When financial planning firm Storm Financial collapsed with $3 billion in investment losses, many of its investors were left destitute. A parliamentary joint committee inquiry into the company’s demise…
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While drizzling treacle on your porridge or spreading it on your toast, you might consider the time when the calorie-laden condiment was an antidote for poison. Of course, these days the crushed vipers…
Regulation of our intimate lives has always been a thorny issue. The anti-sodomy laws of the past and the same-sex marriage issue today illustrate times when policymakers can get it very, very wrong. Legislation…
When New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered police to clear Zuccotti Park of Occupy protestors on 15 November last year he called on the protesters to “occupy the space with the power of their arguments…
There is a trade war brewing between the United States and China over intellectual property relating to clean technologies – particularly solar power. Steven Chu, a scientist, Nobel Laureate in Physics…
Over the last few weeks, what was the juiciest development for those that cannot get enough of gossip about tech giant Apple? Was it “when will the iPad 3 debut and will it have a retina display?” Or the…
A quarter of the risk for developing schizophrenia can be traced to genetic variations that are common in the general population, a study by Queensland researchers has found. A new method of genetic analysis…
IDEAS AND OWNERSHIP: The concept of protecting ideas and innovation by legal means dates back to antiquity. But in the age of the internet and multinational business models, many of the existing laws are…
In a 2008 paper on neuroeconomics, Carnegie Mellon University economist George Loewenstein said: “Whereas psychologists tend to view humans as fallible and sometime even self-destructive, economists tend…
Given our rapid depletion of resources, especially raw materials, and Australia’s ever-increasing waste creation, it’s time to ask: what are the best ways to encourage resource recovery and recycling to…
Most of us consider health care to be a basic human right, rather than a privilege. In both philosophical and practical terms, the availability of high-quality health care is a national imperative. But…
Ever since they were discovered accidentally in the 1960s, gamma ray bursts (GRBs) have continued to amaze and puzzle astronomers worldwide. In nearly 50 years of research there seem to have been more…
The Gonski Review sought to create a new funding system for Australian schooling, because what we currently have is a mess. It was to be transparent, fair, financially sustainable and effective in promoting…
School funding has been a tortured issue for government, and especially federal Labor governments, for most of the past half century. Since the seminal Karmel Report of 1973, the funding levels and relativities…
A two-year process of research, consultation, public input and expert consideration and analysis is a reasonable route to follow for a government-appointed independent inquiry into a major policy issue…
Late last week Federal Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare introduced a bill to parliament that takes Australia one step closer to an R18+ classification for videogames. No sooner had the classification…
Cancer is a disease of the body’s cells that affects around half of all Australians by the age of 85. Normally cells grow and multiply in a controlled way. But if something causes a mistake to occur in…
A much-anticipated review of Australian school funding, spearheaded by businessman David Gonski, was handed to the Gillard government today. We asked Australian education experts to respond to the report’s…
Australians love to travel the world. In 2011 more than 7.5 million Australians (or more than one third of all Australians) travelled outside the country. Of course, most Australian travellers abroad have…
Whales have become a synecdoche for nature in contemporary society’s debate over how to use the resources of the planet. This has only escalated in recent years with the hotting up of debate between Australia…
There has been growing debate as to whether Australia should make greater use of Australia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Future Fund, to manage fluctuations in the federal budget balance due to commodity…
The biggest review of school funding in decades has been handed to the government. The report recommends an injection of A$5 billion to the education sector, three-quarters of which would go to public…
Watching Kevin Rudd in his almost daily struggle to avoid giving a straight answer to questions about whether he’ll challenge Julia Gillard is as painful as listening to a smoker justify why they won’t…
As stranded Air Australia customers continued to scramble to get home over the weekend, many may well be asking themselves: who’d run an airline? On Friday, just a day after Qantas announced 500 job cuts…
On August 8 last year, there was a leak of about a kilogram of hexavalent chromium from the Orica chemical plant on Kooragang Island, near Newcastle. Hexavalent chromium is a known respiratory irritant…