favorites

Australia’s latest metro is about to open. Here’s how we’ll know if it’s working

Melbourne’s long-awaited Metro Tunnel will open on Sunday November 30. The tunnel will only carry limited services until February 2026, when it...

latest 4

Hussein Dia

Australian students spend more time learning to write on paper than computers – does this need to change?

Writing using computers is a vital life skill. We are constantly texting, posting, blogging and emailing. This is a huge change for schools when it...

latest 4

Anabela Malpique

How to respond to sexual harassment or assault at a work party

With less than a month until Christmas, end-of-year work parties are now well underway. For many, it’s a chance to celebrate the end of a long...

latest 4

Michelle Tuckey

For many people with acute mental illness, ‘hospital in the home’ means living well in the community

A regional New South Wales public hospital will soon close its mental health inpatient facility, in favour of a home-based service. The ABC reports...

latest 4

Sebastian Rosenberg

China reportedly wants to do more deals in its own currency. Australia’s banks aren’t ready

In October, media reports suggested mining giant BHP had accepted a deal to settle about a third of its spot iron ore sales to Chinese customers in...

latest 5

Wei Li

Electric container ships won’t work – but a fleet of auxiliary battery ships could clean up shipping

Shipping moves 90% of global trade and produces nearly 3% of global emissions. The sector has proved challenging to clean up, as cargo ships can...

latest 5

Anthony Wiskich

Friday essay: how societies evolved into fear-dominated goliaths – then collapsed

We think of ancient civilisations as operating very differently from the way our economy works today. Yet the Bronze Age Assyrians living in...

latest 5

John Long

Can bigger-is -better ‘scaling laws’ keep AI improving forever? History says we can’t be too sure

OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman – perhaps the most prominent face of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom that accelerated with the launch of...

yesterday 20

Nathan Garland

Better policies; better leader: new study reveals why Labor won the 2025 federal election

The 2025 Australian federal election was a resounding win for the Australian Labor Party. Labor won 94 seats in the House of Representatives and a...

yesterday 10

Sarah Cameron

100 years on, T.S. Eliot’s The Hollow Men is a poem for our populist moment

In 1927, at 38 years of age, the expatriated American poet T.S. Eliot was baptised and confirmed in the Anglo-Catholic tradition. The celebrated...

yesterday 20

Luke Johnson

Māori face harsher sentences than NZ Europeans for similar drink-driving offences – with lasting consequences

People of Māori descent account for just a fifth of Aotearoa’s population, but are overrepresented at every stage of the criminal justice system....

yesterday 10

Alexander Plum

Barnaby Joyce quits Nationals, as he eyes One Nation Senate seat

Barnaby Joyce has finally announced he is quitting the Nationals Party, declaring he is “strongly considering” running for a Senate seat for One...

yesterday 8

Michelle Grattan

Men earn nearly $10,000 more than women in bonuses and overtime pay, fuelling the gender pay gap: new data

Men are earning on average A$9,753 more than women each year in the form of performance bonuses, allowances and overtime pay. That’s according to...

yesterday 10

Leonora Risse

Life insurers soon won’t be able to discriminate against you based on your genes

A bill that would ban life insurers from discriminating against Australians based on results of genetic testing has been introduced to parliament...

yesterday 9

Jane Tiller

How England’s Premier League is trying to stop football’s financial arms race – without a salary cap

Debates about financial regulation in sport often begin with salary caps: strict, transparent cost-control mechanisms common in North American and...

yesterday 10

James Skinner

Two teens have launched a High Court challenge to the under-16s social media ban. Will it make a difference?

