As rising seas intensify conflicts between private property and public beaches, coastal planning needs stronger scientific input before disputes harden into expensive legal battles. (more…)
Category: Politics
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Australia’s first new steel mill in 35 years will run on renewables
Australia’s first new steel mill in more than 35 years will recycle scrap steel using renewable electricity, turning Collie’s coal transition into a new manufacturing opportunity. (more…)
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Guilt by association: the stigmatisation of Muslim institutions
The alleged FlyDubai plot demands serious investigation, but an individual’s reported association with a Melbourne mosque is not evidence that the institution or its leaders were involved in radicalisation or wrongdoing. (more…)
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Extradition without cause – the case of Dan Duggan
Dan Duggan has spent more than four years in maximum-security custody while fighting extradition to the United States, raising fundamental questions about Australian sovereignty and citizens’ rights. (more…)
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Israel election 2026: Who votes, how seats are won and what happens next
Israel votes on Tuesday in its sixth election since 2019. Here is how its proportional voting system works, what will determine who governs, and who living under Israeli control has no vote. (more…)
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AUKUS has escaped proper scrutiny for five years. That is about to change
The independent public inquiry into AUKUS will report on 4 November after examining the project’s implications for Australia’s security, economy, sovereignty and international standing.
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CSIRO scientists warn Australia is ‘wandering towards dystopia’
Senior CSIRO scientists are discussing scenarios in which parts of northern Australia become unliveable and reef ecosystems collapse, and asking why the country is not confronting those risks openly. (more…)
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Fighting antisemitism must not mean silencing criticism of Israel
Universities must confront antisemitism, but contested definitions risk chilling legitimate criticism of Israel when they are turned into institutional rules and disciplinary processes. (more…)
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NSW cannot legislate away the climate cost of its coal
After a landmark High Court ruling on the Scope 3 emissions from exported coal, the Minns government plans special legislation allowing Mount Pleasant to keep producing at higher levels until 2032. (more…)
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India’s youth revolt is becoming a fight over democracy itself
What began as a satirical response to an insult aimed at unemployed young Indians has grown into a wider movement against joblessness, inequality and alleged electoral manipulation. (more…)
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We are building a world that is making children sick
US child health has deteriorated across more than 170 measures. The deeper warning is that children’s physical, nutritional and social environments are changing faster than their developmental needs. (more…)
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Governments need more revenue, Part Two: How Australia could raise it
If Australia needs substantially more revenue, the options include taxing carbon and resource profits, taxing wealth more heavily and reforming the GST. (more…)
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Brazil’s choice: build on Lula’s gains or reverse them
Brazil’s presidential runoff offers sharply different economic paths: deep spending cuts and tax reductions on one side, and continued social investment and progressive taxation on the other. (more…)
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Environment: Agriculture continues to be a significant source of greenhouse gases
Beef and crop production remain major sources of greenhouse gases, but better farming practices can cut emissions substantially. Plus, Snowy 2.0 faces another cost reckoning and Switzerland’s glaciers continue to disappear. (more…)
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Foreign journalists are being silenced. Israeli reporters know they could be next
Foreign journalists face visa denials, intimidation and violence, while Israeli reporters and filmmakers are increasingly threatened for exposing what the government would rather keep hidden. (more…)
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The verdict is in: Americans say Trump is a potentially dangerous dictator
A major new US survey finds worsening views of Donald Trump among independents and Hispanic voters, widespread economic pessimism and deep partisan divisions over elections, immigration and foreign policy. (more…)
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Governments need more revenue, Part One: The case for higher taxation
Australia taxes and spends less than most comparable developed countries, while essential services remain underfunded. Restoring the budget and meeting future needs will require more revenue. (more…)
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Netanyahu is playing with fire. Elections are no excuse for war
Reports of preparations for renewed strikes on Iran, days before Israel votes, should set off red flags for voters.
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Australia should keep out of Ukraine Russian affairs
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was illegal, but Australia’s response has also exposed a deeper inconsistency in how it applies international law, strategic interest and military support. (more…)
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France’s student revolt is a warning about automated inequality
French students are protesting against an education system already divided by class. Parcoursup risks reinforcing those inequalities while obscuring the choices that produce them. (more…)
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One Nation’s forestry policy is economic vandalism
One Nation wants to restart native forest logging in Victoria, but decades of losses, shrinking timber supply and a $402 million legal claim show why the industry ended. (more…)
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Another Africa blueprint: what makes this one different?
A new parliamentary report identifies major opportunities for deeper trade with Africa. The harder task is ensuring Australia sustains its attention long enough to act on them. (more…)
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Record demand, five-year-low prices: batteries and solar are reshaping the grid
Underlying electricity demand reached a record in the September quarter, yet wholesale prices fell 27 per cent as rooftop solar and batteries increasingly reshaped when power is generated, stored and used. (more…)
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Israelis and Palestinians once walked together. That world is gone
In the first of our pieces leading up to Israel’s election on Tuesday, Gideon Levy returns to a 1997 photograph of Israeli and Palestinian lawmakers together – and to a political world that now seems almost unimaginable. (more…)
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AUKUS: Australians paying to defend the US homeland
AUKUS is sold as a sovereign Australian defence capability. But its strategic logic and dependence on US systems raise a harder question: whose homeland is it really designed to defend? (more…)
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Hate helps no one – Message from the Editor
The sickening attack on Helen Haines has exposed something precious about Australian democracy – and the corrosive effect of threats, humiliation and dehumanising political language. (more…)
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Navi Pillay’s Nobel is a vote for international law in an age of impunity
From apartheid South Africa to Rwanda, the ICC and Gaza, Navi Pillay’s career has been built on the belief that international law must protect people from abuses of state power. (more…)
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A framework for peace in Ukraine
As diplomacy resumes, a proposed settlement would combine Ukrainian neutrality and EU membership with an armistice line, limits on NATO enlargement and a new European security framework. (more…)
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The algorithm recruits. Schools can give young people somewhere else to stand
The attack on Helen Haines has sharpened concern about political violence. Regulating platforms and policing threats matter, but prevention also means giving young people institutions where they feel they belong and matter. (more…)
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Australia’s ‘permanent contest’ with China is the wrong way to see the Pacific
Framing the Pacific as a permanent contest with China overstates the symmetry between the two powers, underestimates Pacific agency and risks producing the very outcome Australia fears. (more…)