On a cold morning in central Gaza City, Nevin Al-Barbari, 35, sat in what remained of her family home, watching her two-year-old daughter, Reem, explore the rooms she had only recently come to know. (more…)
Category: Top 5
Used for weekly email
-
Best of 2025 – ‘Disaster season’: What is that?
Anika Wells, in announcing a meeting with three telco giants to discuss Optus’s Triple Zero emergency call system catastrophe in September, referred to the need for Australians to have confidence in the system before the coming “disaster season”. By that she meant summer. Is there really such a season? (more…)
-
Best of 2025 – Journos as heroes and villains – ‘The Hack’ reviewed – Part 1
In films and on the small screen, journalists are portrayed as heroes or villains. In The Hack they are both. Does this reflect the diminished, benighted standing journalists hold in society today or is it a step forward in showing the complexities of the work? (more…)
-
Best of 2025 – 7 October not a day to abuse protesters
When it comes to the domestic political fallout from the Gaza conflict, there are no more reliable and uncritical friends of Israel than Victoria’s Premier Jacinta Allan and her New South Wales counterpart Chris Minns. (more…)
-
Best of 2025 – Inequality and the future of democracy
Rising inequality and declining living standards have posed a threat to democracy in several democracies, but so far not in Australia. However, the increasing inequality of wealth, driven by housing becoming unaffordable without rich parents, is a threat. (more…)
-
Best of 2025 – Australia faces a looming crisis of older women retiring in poverty. Here’s what we can do
Australia faces a serious challenge. Despite important progress on gender equality over recent decades, a looming crisis now threatens the economic security of older women. Without urgent and bold action, we risk consigning further generations of women to poverty in retirement. (more…)
-
Best of 2025 – 7 October 2023: What really happened? Part 1
At dawn, on 7 October 2023, Hamas fighters blast over 100 holes in the walls and fences that separate the Gaza Strip from Israel. (more…)
-
Best of 2025 – No justice or peace for Palestinians in Trump’s Plan
The Trump Plan is designed to reframe the issues in favour of Israel. Palestinians have been betrayed again. (more…)
-
Best of 2025 – Israel’s interception of the Gaza aid flotilla is a clear violation of international law
The Israel Defence Force has intercepted a flotilla of humanitarian vessels seeking to deliver aid to Gaza, taking control of multiple vessels and arresting activists, including Greta Thunberg. (more…)
-
Best of 2025 – States increase pressure on Commonwealth to address hospital cost increases
Hark back to December 2023. National Cabinet endorsed a historic agreement setting the parameters for future Commonwealth-state sharing of public hospital costs over the next decade. (more…)
-
Best of 2025 – Ben Saul on Palestinian recognition and the Trump plan
At the National Press Club this week, Ben Saul argued that Australia is more than a “modest middle power” and must step up on Palestine. (more…)
-
Best of 2025 – Chris Sidoti’s prescription for action on Palestine
At the National Press Club this week with Ben Saul, Chris Sidoti argues that recognition of Palestine is important, but that Australia must also comply with international law obligations, including acting on arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court. (more…)
-
Best of 2025 – Trump’s mongrel punt
In the Australian vernacular, a mongrel punt is an erratic kick forward of a football which leaves those participating in the game with an awkward choice between contesting possession (possibly at the cost of broken fingers) and waiting to see where the ball bounces. (more…)
-
Best of 2025 – Age policy is a shambles. Where to from here? Part 1 & 2
Wherever you look, at residential aged care institutions, at retirement village life, at the home support package scheme, or talk to the people over 65 — called “the old” — living at home making no claim on the system, just coping by whatever means they can, this stage of life means grappling with overwhelming challenges. (more…)
-
Best of 2025 – Could the Teals win Senate seats in an expanded parliament?
Important discussions are taking place within the government and before the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters about increasing the size of the federal parliament. (more…)
-
Best of 2025 – New revelations of the Murdoch empire’s underbelly – From The Hack’s real-life journalist
This is the humblest day of my life, declared Rupert Murdoch to a parliamentary committee on 19 July 2011. (more…)
-
Best of 2025 – The Chris Hedges Report: We are all antifa now
The designation of the amorphous group antifa as a terrorist organisation allows the state to brand all dissidents as supporters of antifa and prosecute them as terrorists. (more…)
-
Best of 2025 – Recognition of the Palestinian State without halting the genocide: A meaningless decision
Since the occurrence of the war in October 2023, which shocked the conscience of the world, bringing the Palestinian question back to the forefront of international attention, much more legitimacy has accrued to the rights of the Palestinians. (more…)
-
Best of 2025 – The poisonous chalice of recognition: A double-edged sword for Palestine
While we should not regard it as a “historical moment” or a “game changer”, the recognition does have the potential to help Palestinians lead us into a different future. (more…)
-
Best of 2025 – More Boomers are choosing not to retire. Why? They don’t want to
As the great bulge of babies born after World War II has moved through their life course, the world has changed to suit them and their needs. (more…)
-
Best of 2025 – Koalas, carbon credits and the fine print of conservation
We congratulate the NSW Government for establishing the Great Koala National Park, which will protect a nationally significant koala population. (more…)
-
Best of 2025 – Disengaging from the dangerous alliance
When, in the course of close — some would say politically intimate — relations between allies, the dominant partner demands that the subordinate partner betray its democratic principles as a cost of receiving favourable treatment, the time has come to terminate the relationship. Such is now the state of the Australia-US alliance. (more…)
-
Best of 2025 – Hamas is better than us
This headline could get me jail time if, as reported, the New Zealand Government is planning to take the same authoritarian turn that the UK has sunk to with its proscription of Palestine Action. It would represent another dangerous conflation of protest with terrorism. (more…)
-
Best of 2025 – Don’t mistake truth for hate, prime minister
Anthony Albanese says Palestinian children are taught to hate. My daughter’s first trip home proves otherwise. (more…)
-
Best of 2025 – Government is planning hardship for older Australians living at home
Aged care has again been in the media for all the wrong reasons. Two failures are attracting particular attention. (more…)
-
Best of 2025 – How important is an Albanese-Trump meeting?
Trump’s record suggests that meetings with him frequently fail. Instead, Albanese has an important agenda to pursue at the UN in New York, and when dealing with the US better outcomes are more likely if Australia develops its own policies in its own interests. (more…)
-
Best of 2025 – Ex-bishop questions if Coalition is committed to Mideast peace
Former Anglican bishop of Canberra Goulburn, George Browning, has criticised federal Opposition leader Sussan Ley over a letter she sent to members of the Republican Party who had written to Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, attempting to stop him from recognising a Palestinian state at the UN this week. (more…)
-
Best of 2025 – What game is he playing? The PM and AUKUS
As the Australian prime minister prepares for his visit to the UN in New York next week, Robert Macklin looks into what Anthony Albanese might be hoping for on the trilateral security deal. (more…)
-
Best of 2025 – Genocide betrays the living and the dead
Genocide scholars Damir Mitric and Jill Klein have deep personal and professional experience in genocide and repercussions across generations. As the world watches in horror as the genocide in Gaza continues, they bring us their story. (more…)
-
Best of 2025 – UN at 80 – Rome is burning, governments are fiddling and the UN is ailing – Part 1
This year marks the 80th anniversary of the signing of the UN Charter. During these eight decades, much has been accomplished that calls for celebration. Yet, there is no denying that the United Nations is facing perhaps the greatest crisis of its 80-year history. (more…)