslim couples and non-Muslim couples in Australia
Are children ‘better off’ with a mother and father than with same-sex parents?
Will Safe Schools be ‘mandatory’ if same-sex marriage is legalised?
Does the Safe Schools program contain ‘highly explicit material’?
For our full FactCheck coverage, click here.
The Conversation’s FactCheck unit is the first fact-checking team in Australia and one of the first worldwide to be accredited by the International Fact-Checking Network, an alliance of fact-checkers hosted at the Poynter Institute in the US. Read more here.
Have you seen a “fact” worth checking? The Conversation’s FactCheck asks academic experts to test claims and see how true they are. We then ask a second academic to review an anonymous copy of the article. You can request a check at checkit@theconversation.edu.au. Please include the statement you would like us to check, the date it was made, and a link if possible.