A couple of facts: 1) At least 10% of the world’s population are “needle phobic”, which means they’re missing out on being vaccinated and/or have a horror of receiving jabs of any kind. Several studies…
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After 25 years, one of the craziest taxation rules in Australia is about to be fixed. The federal government is expected to announce a revamp of fringe benefits tax rules for company cars in Tuesday’s…
“The right thing to do with an economy that is moving towards full capacity and full strength is to deliver a budget surplus.” - Prime Minister Julia Gillard In collaboration with The Drum, The Conversation…
Some of the most serious forms of cancer are less likely to be the subject of a clinical trial than cancers with a less significant health impact. Research shows that even being a disease is a popularity…
The manifesto of the Foundation for Endangered Languages states, quite accurately, that “There is agreement among linguists that over half of the world’s languages are not being passed on to the next generation…
By now we’re used to the idea that the world has four dimensions: three spatial and one temporal. But what if there were a fifth dimension – what would that dimension look like, and how would it relate…
Since we realised we were on the brink of a global extinction crisis in the 1980s, seed banks have emerged as powerful tools to protect species. Most banks focus on biodiversity, which means a range of…
Recent Canadian elections have produced minority governments. Until now. Stephen Harper’s victory in the polls last week fundamentally changed Canadian politics. Majority government is back and it is Conservative…
Ah, salt. We love its taste and yearn to use it liberally in our cooking. But we’re told to limit our salt consumption for the sake of our health. Much like a low cholesterol product, the low salt option…
Oil is a finite and non-renewable resource. Its production is going to peak. “Peak oil” is the point at which half of the world’s original endowment of oil has been extracted. This is the point at which…
The author of this article, Daniel Metcalfe, is a former director of the US Department of Justice Office of Information and Privacy. He advised the US Government on the Abu Ghraib pictures. President Obama…
There has been a dramatic fall in the price of oil and some commodities over the last few days, with oil plunging by as much as 10% per cent in US trade overnight. The price has recovered somewhat this…
This is a big week for Julia Gillard as she and Treasurer Wayne Swan put the final touches to Tuesday’s Budget. And it’s an equally big week for Helen Westerman, our Business and Economics Editor, as she…
It has been reported that Osama bin Laden’s hard drives have been seized, hard drives that could conceivably contain information regarding the membership, funding and future plans of al-Qaeda. Information…
When the AFL has a weekend of inaccurate goal-kicking, media attention invariably turns to why set-shot goal-kicking hasn’t improved while other areas of footy have. As a footy fan, I have an interest…
Competition between twins hit the headlines this week as, for the first time in AFL history, identical twins Brad and Chris Scott will coach different teams against each other on Saturday. Both twins played…
Former Australian of the Year Pat McGorry has campaigned to bring attention to distress suffered by many young people in our increasingly stressful society. Twenty six percent of young Australians experience…
Household electricity bills are rising and about half of a typical bill goes to paying network costs. Are we paying too much for network infrastructure? Electricity networks are undeniably important. They…
Australia possesses an advanced digital economy which remains shackled to a media regulation system that belongs to the past century. Our laws reflect an era when media consumption was dominated by the…
FEDERAL BUDGET 2011: In recent decades, the budget surplus has become a goal in itself and an obsession for governments. In the process, we have lost some perspective on what kind of social and economic…
If pre-budget statements by Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan are an accurate guide, this year’s Federal Budget is shaping up as marking a change in the direction of Commonwealth taxing and spending priorities…
In order to understand why the government has committed itself to a budget surplus, we must distinguish what is known as the structural budget balance from the cyclical budget balance. We also need to…
To understand the political uses of budget surpluses, we need to go back to the early 1980s when Australia and New Zealand governments self-imposed a fiscal straitjacket. They decided that running a surplus…
Prime Minister Julia Gillard returned from her visit to China last month having locked down a series of cooperation agreements between countries - including a $600 million iron ore deal - which many hope…
Children who are bottle-fed until the age of two are 30% more likely to be obese at five-and-a-half years of age, a new study has found. Of the 6750 children studied by researchers from Temple University…