Civil society groups are increasingly pressing governments to turn Australia’s international legal commitments into domestic law, policy and accountability.
Category: Politics
-
The manosphere teaches boys grievance. Men need to teach them responsibility
The abuse directed at Helen Haines after she was critically injured exposes a culture in which grievance towards women is cultivated. Men have a responsibility to challenge it.
-
Housing reform shows tax changes work. Now Australia needs to go much further
Housing tax reform shows how strongly tax settings shape behaviour. Australia should now shift more of the tax burden from work and employment towards consumption. (more…)
-
How fossil fuel interests keep Australia locked into coal and gas
Lobbying, political donations, revolving doors and appeals to jobs and national prosperity have helped keep coal and gas embedded in Australia’s political system and public imagination. (more…)
-
NAZA shows how killing civilians in Gaza became routine
The documentary NAZA uses testimony from Israeli soldiers and intelligence personnel to expose how surveillance, artificial intelligence and military procedure turned civilian deaths in Gaza into calculated routine. (more…)
-
Paying private rates to shorten a public queue
Buying thousands of operations from private hospitals may cut waiting lists temporarily, but it does little to solve the workforce shortages constraining Victoria’s public surgical system. (more…)
-
If AI is to create ‘better jobs’, workers need rights against the algorithm
As the World Bank promotes AI’s potential to create better jobs, the experience of gig workers shows why algorithmic management must come with enforceable rights and protections. (more…)
-
Falling drama enrolments reveal a bigger failure in public education
Falling drama enrolments are not just a story about student choice. They raise a deeper question about whether schools are preserving the opportunities through which children discover what they can become. (more…)
-
A higher GST could strengthen state budgets – and leave poorer Australians better off
Australia’s GST is raising less as a share of the economy while state budgets deteriorate. A higher, broader GST could fund income-tax cuts, stronger welfare and more sustainable state finances. (more…)
-
Brain cancer needs a national plan
Brain cancer survival remains poor and the burden on families is immense. Australia needs a coordinated 10-year national plan linking research, treatment, care and support. (more…)
-
Frydenberg wrestles with his manifest destiny
Josh Frydenberg may be entertaining a return to federal politics, but finding a seat is only the beginning. His record, Liberal Party divisions and the rise of One Nation make the path back considerably harder. (more…)
-
One in three people could live in Africa by 2064. Australia should plan accordingly
Africa could account for more than one-third of humanity by 2064. Australia should build deeper relationships based on skills, mobility and two-way learning, not simply recruitment.
-
AI doomsday fears are helping entrench a new digital colonialism
Warnings about existential AI risk are distracting from immediate harms and helping justify rules that could entrench frontier-model monopolies and deepen global technological dependence. (more…)
-
From Palestine protests to Sally Rooney’s books: the widening reach of Britain’s terrorism laws
Sally Rooney’s books can no longer be supplied in the UK because of her support for Palestine Action, exposing how the group’s proscription is reaching far beyond direct protest. (more…)
-
Malaysia’s welcome for Myanmar’s President undermines its stand on justice
Malaysia’s official welcome for Min Aung Hlaing and return of Myanmar nationals sit uneasily with its claims to support international justice and regional peace. (more…)
-
Confessions of a (not very) useful idiot
Four trips to China in a year have produced nervous hosts, unexpected candour and some very nice hotels – but surprisingly little evidence that talking to Chinese people is a threat to Australia. (more…)
-
Biological War and the weakness of the world’s bioweapons safeguards – Part Two
In Part Two, Connie Peck turns from Annie Jacobsen’s fictional scenario to the real legacy of the Soviet bioweapons program and the weakness of today’s global safeguards.
-
If AI can ace the exam, universities need better ways to test learning
As AI produces increasingly convincing academic work, universities need assessments that test understanding, judgment and accountability rather than simply the ability to generate a strong final product. (more…)
-
As biodiversity and climate summits loom, can the world trigger positive tipping points?
As governments prepare for COP17 on biodiversity and COP31 on climate, the challenge is no longer setting goals but accelerating the changes in energy, food and finance needed to restore nature.
-
Rogue AI agents show why independent auditing is now essential
Recent breaches by advanced AI agents expose not only dangerous model behaviour, but failures in testing, safeguards and human oversight. Independent auditing is needed to tell genuine AI risks from preventable mistakes and marketing hype. (more…)
-
Annie Lennox, “eurhythmics”, ADHD and the power of repetition
From Annie Lennox and David Byrne to ritual, childhood listening and Sweet Dreams, repetition in music can regulate, absorb and transform us in ways modern culture often underestimates. (more…)
-
Hanson’s politics of exclusion look uglier from Indonesia
Indonesia built its national identity around Bhinneka Tunggal Ika – unity in diversity. From next door, Pauline Hanson’s rejection of multiculturalism raises an uncomfortable question about the Australia we want to be. (more…)
-
Relearning Liberalism
In his Quarterly Essay, Waleed Aly finds modern liberalism increasingly hollowed out and detached from older ideas of civic virtue. But Fukuyama, Mill and Australian literature suggest those traditions have never entirely disappeared.
-
Remembering John Timlin
John Timlin moved through theatre, publishing, politics, football and friendship with generosity, wit and an extraordinary instinct for helping other people realise their ambitions. (more…)
-
Anti-Modi protesters join forces, Japan leads ICC defence, toxic wildfire haze returns – Asian Media Report
Rahul Gandhi backs ‘Cockroach’ demonstrations, Trump’s world court attack seen as illegal, AI producing have and have-not countries, and China’s unique ancient art replica.
-
Pork barrelling: an urgent case for the NACC
Pork barrelling is not always corrupt, but discretionary grants create obvious risks of political favouritism and conflicts of interest. The NACC should provide clear guidance on where legitimate politics ends and corruption begins.
(more…) -
Want to pause frontier AI? Start with the chips
Frontier AI depends on a highly concentrated supply chain for advanced chips. That creates a practical chokepoint governments could use to slow new model training without giving up the benefits of existing AI. (more…)
-
La Bola Negra is about the Spanish Civil War – but is unmistakably about our present moment
A new film about queer lives erased by the Spanish Civil War feels newly urgent as Spain again debates sexuality, historical memory and the political legacy of Francoism. (more…)
-
Australia’s ‘digital duty of care’ was just introduced to parliament. So what’s in the bill?
The government’s digital duty of care would require online platforms to prevent serious harm, while new safeguards aim to protect journalism, research, education and public-health content from overreach. (more…)
-
The thirty years that were never normal
The post-war decades created an extraordinary period of rising wages, affordable homes and economic security. Those conditions are gone. Politics must stop promising their return and start deciding how prosperity is shared in a slower-growth world. (more…)