Last night thousands of Sydneysiders gathered at Martin Place to hold a vigil for convicted drug smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. Together we listened as actors, artists and musicians called…
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The prospect of the execution of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran has polarised Australians. While some argue the young men should suffer the consequeneces of importing heroin, others take a different…
You know it’s an extraordinary election when a party holds 73 of the 89 seats in parliament thanks to a record-breaking victory just three years earlier – yet there’s talk of that party losing government…
If Tony Abbott were risk-averse, he wouldn’t have scheduled a National Press Club appearance for Monday. Or perhaps it was just another Abbott blind spot. Of course when Abbott signed up to turning up…
There are many transitions in life (starting school, moving house, changing jobs) and how well we cope depends largely on our perceptions of the event as well as the level of support we receive. The transition…
The psychologist David Lykken once wrote that most violent crime could be prevented by cryogenically freezing all males aged 12 to 28. Although this option might be appealing at times for high school teachers…
Crown-of-thorns starfish are one of the biggest threats to the Great Barrier Reef. Since 1985, the Great Barrier Reef has lost half its coral cover, with almost half of this coral loss due to the crown-of-thorns…
Watch out for some clever footwork and ball skills in this weekend’s Asian Cup final when the Socceroos face South Korea at Stadium Australia in Sydney on Saturday. The championship – played on Australian…
With oil prices on the decline, and analysts predicting record profits for the 2014/15 financial year, Qantas and Virgin Australia are under increasing pressure to abolish fuel surcharges and lower their…
Colleen McCullough, writer of the highest-selling Australian book, died yesterday aged 77. The novel that consumes her legacy, The Thorn Birds (1977), is one that Germaine Greer described as the “best…
It’s no secret that companies including Apple, Google, Amazon, Uber, Airbnb and Ikea seem to pay less than their fair share of tax in Australia. Despite booking huge revenues from sales to Australian customers…
I’ve always argued that tertiary education is a private benefit, I’m happy for taxpayer funding of primary and secondary education but tertiary education results in a higher salary. - Senator David Leyonhjelm…
What do Shakespeare’s Hamlet, The Simpsons, and Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s film Birdman have in common? All three utilise the concept of meta-theatre. The concept of meta-theatre, or meta-text, in its crudest…
If the Liberal National Party wins the Queensland election on Saturday, but its leader, Campbell Newman, loses his seat of Ashgrove, can he remain premier? This may be the question vexing minds on Sunday…
If Alan Lomax were still alive, he would turn 100 Saturday. His name might not be as familiar as some other giants of folk music in the 20th century (such as Pete Seeger). But if you listen to folk or…
The Tasmanian government this month released a draft of the revised management plan for the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, which proposes rezoning certain areas from “wilderness zones” to “remote…
Queenslanders will soon head to the voting booths to either oust or re-elect the Newman government and no doubt some will be wondering why. “Why must I vote or be fined? Why must I be forced to choose…
Hidden among all the other announcements in last week’s State of the Union address by US President Barack Obama was a promise to fund a new “precision medicine initiative”. The president said it would…
Causing offence to others often causes hurt. Such actions have been condemned as unethical, even immoral behaviour in a civilised society. There have been many examples. The Bill Henson photographs of…
In the public eye, an expert, writing for newspapers and magazines or speaking on television, used to be considered almost infallible. The public rarely challenged their words and considered their analysis…
One of the crucial variables in calculating the likelihood that alien life exists elsewhere in our galaxy is the number of stars that possess planetary systems, and the proportion of those planets that…
Australia’s federal government has made a major political error, possibly terminal, in asking the Productivity Commission (PC) to inquire into industrial relations. Before the 2013 election, the strategy…
Australians like to think themselves as sporting and fit – a concept reinforced by the success of the country’s elite athletes. But evidence is emerging that Australian kids are falling behind their international…
Still Alice – starring Julianne Moore – tells the story of Alice Howland, a linguistics professor diagnosed with a form of early-onset Alzheimer’s Disease. Moore has already netted a Golden Globe and is…
For many of us, memories are our most precious possessions; they makes us the people we are. Consider how you would feel then if your memories were stripped from you, as they are from people diagnosed…