Coffee prices are rising again, and you might be wondering how much more you’ll soon pay for your morning coffee. Although coffee prices are fickle the fluctuations affect most of us very little compared…
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Some of the most famous and prestigious universities in the United States were founded after different regions offered inducements such as free land to attract a campus to their area. These university…
Australia has been a nation of immigrants since 1788. It has always sought additions to its population to increase its prosperity and economic strength. But two recent controversies have distracted us…
New fossil-fuel power plants that nobody wants to pay for, electricity companies saying power prices will go through the roof: the economy of generating electricity is a complicated business. Last week…
Labor’s post-WorkChoices industrial relations regime has come under renewed scrutiny in the past week, following Fair Work Australia’s recognition that community sector workers were being underpaid due…
In the 1980s Wall Street’s Gordon Gekko arguably became a neoliberal pin-up when he uttered the phrase: “Greed…is good. Greed works.” Fast forward to 2011 and there appears to be another creed: “Cream…
Sustainability is often criticised as too diffuse a term to be meaningful. Yet it is too important to ignore. Business can be a positive force for change towards sustainability, playing a crucial role…
In the foreword to the international development assistance component of this year’s Federal Budget, Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd gives cogent reasons for Australia’s position on foreign aid funding. He…
Around 15.6% of Australian adults have limited or no access to basic financial services like a transaction account, a credit card or insurance, putting them at risk of predatory lending, a new study has…
LinkedIn’s highly successful share market debut on Wall Street overnight will have no doubt delighted the social networking site’s founders and investors, with the stock’s price more than doubling during…
A new way for academics to survive the “publish or perish” imperative has emerged. The imperative itself is not new: commentators in the 1950s were already lamenting the growing pressure for academics…
Politically, increasing petrol prices is one of the least popular things a government can do. But is there any point to a carbon tax if it doesn’t cover petrol? Vladimir Putin has just found how quickly…
On Monday evening it seemed that all television viewers were not created equal in the eyes of the Nine Network regional affiliate stations, WIN and NBN which deemed the first episode of British comedy…
Under the cover of last week’s budget splash, the Federal Government has quietly changed tax laws which currently allow students and potentially jobseekers to claim a deduction for expenses against government…
In a ceremony at London’s Frontline Club on Tuesday, May 10, before an array of television crews from around the world, WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange received the Sydney Peace Foundation’s gold medal…
The Euro, Europe’s adolescent single currency, is in rough waters. This week European finance chiefs signed off on a 78 billion Euro bail-out for Portugal, while calling for Greece to accept stringent…
Should we bother to ask whether some gifts and donations could be interpreted as thinly veiled bribes, or is the distinction always clear? A recent example of the potential ambiguity of gift-giving was…
The Gillard government’s recent budget announcement again raises the issue of how much Australia relies on skilled migrants to backfill skills shortages at a time of economic growth. The shift in emphasis…
With its electoral support eroding, the federal government has been careful not to trigger frustration or disappointment in higher education and research. These have been largely Labor constituencies since…
The full bench of Fair Work Australia ruled yesterday that gender is a major factor in the low pay of thousands of workers in the social care and community sector. There are around 150,000 largely female…
The global financial crisis has occasioned a vast literature purporting to analyse the causes and consequences of the crisis. The crisis literature ranges from morality play narratives, insider accounts…
“Only an election could make an honest politician of this Prime Minister. Only an election can give Australia a government with authority to make the tough decisions needed to build a stronger Australia…
Australian political culture still recognises the remains of traditional commitment to egalitarianism as the mythic “fair go”, but the meaning is often not clear. Opportunity is often seen as the ladder…
Late last month, Ben Bernanke held the first ever press conference by a chairman of the US Federal Reserve Bank. For more than an hour, he took questions about the Federal Open Market Committee’s decision…
Victoria now has a Minister for Food Security and the Federal coalition too has rebranded its shadow minister Minister for Agriculture and Food Security. Food security is a notion that over the last three…