Two teenagers are taking the federal government to the High Court. They argue the ban on social media accounts for under-16s is unconstitutional...

yesterday 7

Luke Beck

Why is bamboo used for scaffolding in Hong Kong? A construction expert explains

At least 44 people have died and more than 270 are missing after a major fire engulfed an apartment complex in Hong Kong’s Tai Po district. The...

yesterday 6

Ehsan Noroozinejad

Politics with Michelle Grattan: Sussan Ley on Barnaby’s defection and how the environment law deal ‘fell apart’

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has had a rugged start as leader. With Liberal rivals Angus Taylor and Andrew Hastie circling for her position, Ley...

yesterday 3

Michelle Grattan

Grattan on Friday: when the music stopped, Greens had out-stepped flat-footed Liberals on environment deal

Come dance with me! That was Environment Minister Murray Watt’s invitation to the opposition as he prepared to push through his reforms to the...

yesterday 1

Michelle Grattan

Long-sought environmental law reform is finally here. But will the compromise deal actually protect nature?

Today is a landmark day for environmental law. After years of false starts and abandoned promises, Labor has finally struck a deal with the Greens...

yesterday 10

Justine Bell-James

The Hong Kong high-rise fire shows how difficult it is to evacuate in an emergency

The Hong Kong high-rise fire, which spread across multiple buildings in a large residential complex, has killed dozens, with hundreds reported...

yesterday 1

Milad Haghani

Your dog is not a doomsday prepper. Here’s why they hide food and toys

Have you ever seen a dog focused on nuzzling their expensive treat under a blanket, behind a couch cushion, or into a freshly dug hole in the...

yesterday 50

Mia Cobb

Rural Australians are 13% less likely to survive cancer. Here’s what needs to change

If you live in rural or remote Australia and are diagnosed with cancer, you’re less likely to survive than someone in the city with the same...

yesterday 60

Charlene Wright

Your risk of catching COVID is at its lowest since 2020 – but here’s why you should still get boosted for Christmas

As the Christmas season looms, with its crowded end-of-year parties, family gatherings and busy travel schedules, many New Zealanders might be...

yesterday 50

Michael Baker

‘The main thing you’ve got is TikTok’: how the social media ban could harm African diaspora youth

The Australian government’s social media ban will begin in about two weeks. From December 10, those under 16 will no longer be able to have...

previous day 30

Melanie Baak

Should we ‘get over’ print books in the digital age – or are they more precious than ever?

Ebooks have been popular for decades and audiobooks are increasingly so. But physical books are still the decided favourite: a survey of Australian...

previous day 20

Beth Driscoll

Bird sex fascinated medieval thinkers as much as people today

Earlier this year, a group of researchers published a paper on the remarkable phenomenon of sex reversal in several Australian birds, including...

previous day 8

Clare Davidson

What is happening with the government’s contentious review of the Waitangi Tribunal?

Resistance to the New Zealand government’s policies aimed at rolling back Māori rights and protections under te Tiriti o Waitangi/Treaty of...

previous day 10

Carwyn Jones

A backlash against AI imagery in ads may have begun as brands promote ‘human-made ’

In a wave of new ads, brands like Heineken, Polaroid and Cadbury have started hating on artificial intelligence (AI), celebrating their work as...

previous day 10

Paul Harrison

AI ‘dreams’ up new realities. How does this impact the way we understand our own dreaming?

Surrealists believed in the power of dreams. Inspired by Freud’s theories of the unconscious and dream-work, André Breton saw the irrationality of...

previous day 10

Sara Oscar

‘Digital colonialism’: how AI companies are following the playbook of empire

In the eyes of big AI companies such as OpenAI, the troves of data on the internet are highly valuable. They scrape photos, videos, books, blog...

previous day 1

Jessica Russ-Smith

How to donate your poo to science or medicine

When most people think about donating body parts to science or medicine, they might think of life-saving donations of organs, tissues or blood. But...

previous day 10

Nadeem O. Kaakoush

Vitamin B6 products are set to be restricted. Here’s what you need to know

On Tuesday, Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) announced a raft of changes to how products containing vitamin B6 are packaged and...

previous day 8

Vasso Apostolopoulos

Will Help to Buy give first home buyers a leg up? Here’s what we can learn from the UK

New national figures have reiterated what most already know: buying a home in Australia is more unaffordable than ever. The report from research...

previous day 6

Rachel Ong Viforj

Inflation jumps in October, adding to pressure on government to make budget savings

Annual inflation rose to a 16-month high of 3.8% in October, adding to pressure on the government as it seeks to make savings across the public...

previous day 7

Stephen Bartos

Should Albanese ‘fight Tories’ harder? Or is blandness a safe bet in a fearful, populist world?

