Getting started
Once you understand the content of the following few items, you will know more about how the monetary system actually works than almost all politicians and economic journalists. From there, you can decide which policies and politicians might best represent your interests.
Two short videos from Modern Money Australia
Modern Money Australia Intro to MMT, part 1
Modern Money Australia intro to MMT, part 2
Award-winning documentary: Finding the Money
For a deeper dive, watch this 90 minute documentary Finding the Money which also explains why mainstream economics does not represent contemporary economies and is a poor choice for policy makers to use.
The Deficit Myth book
Professor Stephanie Kelton's book about MMT written for non-economists.
https://stephaniekelton.com/book/
In a nutshell...
As citizens, we want the the Australian Government to spend money on things that matter to us, so we vote for politicians who promise to do that.
Once elected, they usually do not fully fund the things they promised they would, making statements like:
We have to be fiscally responsible and balance the budget
We are aiming for a surplus so we must cut spending
We have run out of money
We have a debt and deficit emergency
We have maxed-out the credit card
Our borrowing costs are killing us
How will we pay for it?
MMT explains why all those statements are economic nonsense and how we can have a country that maximises the well-being of all - whatever we democratically decide that should look like.
MMT also explains why the out-of-date economic beliefs followed by all political parties has landed us in the economic and social mess we now have. MMT explains the ways those old beliefs have little or no real-world foundation; they are simply articles of faith that must be followed so a few people can do very well at the expense of the rest of us. We could stop doing that today.