While people in WA might be spending less, there remains segments of the population that are vulnerable to intense cost of living pressures.
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Households in NSW spend the most and WA households the least in Australia, but there are segments of WA who are feeling the bite more acutely in cost of living.
In the 1960s and 70s selective schools were seen to be old fashioned and elitist.
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Selective schools have never operated in isolation from broader historical forces — including Australia’s connected histories of racial exclusion and immigration.
The goal of healthy built environments has been missing from the NSW planning agenda for too long.
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The health impacts of urban and regional planning are undisputed. So why did the NSW government adopt and then discard health objectives as part of state planning legislation?
The Elvis Express travels from Sydney to Parkes for a festival, now in its 25th year, that has transformed the town.
Dean Lewins/AAP
Outside the capital cities and the coastal fringes, the towns and people of rural and regional Australia have had to be inventive to get through the tough times.
Some homeless youth facing criminal charges in NSW are being accommodated in prisons.
Adrian Fallace/flikr
Homeless children charged in NSW with a criminal offence who are unable to meet bail conditions are being kept in custody. It’s due, in part, to a well-meant but flawed section of the Bail Act.
Despite dozens of trials internationally, the evidence on medical cannabis is unconvincing.
EPA/ABIR SULTAN
It’s time for a fresh look at community and policy development in rural and regional NSW – one that recognises that doing things differently will deliver benefits to urban populations as well.
A helping hand for school children from disadvantaged backgrounds would yield economic benefits for NSW.
AAP Image/Joe Castro
Evidence suggests early intervention to improve educational opportunities for low-income kids yields impressive long term results – but we need to use better evaluation methods to know what works.
Australians do business with a title office only a couple of times in their lives – when they buy and sell their homes, for instances.
AAP/Paul Miller
Privatisation has its advantages. But Australia’s title offices may not necessarily be the right government businesses to be privatised.
More than 60% of Australian households include at least one companion animal, which are seen as family members by 88% of these.
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With a majority of households having pets and growing numbers living in apartments, a review of regulations on keeping animals in such communities is timely.
Urban plans that consider health and well-being must be part of integrative planning policies.
Jason Wesley Upton/flickr
Urban planning aims to create cities that support healthy and productive communities, and the success in putting health on the NSW planning agenda offers lessons in achieving better integrated policy.
One of the most dangerous times in an abusive relationship is when it ends – which was when Clare Wood was murdered by her ex-partner.
Paul Millar/AAP
Giving people the right to ask about their partner’s history of domestic violence sounds like a good idea – but there are good reasons why Rosie Batty and others have raised concerns.
NSW Premier Mike Baird applauds Treasurer Gladys Berejiklian – but has her first budget hit the mark?
AAP Image/Paul Miller
Gladys Berejiklian’s first budget as NSW Treasurer includes some infrastructure goodies but misses an opportunity to reduce the state’s reliance on property taxes.
Long Bay Correctional Centre was dubbed the ‘Long Bay Hilton’ by ‘tough on crime’ advocates whose campaigns helped fill prison cells to overflowing.
Wikimedia Commons/J Bar
Most crime in NSW has been declining since the early 2000s, and the state’s current murder rate is half what it was in 1988. So why is the NSW prison population growing?
Western Sydney needs a science centre such as Questacon to help engage young people with science, technology and engineering.
Questacon
Given the history on privatisation in NSW, and facing a more emotionally powerful campaign, the Baird government is actually doing pretty well to be closing in on polling day in a winning position.
Security experts discovered that the iVote practice server was vulnerable to tampering; after checking that the same weakness affected the real voting server, they alerted the authorities.
Vanessa Teague and Alex Halderman
UPDATED 3PM: The NSW Electoral Commission has now publicly commented on the security flaw we uncovered. But we’re concerned that it does not seem to understand the serious implications of this attack.
Being arrested does not make a person guilty and deserving of punishment; that’s what a trial determines.
AAP/NSW Police
Courts make hundreds of bail decisions every week but we rarely hear about them. In the past month in New South Wales, however, we have heard much about three high-profile decisions granting bail to: Steven…
Are archaic laws getting in the way of Australians enjoying the beach?
Tim J Keegan/Flickr
We commonly assume that Australians have a fundamental right to access the vast array of beautiful beaches that fringe our continent. But as sea levels rise, these assumptions are being put into question…
The university was worried the student would not practice medicine safely even if she completed her degree.
Jack Hynes/ Flickr
A recent discrimination case has highlighted the difficulty of balancing the rights of disabled medical students with the rights of the community to safe medical and health care. In the BKY v The University…