menu_open Columnists

The New Daily

We use cookies to provide some features and experiences in QOSHE

More information  .  Close

Christa Pike just the latest of US's failed executions

Christa Pike just the latest of US's failed executions

Christa Pike survived an execution attempt in Tennessee this week, after receiving two doses of pentobarbital, a lethal drug. As a result, Governor...

latest 8

The New Daily

Austin Sarat

If climate talks can't stop coal and gas, why bother?

If climate talks can't stop coal and gas, why bother?

For many years, the annual United Nations climate conference, known as the COP, has represented something profoundly important: The hope that the...

latest 8

The New Daily

Anote Tong

China and housing: Two things we might have missed

China and housing: Two things we might have missed

One of the issues with sushi train political journalism (just grabbing whatever comes round on the train) is that only the bright and shiny – often...

yesterday 10

The New Daily

Amy Remeikis

PM leaves grim domestic scene as he flies to Pacific

PM leaves grim domestic scene as he flies to Pacific

Having a “Pre-COP” meeting in Fiji and Tuvalu is one of those initiatives that seemed a good idea at the time. No doubt it still has resonance as...

previous day 40

The New Daily

Michelle Grattan

Santos paid zero company tax for 11th year: ATO

Santos paid zero company tax for 11th year: ATO

The latest corporate tax data released this week by the Australian Tax Office showed that, once again, major gas producers are paying no company tax....

previous day 20

The New Daily

Greg Jericho

Raising the rate of JobSeeker would save lives

Raising the rate of JobSeeker would save lives

For decades, successive governments have kept unemployment payments in Australia below all accepted measures of adequacy – JobSeeker now sits at...

friday 20

The New Daily

Charmaine Crowe

RBA punishing mortgage-holders won't work

RBA punishing mortgage-holders won't work

Rate rises hit mortgage holders, first-home buyers and jobs, while doing nothing to fix many of the supply shocks driving prices higher. Governments...

01.10.2026 20

The New Daily

Crispin Hull

Households in pain, but budget crisis can be solved

Households in pain, but budget crisis can be solved

“The word ‘Hurricane’ is the name given to nature’s strongest storm. A hurricane occurs when high pressure And low pressure masses of air come...

01.10.2026 20

The New Daily

Amy Remeikis

Risk of economic slowdown with latest RBA rate hike

Risk of economic slowdown with latest RBA rate hike

The Reserve Bank of Australia has raised the cash rate to 4.6 per cent from 4.35 per cent, taking the key rate to its highest level since late 2011 as...

30.09.2026 20

The New Daily

Stella Huangfu

Uber Eats and allure of convenience transform Aus

Uber Eats and allure of convenience transform Aus

Uber Eats turned 10 in Australia this year. The service launched in Melbourne in April 2016. Pizza delivery was already familiar to Australian...

30.09.2026 30

The New Daily

Simon Kuestenmacher

Immigration or bills? This is the real issue for voters

Immigration or bills? This is the real issue for voters

Before the marches, immigration was not a topic in our focus groups. After them, it still isn’t. The people keeping it on the front page are not...

29.09.2026 20

The New Daily

Kos Samaras

How early we retire depends on desired lifestyle

How early we retire depends on desired lifestyle

A note to readers: I will shortly leave Industry Fund Services and, sadly, this is my final column. It’s been a pleasure writing for The New Daily...

28.09.2026 9

The New Daily

Craig Sankey

More billionaire media owners an existential threat

More billionaire media owners an existential threat

In every country that’s slid from democracy into strongman rule over the past half-century, the first step was capture of the media by friends of...

28.09.2026 30

The New Daily

Thom Hartmann

Why the RBA is ‘happy’ unemployment is rising

Why the RBA is ‘happy’ unemployment is rising

In August the unemployment rate rose to 4.6 per cent, the highest for nearly five years, even as employment continued to grow relatively solidly. It...

28.09.2026 20

The New Daily

Greg Jericho

Lone voice pleads for help in unfolding catastrophe

Lone voice pleads for help in unfolding catastrophe

As Anthony Albanese and the world pretend to wring their hands over both the ‘inevitability’ of AI and the ‘struggle’ to set guardrails, the...

