The failure to regulate litigation funders is becoming more problematic. This is because more funders, particularly from overseas, are entering the Australian market.
Tony Abbott’s additional target focusing on school attendance rates has not improved at all since 2014.
Neda Vanovac/AAP
The report focus on the government’s own policies fails to acknowledge genuine differences of opinion on key issues such as constitutional recognition and income management.
The homeless people evicted from Flinders Street in Melbourne’s CBD are only the tip of the iceberg of the housing crisis in Victoria.
Joe Castro/AAP
Weak state policies, which lack clear targets and mechanisms for providing more and better affordable housing, are part of the problem. Victoria still doesn’t have an affordable housing strategy.
Jenny Macklin, shadow minister for families and social services, has attacked a Coalition proposal to raise the pension age.
AAP/Lukas Coch
Labor’s Jenny Macklin said that under a Coalition proposal, Australia would have the highest pension age in the developed world. Is that right?
This man needs to trust you before listening to your public health message. No wonder bombarding him with facts doesn’t always work.
from www.shutterstock.com
Reassuring people “not to worry” about public health issues like vaccination or fluoridated water doesn’t work. Nor does telling people “don’t panic”. So, what does?
Would you eat more of this if you were subsidised to?
from www.shutterstock.com.au
By tweaking the prices of foods and drinks, to make healthy options more affordable relative to the less healthy products, we can influence what people will buy.
On current trends, renters will eventually outnumber home buyers, representing a fundamental shift in how the economy and wealth generation work.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
Generation Rent may force a complete rethinking of home ownership as a basis of our housing systems. Rather than representing security, these housing markets make us vulnerable.
Brexit and the election of US President Donald Trump represented seismic shifts to the established political order.
Carlo Allegri/Reuters
While populism is considered a threat to democracy, there are in fact lessons our leaders can learn from the experience of populism in other countries.
The swinging sixties arrived in Australian theatre with a bang.
Aussie~mobs/Flickr
Disney’s Moana has a remarkably accurate depiction of how Polynesian peoples navigate by the stars, and draws attention to the richness of Indigenous astronomy.
Police seized 200kg of methamphetamine during a drug bust in Perth, Western Australia, in May 2016.
AAP Image/Department of Immigration and Border Protection
West Australian Labor leader Mark McGowan said his state has the “worst rate of methamphetamine usage in the country”. We asked the experts to check the evidence.
It’s time to take the political heat out of electricity grids.
AAP Image/Lukas Coch
Privatisation and competition were supposed to make electricity cheaper. Instead, Australia’s quasi-federal energy system has made it easier to pass the buck when things go wrong.
Young women in the survey showed less interest and knowledge on long-term investments.
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Young women are are confident in implementing budgeting and savings strategies, but lack the knowledge and confidence required to implement long-term financial strategies, a new pilot study finds.
The opera house is raised on a terraced platform, away from the shore like an island amphitheatre.
Terence Wong from www.shutterstock.com
Construction should have stopped once the roofs were erected. Any citizen could then have walked up to the terraced amphitheatre, sat down and gazed back at the country from this shrine to the nation.
WA Premier Colin Barnett faces a battle to retain office after the March 11 state election.
AAP/Rebecca Le May
While the Liberals’ decision to preference One Nation on how-to-vote cards might be expedient in the short term, it could seriously cost them if they are returned to power.
Basil Hetzel’s research supported the use of iodised salt as an easy way to ensure adequate dietary iodine intake.
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Public health pioneer Basil Hetzel died on February 4 2017. Among other career highlights, he identified the most common cause of preventable brain damage: dietary iodine deficiency.
Many of the debt recovery letters issued by Centrelink were the result of an intrinsically error prone system.
AAP Image/Julian Smith
The Centrelink debt recovery system reminds us that many data systems are prone to error, and that’s built in to how they work.
To understand how households cope, we may need to look beneath broad patterns of affordability to the interplay of housing costs with other problems.
IDuke/Wikimedia Commons
Housing affordability is often not the only problem households face. More often the compounding effects of multiple problems leave people unable to cope, which is why one solution won’t work for all.
Research shows that giving credit for a partner’s housework strengthens the relationship.
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Without doubt, crystal methamphetamine, like many drugs (including alcohol) is capable of causing immense harm. But when facts are distorted to create fear and stigma it helps no one.
There has been a continuous wave of planning reform over the last ten years in Australia, and dwelling approvals in some cities are at long-term highs.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
To tout new housing production as the only solution to rising house prices, without examining the question of demand, is an ineffective policy position.
For all its millions of female readers, romance fiction has been dismissed as sappy, trashy and dangerous to read.
Pixeljoy/shutterstock
Can a gender studies academic also write Mills and Boon novels? And can purple prose be as empowering as a pink pussy hat? The answer is yes, and yes again.
We can learn a lot from Queenslanders.
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The latest heatwave put huge pressure on our electricity grid, as Australians turned on their air conditioners. Smarter design and regulations could solve the problem.