Early last week, Origin Energy, Australia’s pre-eminent energy retailer, launched an online energy-use monitoring portal Origin Smart to much fanfare. All good – but what about the the privacy and security…
In a major upset, Alan Oliveira of Brazil beat Oscar Pistorius to win an extraordinary T43/44 200 metre race today. But did Oliveira have an unfair advantage? The 20-year-old Brazilian finished ahead of…
With the Democratic National Convention taking place this week in Charlotte, North Carolina, and noted orator Barack Obama set to speak on Friday (Australian time), The Conversation looks at the art of…
Over the next few weeks, the newspapers in Australia and overseas are going to be full of stories describing Paralympians as inspirational role models. Such reports might or might not be true … it just…
An article published in Science on Friday describing a newly assembled Denisovan genome, takes an ongoing debate to a whole new level, and finds this anthropologist eating a little piece of humble pie…
Today the Prime Minister will announce the government’s full policy response on schools funding, following the Gonski report earlier this year. The Gonski report recommended a funding boost across the…
In a series of recent papers, our research team has documented the impact of community interventions at reducing alcohol-related harm in the Geelong region in Victoria. What we found was that despite the…
Rural research is vital. It is about 10% of our national innovation system. Annual investment exceeds $1 billion, according to the Rural Research and Development Council. The rural sector and farm-dependent…
There is almost unanimous agreement among mainstream economists, tax experts, Treasury, business and even politicians (albeit very quietly) that the Goods and Services Tax will have to be increased and…
The former British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson famously said a week is a long time in politics. If this is the case, then you have to wonder how long it will feel if the current Parliament runs it full…
As I peered out of a frosted Canberra window with child-like amazement at the gossamer snowflakes cascading from the muted grey sky, I thought of my friend training in the warm Swiss sun in preparation…
Why do we have welfare policies that create unnecessary poverty? Despite a multitude of reports, submissions, public pleas and other advocacy on the problems of Newstart (NSA) recipients, the government…
The US capital markets regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission, has voted in favour of what has widely become known as the “conflict minerals” ruling. Aimed at reducing the illegal trade in resources…
Female cosmetic genital surgery is in the news again following Germaine Greer’s comparison of such surgery with female genital mutilation on the ABC’s Q&A earlier this week. This sudden attention joins…
Earlier this week the federal Government announced important changes to the carbon pricing mechanism (CPM). The political and economic consequences have been much discussed, but the less-talked-of legal…
Today in Florida, Mitt Romney formally accepted the Republican nomination for President of the United States. In and of itself, this changes nothing. Since May we have known that Romney had the nomination…
Labor has just lost another election in Australia to the opposition in an electoral race that was dominated by negative messages, where both parties attempted unsuccessfully to differentiate themselves…
If you’re watching the Paralympics on TV, listening on radio or reading about the Games in the papers or online, you’ll notice different sports are sub-divided into separate classes. If you’re listening…
All we seem to hear about these days is failing teachers in failing schools. Those from business, government and the field of economics have all weighed in, criticising teachers, teacher educators and…
I really enjoyed sitting down with my kids and watching the Olympic Games. In the process of watching amazing sporting triumphs we also learnt multiple ways to gamble, all at the tap of a finger. During…
Melbourne Researchers Rewrite Big Bang Theory sang a recent headline in the Sydney Morning Herald. It was one of many suggesting the Big Bang theory had been somehow overthrown. As the principal investigator…
Linking Australia to the European Union carbon emissions trading scheme by 2015 will undoubtedly affect the revenue gained from carbon trading. The question is, how much? One should expect up to 50% less…
The problem of climate change policy at an international level is not only about reaching agreement on sharing the mitigation burden. It is also about how dysfunctional foreign policies - not directly…
Sport is seen as important for the quality of life, self-esteem, independence and social integration of people with disabilities, and the Paralympics are one expression of this importance. But what effect…
In the game of Australian Rules Football (as with other football codes), few pieces of equipment are more important than the football itself. And yet the relative attention paid to the ball by the AFL…