27.09.2026 20

The New Daily

Amy Remeikis

When rogue AI agent ‘scaled a fence’, it reinforced Albanese’s case for tough guardrails

When rogue AI agent ‘scaled a fence’, it reinforced Albanese’s case for tough guardrails

The revelation that an AI agent turned rogue and breached a firewall to get at Medicare statistics has strongly reinforced Anthony Albanese’s case...

26.09.2026 30

The New Daily

Michelle Grattan

What OpenAI hack reveals about our cyber security

What OpenAI hack reveals about our cyber security

An OpenAI artificial intelligence agent gained unauthorised access to an Australian government Medicare statistics portal in June, accessing both...

25.09.2026 30

The New Daily

Meena Jha

Govt is hyping AI, but its figures tell another story

Both last year’s Productivity Commission’s figures and Treasury’s in the Intergenerational Report this week promise enough benefits from AI to...

24.09.2026 30

The New Daily

Bill Browne

Why Coalition, One Nation want to tear down super

The Liberals, Nationals and One Nation are at it again – promising to tear down good, enduring policies for the Australian people for the base...

24.09.2026 20

The New Daily

Craig Emerson

Time to say 'ick' to Apple’s latest smart watch

The latest Apple Watch models have some new features – they can listen to the sounds around you all day, transcribe snippets of conversation on...

23.09.2026 30

The New Daily

Luke Heemsbergen

Women, power and the politics we choose

The rise of women within populist-right politics complicates assumptions about representation, showing that putting women in positions of power does...

23.09.2026 20

The New Daily

Meg Schwarz

No.1 lesson from Intergenerational Report

Every few years, Treasury performs a task that demographers do every day. It tries to imagine Australia decades into the future.  The 2026 version...

23.09.2026 30

The New Daily

Simon Kuestenmacher

Could Australia follow Canada into a ‘Eurovision’?

During his visit to the US, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese refused to rule out Australia joining the European Union, after US President Donald Trump...

22.09.2026 30

The New Daily

Tim Harcourt

Digital duty of care: Good, bad and the ugly

Social media and digital services have become central to our daily lives. From sharing experiences with friends and family, to shopping, ordering...

21.09.2026 20

The New Daily

Kate Chaney

AI is becoming an ideal partner. Why that's an issue

Artificial intelligence did not suddenly arrive in our love lives with ChatGPT. Dating apps have used algorithms and machine learning for years to...

21.09.2026 30

The New Daily

Lisa Portolan

Taxable super matters to you, and your beneficiaries

Hi Craig, If my super fund with a 60 per cent taxable component is converted totally into pension mode, will this pension fund also have 60 per cent...

21.09.2026 20

The New Daily

Craig Sankey

Gagging and blacklisting: What's going on in the NT

Amid Pauline Hanson’s latest racism controversy, Australia’s most right-wing government announced yet another life-changing and devastating...

20.09.2026 30

The New Daily

Amy Remeikis

Burke delivers overdue migration baby

Tony Burke was late to the National Press Club to announce the government’s migration policy on Thursday. Six weeks late, to be precise. After the...

19.09.2026 30

The New Daily

Michelle Grattan

More rate rises are coming, but wages won't follow

In their appearance before the House economics committee on Friday, the executive of the Reserve Bank made it quite clear that we can expect more...

19.09.2026 30

The New Daily

Greg Jericho

Thanks, Trump: Why Canada is cosying up to EU

Can a country change continents? Canada seems set to try. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced an intention to seek some novel form of...

18.09.2026 20

The New Daily

Stewart Prest

Long-awaited migrant plan reflects needs and fears

The Albanese government will stop the entry of students’ family members, attack “visa hopping”, and drastically cut the numbers of those on...

18.09.2026 30

The New Daily

Michelle Grattan

Super not the solution to Australia’s housing issues

Superannuation as a solution to the housing crisis risks trying to fix one problem by making another worse. The proposal from One Nation to allow...

