Pregnancy as a death sentence
Genuine good news stories involving government initiatives are rare. Here’s an exception.
Recent articles in Health
6 June 2025
Inequality in an age of weather extremes
In tropical climes there are certain times of day When all the citizens retire to tear their clothes off and perspire. It’s one of the rules that the greatest fools obey, Because the sun is much too sultry And one must avoid its ultry-violet ray…
6 June 2025
Mental health of workers undermined in New South Wales
The NSW Government is seeking to pursue legislative changes that would ultimately worsen mental health outcomes for working people.
5 June 2025
Thames Water disaster drags on
The Macquarie Thames Water saga may be coming to an end albeit at great cost – but not, of course, to Macquarie which has reinvested the billions it took out into other things.
4 June 2025
Why psychologists can't clearly say what they’re trained to do
I am a registered psychologist with extensive additional training in advanced trauma modalities. But under Australia’s current advertising guidelines for health practitioners, I am unable to say that clearly in public-facing communication.
30 May 2025
Three ways to support young people with mental ill-health
The social and economic cost of youth mental ill-health in Australia is a burning issue that will persist unless we urgently and actively change the way the system interacts with young people and their families.
27 May 2025
Inaction also speaks louder than words
The focus of my work, over more than half a century, has been on getting good things to happen and/or preventing harm from happening. It has been a mixed history that includes both successes and failures; victories and defeats.
26 May 2025
Dangers and conveniences of combining great power with egomania
To take just one possible indicator, if the worldwide stampede to safe haven investments is anything to go by, there is a general sense of foreboding out there regarding President Trump’s election to a second term in office and the deleterious effects of this on the global economy, the stability of international relations and the likelihood of war with China, the genocide in Gaza, the gathering pace of global warming, authoritarian rule, and the suppression of dissent.
16 May 2025
Support at Home: Immediate risks and urgent issues
Australia’s aged care system is gearing up for one of its biggest shake-ups yet. The Support at Home program, set to launch on 1 July, aims to merge existing in-home care arrangements into a single, streamlined, person-centred reform. Or at least, that’s the theory.
15 May 2025
Is government a good 'parent' to foster kids?
Australian Governments have an opportunity to make a huge positive difference in the lives of the young people who grow up in its care. All that is needed is one simple change.
10 May 2025
The need for depressive realism and a forgotten type of truth-telling
Prolonged observation of domestic and global politics reveals a world that is continually being shaped by radical contingency and surrounded by absurdity. Other conditions can be seen, but the two just mentioned are the regnant operational conditions.
6 May 2025
Allied health devil in aged care reform detail
As Kathy Eagar discussed, positive reforms to the Australian aged care system are somewhat undercut by bigger costs for older people and increasing privatisation via the new Support at Home program.
2 May 2025
Where has all the laughter gone?
In August, 1964, Norman Cousins, a former editor of the Saturday Review was diagnosed with a serious degenerative and painful disease of the connective tissue. He was given a one in five hundred chance of recovery.
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