Anyone who reads Sean Kelly’s opinion pieces in the Nine newspapers will not be surprised to learn he is disappointed by the federal Labor...

previous day 10

Dennis Altman

‘Full-service schools’ redefine how education works. Here’s why Australia needs them

Inequality is one of the most urgent challenges facing Australian schools. For decades, governments have invested billions of dollars in schools...

tuesday 30

Andres Molina

NZ’s draft science curriculum favours rote learning over critical thinking

New Zealand’s draft science curriculum, released last month, promises to advance “knowledge-rich” learning. But the term remains only loosely...

tuesday 40

Sara Tolbert

You’ve reported sexual assault to police. What happens next?

While most sexual violence is not reported to police, recent Australian statistics show reports of sexual assault to police are rising. But...

tuesday 8

Gemma Hamilton

Australia’s new National Food Council: lots of industry reps, at the cost of health and environment

The Australian government recently announced who would be on the nation’s first National Food Council. This council was established to advise on...

tuesday 20

Rachel Carey

Some patients wait 6 years to see a public hospital specialist. Here’s how to fix this

ABC analysis shows some patients wait six years or more for outpatient medical appointments in Australia’s public hospital system. According to the...

tuesday 20

Katherine Harding

Aircraft noise from new runways will hit thousands more homes. Australia needs fairer solutions

Major changes to flight paths are underway across Australia’s three largest cities. Brisbane’s new runway has already shifted aircraft noise onto...

tuesday 20

Milad Haghani

Impacts of colonisation on dingoes are ‘written in their bones’, new research finds

Dingoes are no ordinary dogs. They trace their roots back to an ancient Asian lineage and made their way to Australia more than 3,500 years ago....

tuesday 10

Kylie M. Cairns

AI slop is Macquarie’s 2025 Word of the Year. I applaud the choice – but was bored by the shortlist

AI slop is Macquarie Dictionary’s Word of the Year for 2025. It also won the people’s choice vote. The dictionary defines the word as “low-quality...

tuesday 2

Roslyn Petelin

Hit Netflix drama The Beast in Me does wrong by survivors of family violence

In The Beast in Me, Aggie Wiggs (Claire Danes) is a reclusive writer who gets drawn into the world of her new neighbour, Nile Jarvis (Matthew Rhys),...

tuesday 5

Laura Walls

Meanjin was closed – but new Australian literary journals are springing up around the country

The recent, sudden closure of Meanjin has brought renewed attention to Australian journals: those hardy perennials that support Australian...

tuesday 9

Alice Grundy

New transmission towers are crucial for renewables – but contentious. Here’s where they should go

Solar and wind now provide 99% of new generating capacity in Australia. Renewables supply more than 40% of power to the main grid. Australia will...

tuesday 2

Cheng Cheng

Risky business: how small firms can be caught in the trade sanctions crossfire

An Australian company is caught out and fined under American law despite following local shipping rules. A Sydney couple is charged for unwittingly...

tuesday 10

Meena Chavan

5 great podcasts about art forgery

With its longer forms of storytelling, the podcast is sufficiently supple to investigate the labyrinthine qualities of art forgery, the peculiar...

tuesday 2

David Forrest

View from The Hill: it’s been a carefully orchestrated political courtship, but the marriage could be rocky

The Senate might be thoroughly sick of Pauline Hanson’s antics – on Tuesday it suspended her for seven days over her appearance in a burqa – but...

tuesday 1

Categories

Sources

Newspaper Columnists

Australia’s latest metro is about to open. Here’s how we’ll know if it’s working

Hussein Dia

Australian students spend more time learning to write on paper than computers – does this need to change?

