What Australia should recover from Paul Keating
In this speech, James Curran reflects on Paul Keating’s foreign policy legacy and argues that Australia has lost the strategic confidence and autonomy needed to shape its own future in a changing Asia.
Australia’s International Development Policy three years on
Three years after Labor launched its international development policy, Australia is a more reliable donor than many of its peers. But an increasingly ambitious aid program still lacks clarity about its priorities, trade-offs and capacity to deliver.
Climate resilience is missing a critical piece: care
Climate adaptation plans routinely overlook childcare, aged care and other essential services, leaving families and unpaid carers to absorb the human and economic costs when climate disasters strike.
Trump’s power is fading, but his AI gamble could still reshape the world
Donald Trump remains globally consequential, but his ability to bend other governments and institutions to his will is diminishing. AI is the major exception, where deregulation could unleash risks that outlast his presidency.
Climate finance must transfer power, not just money
Climate finance will not deliver justice if communities receive project funding but remain excluded from decisions, governance and the long-term institutional support needed to sustain change.
Australia is building AI capacity without the ecosystem to use it
AI delivers productivity gains only when firms have the skills, management capability, infrastructure and industrial networks to put it to work. Australia’s weakness lies less in the technology than in the ecosystem around it.
AI and the limits of sovereignty, Part One: Why national rules are not enough
In the first of two parts, Robin Brown and Gregory Andrews examine why AI, climate change, pandemics and online markets repeatedly outrun national regulation, and what existing arms-control and international regimes can teach us about governing risks that cross borders.
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Want affordable housing? Build up, not out
Home ownership has become increasingly unaffordable because land prices have increased so much under population pressure. The only way to restore affordable housing is to increase urban density.
Be careful – international students are listening
A South Asian perspective on migration politics, student confidence and the long-term value of Australian international education.
Environment: Humanity continues to foul its fragile nest
Seven of the nine planetary boundaries have now been crossed as human pressure on the Earth accelerates, yet Australia continues to expand fossil fuel extraction while presenting itself as a climate leader.
The Congo, cobalt and our limited attention
Cobalt mining in the Congo exposes both the hidden human cost of technologies we rely on and the limits of a news culture that directs our attention towards some crises while leaving others almost invisible.
Australian island base's hidden US military role
Runway extensions, new military infrastructure and US planning are transforming the Cocos Islands into a strategically important forward operating base, with little public debate about the role Australia is assuming in a future conflict with China.
Coalition immigration policy: unbalanced, unachievable, unworthy
The Coalition’s migration plan promises dramatic cuts to net overseas migration and the temporary visa population, but key measures are inconsistent, administratively weak and in some cases beyond government control.
Labor should not take Green preferences for granted
Labor’s primary vote is weakening while Green preferences remain crucial in close contests. Albanese’s hostility to the Greens may become increasingly difficult to sustain.
How much aid is the Australian government giving to Palestine?
As wealthy countries cut aid, Australia remains far below the UN target for development assistance. Its support for Palestinian statehood is not matched by an adequate humanitarian response to Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territories.
Takaichi dominates Japanese politics, but her honeymoon may be short-lived
Sanae Takaichi has consolidated extraordinary political power, but the economic conditions that sustained the Abe era have changed and Japan’s fragmented opposition may not remain her only problem.
Australia’s climate policy – a crime against humanity
Australia cannot credibly claim climate leadership while expanding coal and gas exports that accelerate global heating, deepen Pacific vulnerability and lock in further human suffering.
South Australia’s green gold rush gathers pace
New wind farms and big batteries are pushing South Australia closer to 100 per cent net renewables, while supplying major industry and driving billions of dollars in new investment.
Climate change has devastated one of the world’s great penguin colonies
The chinstrap penguin population on remote Zavodovski Island has fallen by 63 per cent in just 15 years, as warming seas push their krill food supply further south.
Aged care is turning the family home into an entry fee
Scarce aged care places increasingly favour families able to pay large accommodation deposits, drawing on housing wealth that may be the only debt-free asset shared across three generations.
There is no ‘debate’: them is us – Message from the Editor
Another week, another migration policy. Except that makes it sound normal, and this nasty race to the bottom between those who purport to represent us is anything but.
The growing gap between Australia’s policies on nicotine and reality
Australia’s tobacco and vaping policies have helped create a vast illicit market while governments continue to pour money into enforcement and neglect cheaper, more effective harm reduction.
Australia’s migration debate is ignoring the regions that need migrants most
Migration is doing much of the demographic heavy lifting outside Australia’s major cities. Cutting it without a serious regional population strategy risks accelerating decline in smaller communities.
Israel's war against Gaza
Media coverage of the war in Gaza since October 2023 has spread a series of lies propagated by Israel and the United States. This publication presents information, analysis, clarification, views and perspectives largely unavailable in mainstream media in Australia and elsewhere.
Download the PDFLatest letters to the editor
Inflation and interest rates: blame the government
Harry Audus — Arana Hills Qld
It's a lousy way to live
Hal Duell — Alice Springs
His Bobness, in a nutshell
Peter Webster — Launceston TAS
What is the answer? Productivity?
Bob Pearce — Adelaide SA
Australia must heed the Tassiriki Call
Ray Peck — Hawthorn Vic
Tactics without strategy
Les Macdonald — Balmain NSW 2041
AUKUS: the stupidity continues
Richard Llewellyn — Colo Vale
Defeating the populist right
gary barnes — Mosman NSW
