Ian McEwan’s novel What We Can Know is set a hundred years from now in an authoritarian world devastated by nuclear war and rising sea levels. In particular, the British Isles, where the book is set, have multiplied as the seas have claimed all the low-lying land in what is
Occasionally, in the land of general practice, a patient in extremis walks through the door clutching their chest or bent double with abdominal pain. Very soon you’re dialling triple zero, and while you’re attaching the oxygen mask and inserting an intravenous line your ears are already straining for the sound
When he replied to the federal budget earlier this month, opposition leader Angus Taylor declared a Coalition government would end “Labor’s handouts for noncitizens” by drastically cutting back eligibility for welfare payments. Only Australian citizens would have access to the NDIS and seventeen welfare programs, “including JobSeeker, Youth Allowance and
I don’t need to tell you that the 2026–27 federal budget hasn’t gone down well in voterland. The first surveys, taken within days of budget night, showed it overtaking even the Abbott government’s 2014 effort in the putridity stakes. And since then the pile-on and drama queenery has intensified, with
Democracy is not a static thing. It is constantly being made and reshaped by every possible force. In the twentieth century, the idea of self-governance by the people was threatened by new shifts in media, as radio and then television emerged, followed by the early internet at the end of
Buenos Aires is the centre of the therapy world. According to the World Health Organization, Argentina has 222 psychologists working in mental health settings for every 100,000 residents, and the rate in the capital is reported to be seven times higher. Local priest Jorge Bergoglio had half a year on
Two new books about schooling in Australia, both by prominent commentators, mark the passage from the fringes toward the mainstream of a potent insight: schooling’s problems are structural. Jane Caro’s Rich Kid Poor Kid takes aim at the organisation of our 9500 schools into “sectors”; Geoff Masters’s The Children We Leave Behind tackles the even more ...
If voting patterns at the Farrer by-election and the SA state election are replicated, the 2028 federal election might be a run-off between two political parties founded in Queensland, one by men in the bush in 1891, the other a century later by a woman living a short drive along
If voting patterns at the Farrer by-election and the SA state election are replicated, the 2028 federal election might be a run-off between two political parties founded in Queensland, one by men in the bush in 1891, the other a century later by a woman living a short drive along
The deliberately simple title of Agnieszka Holland’s Franz avoids mentioning her subject’s surname, with its inescapable, almost clichéd associations. “Kafkaesque,” anyone? Becoming Kafka is used as a subtitle in the marketing, but doesn’t appear on screen. It’s as if Holland wants to avoid the conventions of the biopic as much
“Geopolitics” has made a comeback. The American historian Hal Brands defines it as “the study of how the physical features of the Earth interact with the struggle for influence and power.” It is, he says, a “discipline focused on the relationship between geographical realities and political power.” Historically, the concept
Australian universities have been the beneficiaries of three decades of demand from international students. Like governments and many private businesses, they have profited from an unexpected export industry with a significant social and geographical impact. So what happens if the number of students slows? The Australian government announced it would
Ian McEwan’s novel What We Can Know is set a hundred years from now in an authoritarian world devastated by nuclear war and rising sea levels. In particular, the British Isles, where the book is set, have multiplied as the seas have claimed all the low-lying land in what is
Occasionally, in the land of general practice, a patient in extremis walks through the door clutching their chest or bent double with abdominal pain. Very soon you’re dialling triple zero, and while you’re attaching the oxygen mask and inserting an intravenous line your ears are already straining for the sound
When he replied to the federal budget earlier this month, opposition leader Angus Taylor declared a Coalition government would end “Labor’s handouts for noncitizens” by drastically cutting back eligibility for welfare payments. Only Australian citizens would have access to the NDIS and seventeen welfare programs, “including JobSeeker, Youth Allowance and
I don’t need to tell you that the 2026–27 federal budget hasn’t gone down well in voterland. The first surveys, taken within days of budget night, showed it overtaking even the Abbott government’s 2014 effort in the putridity stakes. And since then the pile-on and drama queenery has intensified, with
Democracy is not a static thing. It is constantly being made and reshaped by every possible force. In the twentieth century, the idea of self-governance by the people was threatened by new shifts in media, as radio and then television emerged, followed by the early internet at the end of
Buenos Aires is the centre of the therapy world. According to the World Health Organization, Argentina has 222 psychologists working in mental health settings for every 100,000 residents, and the rate in the capital is reported to be seven times higher. Local priest Jorge Bergoglio had half a year on
Two new books about schooling in Australia, both by prominent commentators, mark the passage from the fringes toward the mainstream of a potent insight: schooling’s problems are structural. Jane Caro’s Rich Kid Poor Kid takes aim at the organisation of our 9500 schools into “sectors”; Geoff Masters’s The Children We Leave Behind tackles the even more ...
If voting patterns at the Farrer by-election and the SA state election are replicated, the 2028 federal election might be a run-off between two political parties founded in Queensland, one by men in the bush in 1891, the other a century later by a woman living a short drive along
If voting patterns at the Farrer by-election and the SA state election are replicated, the 2028 federal election might be a run-off between two political parties founded in Queensland, one by men in the bush in 1891, the other a century later by a woman living a short drive along
The deliberately simple title of Agnieszka Holland’s Franz avoids mentioning her subject’s surname, with its inescapable, almost clichéd associations. “Kafkaesque,” anyone? Becoming Kafka is used as a subtitle in the marketing, but doesn’t appear on screen. It’s as if Holland wants to avoid the conventions of the biopic as much
“Geopolitics” has made a comeback. The American historian Hal Brands defines it as “the study of how the physical features of the Earth interact with the struggle for influence and power.” It is, he says, a “discipline focused on the relationship between geographical realities and political power.” Historically, the concept
Australian universities have been the beneficiaries of three decades of demand from international students. Like governments and many private businesses, they have profited from an unexpected export industry with a significant social and geographical impact. So what happens if the number of students slows? The Australian government announced it would