Anabela Malpique

How to respond to sexual harassment or assault at a work party

Michelle Tuckey

For many people with acute mental illness, ‘hospital in the home’ means living well in the community

Sebastian Rosenberg

China reportedly wants to do more deals in its own currency. Australia’s banks aren’t ready

Wei Li

Electric container ships won’t work – but a fleet of auxiliary battery ships could clean up shipping

Anthony Wiskich

Friday essay: how societies evolved into fear-dominated goliaths – then collapsed

John Long

Can bigger-is -better ‘scaling laws’ keep AI improving forever? History says we can’t be too sure

Nathan Garland

Better policies; better leader: new study reveals why Labor won the 2025 federal election

Sarah Cameron

100 years on, T.S. Eliot’s The Hollow Men is a poem for our populist moment

Luke Johnson

Māori face harsher sentences than NZ Europeans for similar drink-driving offences – with lasting consequences

Alexander Plum

Barnaby Joyce quits Nationals, as he eyes One Nation Senate seat

Michelle Grattan

Men earn nearly $10,000 more than women in bonuses and overtime pay, fuelling the gender pay gap: new data

Leonora Risse

Life insurers soon won’t be able to discriminate against you based on your genes

Jane Tiller

How England’s Premier League is trying to stop football’s financial arms race – without a salary cap

James Skinner

Two teens have launched a High Court challenge to the under-16s social media ban. Will it make a difference?

Luke Beck

Why is bamboo used for scaffolding in Hong Kong? A construction expert explains

Ehsan Noroozinejad

Politics with Michelle Grattan: Sussan Ley on Barnaby’s defection and how the environment law deal ‘fell apart’

Michelle Grattan

Grattan on Friday: when the music stopped, Greens had out-stepped flat-footed Liberals on environment deal

Michelle Grattan

Long-sought environmental law reform is finally here. But will the compromise deal actually protect nature?

Justine Bell-James

The Hong Kong high-rise fire shows how difficult it is to evacuate in an emergency

Milad Haghani

Your dog is not a doomsday prepper. Here’s why they hide food and toys

Mia Cobb

Rural Australians are 13% less likely to survive cancer. Here’s what needs to change

Charlene Wright

Your risk of catching COVID is at its lowest since 2020 – but here’s why you should still get boosted for Christmas

Michael Baker

‘The main thing you’ve got is TikTok’: how the social media ban could harm African diaspora youth

Melanie Baak

Should we ‘get over’ print books in the digital age – or are they more precious than ever?

Beth Driscoll

Bird sex fascinated medieval thinkers as much as people today

Clare Davidson

What is happening with the government’s contentious review of the Waitangi Tribunal?

Carwyn Jones

A backlash against AI imagery in ads may have begun as brands promote ‘human-made ’

Paul Harrison

AI ‘dreams’ up new realities. How does this impact the way we understand our own dreaming?

Sara Oscar

‘Digital colonialism’: how AI companies are following the playbook of empire

Jessica Russ-Smith

How to donate your poo to science or medicine

Nadeem O. Kaakoush

Vitamin B6 products are set to be restricted. Here’s what you need to know

Vasso Apostolopoulos

Will Help to Buy give first home buyers a leg up? Here’s what we can learn from the UK

Rachel Ong Viforj

Inflation jumps in October, adding to pressure on government to make budget savings

Stephen Bartos

Should Albanese ‘fight Tories’ harder? Or is blandness a safe bet in a fearful, populist world?

Dennis Altman

‘Full-service schools’ redefine how education works. Here’s why Australia needs them

Andres Molina

NZ’s draft science curriculum favours rote learning over critical thinking

Sara Tolbert

You’ve reported sexual assault to police. What happens next?