It’s a big week for Australian culture, with announcement of the shortlist for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, one of the country’s top writing prizes.

Labor’s planned reforms to superannuation tax concessions may be being reported as “controversial” but the fact is they are popular.

If you feel like you are going a little insane at the moment, you’re not alone.

On a whistlestop tour of Fiji, Tonga, and Vanuatu in May, Foreign Minister Penny Wong wanted to focus on climate change, security, and aid funding.

If you’re sick of ads for sport betting interrupting the footy – or anything else you watch on TV – you’re probably not alone.

Everyone agrees we need to do something about housing in Australia. But first we need to ask a very obvious, but often ignored question: what is housing is for?

We are about to see who the Australian Labor Party really is, in 2025.

In the final days of the campaign, independent MP Monique Ryan and Labor’s housing minister Clare O’Neil faced questions about the support of the Hubei Association for their respective campaigns.

Football, meat pies, kangaroos and gambling – there’s nothing more Australian.

Governance at Australia’s universities is in a dire state.

Not so long ago, former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Turnbull was branded “Mr Harbourside Mansion”, a moniker bestowed upon him by his own side of politics.

In Australia, prize-winning artists, writers and musicians pay more tax than some multinational fossil fuel companies with turnover in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

The busiest shopping weekend of the year is upon us, where shopping malls become a desperate frenzy of overindulgence and waste. But spare a thought for those who can’t afford even the trimmest of trimmings this Christmas.

“An Albanese Labor government will restore Australia’s climate leadership, and listen and act on Pacific island warnings of the existential threat of climate change.” Despite a clear election campaign commitment to listen to Pacific Island nations and act on climate change, the Australian government continues to enable and encourage new and expanded fossil fuel projects. When it

The government’s latest housing affordability policies, “help to buy” and “build to rent” are the latest in a long line of policies from both major parties that will do nothing to ease the housing crisis.

The potential social and economic benefits of early childhood education and care are huge.

Right now, final submissions are being made by private health insurers to the government for an increase in insurance premiums next year.

Rather than show negative gearing changes are bad, a Deloitte report cited by the Prime Minister concludes they would improve housing affordability and home ownership.

Peter Dutton and Donald Trump have a knack for political division. There’s no doubt that stoking fear and the politics of division can be brutally effective, but the last thing Australia needs is to import the damaging culture wars of the American far right, dominated by bonkers conspiracy theories adhered to by militant acolytes untroubled

My children are aged three and four. They love anything with super powers – Spiderman, vampires, Paw Patrol, everything.

While public school funding lags, principals of private schools are paid up to four times their state system counterparts. 

Today, in a surprise development likely weeks in the planning, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was able to leave the United Kingdom for the first time in more than a decade after reaching a plea deal with the US government.

Who would have thought that the legal and personal travails of Julian Assange, the Australian citizen whom US authorities are invested in prosecuting and jailing for the rest of his life without deep consideration of his fundamental rights, would become a lightning rod for former President Trump’s re-election hopes?

As pressure grows for action to establish new work rights, including additional leave, for those who experience menstruation and menopause, the Centre for Future Work’s Senior Researcher, Lisa Heap, canvases the debate about whether these rights will advance gender equality at work.

On Monday the Productivity Commission released its snapshot of inequality report.

“Mandatory and coordinated accreditation would allow workers to have their skills recognised, boost job satisfaction and make the industry more attractive as a long-term career.

“The Aged Care Royal Commission has been crystal clear about the need for these reforms. It’s beyond time to deliver them.”

Private schools are competing to see who can boast the most luxurious accoutrements, and the tax-deductions they can claim on constructing buildings are helping them do it. The Scots College is awaiting construction of its new library, which will resemble a Scottish Baronial castle. At one point, they had a hypoxic chamber for altitude simulation sports training. Newington College

Watch Dr Emma Shortis’ address to ‘Night Falls In The Evening Lands: The Assange Epic’ at RMIT University, Melbourne, on 9th March 2024.

For three years, Meta and Google have paid hundreds of millions of dollars to Australian publishers in exchange for using news content.

As much as $1 billion in taxpayer funding may be being funnelled into the pockets of for-profit academic publishers every year, writes Dr Kristen Scicluna.