17.09.2026 20

The New Daily

Twane Wessels And Lucia Viegas

Migrant debate is just hot air looking for a problem

With all the talk about Australia’s migration “issue”, there is one question that has remained noticeably absent. What problem are we solving?...

17.09.2026 50

The New Daily

Amy Remeikis

Town's big 1888 move is key to lower energy bills

Australia’s electrification story started in 1888 in Tamworth, when that far-sighted regional community installed the nation’s first electric...

16.09.2026 30

The New Daily

Luke Menzel

Australia has problems, but it could get much worse

While Australia has problems (housing, productivity, social cohesion, shrinking middle class, skills shortage), regular readers of this column will...

16.09.2026 30

The New Daily

Simon Kuestenmacher

How can we tax the robots that replace humans?

Collecting an appropriate amount of revenue from multinational corporations is challenging enough for the Australian Taxation Office, but how will it...

15.09.2026 30

The New Daily

Craig Emerson

One Nation would have more people leaving

One Nation on Monday released a radical policy proposing Australia net overseas migration (NOM) be negative over three years, as the country reduced...

15.09.2026 30

The New Daily

Michelle Grattan

Algorithm off-switch might make us better voters

There has rightly been a lot of talk this week about what Australia’s teenagers see and do online. Bullying, body image issues, and violence against...

14.09.2026 30

The New Daily

Tom Mooney

The tide has turned against big tech’s harm

Since time immemorial, governments of all ideological persuasions have regulated harmful forms of speech, including laws addressing fraud, terrorism,...

14.09.2026 20

The New Daily

Josh Bornstein

Libs' top culture warrior tied in free-speech knots

Swimming in political paddling pools means swallowing a lot of hypocrisy, just as a matter of course. For most commercial politicians, opinions tend...

13.09.2026 40

The New Daily

Amy Remeikis

One Nation and super: Barnaby Joyce might be dumb, but he’s no idiot

In a heated interview on ABC’s 7.30 this week, One Nation’s would-be treasurer Barnaby Joyce was unable to explain how much superannuation...

12.09.2026 30

The New Daily

Greg Jericho

Hanson’s overreach on Hastie puts spine into Libs

Pauline Hanson declared in a recent News24 (formerly Sky News) documentary: “I don’t back down”. This week Hanson and her party followed...

12.09.2026 30

The New Daily

Michelle Grattan

Profits of doom: Gas boss stretches the truth

The “Gish gallop” debating technique involves making so many false or misleading claims in quick succession to sneak away without proper...

11.09.2026 20

The New Daily

Tim Baxter

Failure to stop 9/11 was not the biggest error

The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were unlike anything the world had seen before. For America, and the watching world, September 11 (or 9/11)...

11.09.2026 30

The New Daily

Greg Barton

Economy not the only reason for One Nation's rise

Labor is no doubt dreading the likelihood of further interest rate rises, despite Treasurer Jim Chalmers talking up the economy. When One Nation...

11.09.2026 20

The New Daily

Carol Johnson

Sovereignty has become an issue-by-issue choice

Sovereignty is one of those words that gets thrown around when politically expedient, but without the gravity it actually deserves. It’s basic...

10.09.2026 40

The New Daily

Amy Remeikis

'Censorship' and social media algorithms explained

The headline feature of the federal government’s exposure draft of its long-promised digital duty of care is an “off switch”. Social media...

10.09.2026 30

The New Daily

Rob Nicholls

Migration reform badly needed, but it's no answer

Migration debates have a nasty habit of forcing us into two silly camps. Apparently you either need to defend the migration system exactly as it is or...

09.09.2026 40

The New Daily

Simon Kuestenmacher

One Nation is a symptom. ALP must treat the cause

One Nation’s rise reflects deeper economic insecurity, political alienation and distrust in institutions. Defeating it requires more than...

09.09.2026 30

The New Daily

Kim Carr

Record numbers of Aussies working multiple jobs

In a sign of the brutal impact of the Reserve Bank’s three interest rate rises, more than a million Australians worked multiple jobs in the June...

08.09.2026 40

The New Daily

Greg Jericho