The 2012-13 budget has been the subject of an unusually intensive amount of media and sectoral speculation and debate in the past few weeks. This piece sets out what we should look for in tonight’s budget…
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Australia knows how to provide public leadership in the complex coordination of public events. Just look at the recent staging of the opera La Traviata on Sydney Harbour. It was a one-off event that required…
There is a scene in the film Beautiful People set in London during the 1993 Balkan war where a young female doctor brings home a recently arrived refugee to her conservative upper class family. There is…
Facebook has introduced a new tool allowing users in Australia to display their organ donation status to their friends, following the introduction of the initiative in the United States and the United…
Have you ever been at a party where someone has talked about themselves without pause? You may have thought this a case of “too much information”, but science is begging to differ. According to new research…
The sordid details of Craig Thomson and the Health Services Union affair at one level reflect individual failings on the part of Thomson, HSU East Secretary Michael Williams and National Secretary Kathy…
True innovation is rare in agriculture. Most farmers are willing to improve the way they work, but these improvements are typically small adjustments to established practice, rather than fundamental changes…
Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan will be busy tonight handing down the Federal Budget with all the policy settings we’ll need to ensure Australia’s future prosperity (and not simply as a re-election platform…
Australia is on the eve of receiving one of its most anticipated budget announcements. Wayne Swan and the team within the Treasury have put together a pillar from which the Labor Party will draw strength…
It’s been decades since electroshock therapy or other psychiatric interventions were routinely employed to “treat” homosexuality. These days, reparative therapy is more popular. It involves a combination…
Homophilia, a term once used to define “unnatural” relations between same-sex people in the early- to mid-20th century has been given a makeover. Urban gay communities around the world are using homophilia…
The growth of augmented reality (AR) will almost certainly change the way we visually experience the everyday world. And, as discussed previously on The Conversation, it’s likely to be Google’s Project…
The inversion of reality and morality has been a long-standing attribute of the climate “debate,” which reached a new watershed low a few days ago with the latest travesty from the Heartland Institute…
Many are concerned with the price of natural gas. Natural gas is an important part of Australia’s overall energy mix; it represents roughly a quarter of all primary energy sources consumed. And, as we…
Food poisoning doesn’t just come from dodgy kebabs, under-cooked chicken and restaurants with poor hygiene practices – it can also occur in the home. And anyone who has suffered a bout of food poisoning…
Socialist candidate Francois Hollande has won the French presidential election with 52% of the vote, ousting sitting president Nicolas Sarkozy. In hindsight, there have been few surprises in this campaign…
In late April, Google announced, in a relatively low-key post on the official company blog, the existence of Google Drive. The service, which has been the subject of rumours and enthusiastic chatter in…
Problems facing media moguls Rupert and James Murdoch in the United Kingdom and the United States have yet to have an impact in Australia. But if recent speculation is true that News Limited might be a…
“How much should the taxpayer contribute to the charitable whims of donors?” This comment was made in an article in the The Guardian on 16 April. It was referring to the fact that the UK Coalition government…
The answer, even though they see over and over again that austerity leads to collapse of the economy, the answer over and over [from politicians] is more austerity. – Joseph Stiglitz, Asian Financial Forum…
The recent decision of the Special Court for Sierra Leone (Special Court) in the trial of former President of Liberia, Charles Taylor, is a landmark and historic verdict. Why is the judgement an important…
We increasingly use animation to inform, explain and instruct. It is used to present evidence in courtrooms, teach about scientific phenomena and provide dynamic assembly or operation manuals. But do animations…
A student in Japan once told me that old age is the best cure for youth. It took me a long time, and a lot more life experience, before I finally figured out what she meant: there is no way to avoid the…
Over the past decade, Australians living in capital cities have dramatically reduced their consumption of water from centralised reservoir systems. This has been achieved through the installation of water…
Productivity growth results in more valued output per unit of production input, or the same output for fewer inputs. Growth of productivity requires changes involving the adoption of new technology, better…