Who knows for sure why anything goes viral on the internet. There's a bright future for the person who can figure that out. Surely, though, the reason ABC political editor Chris Uhlmann's assessment of Donald Trump's performance at the G20 meeting took off was that it showed Americans from the perspective of an informed outsider just how far and fast the reputation of not just the US Presidency but of the US itself is falling under Trump.
Proof of the health harms from tobacco smoking emerged decades after it became a common habit. E-cigarettes have been around for only 10 years.
A serious commitment to lessening the harm caused by the 95,000-odd poker machines in the state would be welcome.
With much of the city in ruins, thousands of lives lost and more than a million people displaced from their homes, there will be limits to celebrations of the liberation of the Iraqi city of Mosul. The situation remains complex and dangerous even in "peace".
With the focus on the power struggle between the US, Russia and China, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was always going to take a back seat at the G20 meeting.
Despite early dire predictions for a chaotic parliament after he failed to gain a decisive majority in the "own goal" double dissolution election last July, Mr Turnbull's government has avoided parliamentary disasters so far.
Nobody should have to pull an unconscious child out of a pool.
Cricket is a lucrative enterprise, but does the fight for a share of the spoils have to be so graceless, and so public?
The F6 freeway extension has been on the books for more than a decade. There is no excuse for sacrificing good process in a rush now.
A military strike to wipe out or at least set back North Korea's nuclear capabilities risks retaliation, escalation and carnage on a scale unseen since the last Korean war.
It is difficult to have faith in a World Cup culture that remains so toxic and corrupt.
After decades of false starts and dashed hopes, the Sydney Fish Market looks set for a bright and better future.
What the census has told us, every five years, is that Australia changes, and change is normal. Whether the changes are good or bad depends how we think about them and importantly, what we do about them.
Bujarri Gamurruwa … That's g'day (or perhaps something more formal) in the Gadigal language of the Eora nation. We greet our readers this way to mark NAIDOC week, the annual celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, in the year of the 50th anniversary of the referendum which was the first step in recognising the rights of Aboriginal Australians.
To his credit the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is pressing on with the real work of a positive policy agenda – "engineering and economics" – as opposed to Mr Abbott's slogans.
Arriving at a just outcome for the claimants and for Cardinal Pell depends on due process being respected assiduously.
We need a new regulatory regime to stamp out and punish unscrupulous and exploitative practices in the highly profitable retirement village industry.
A responsible government would resist the temptation to do a massive pre-election lolly spray and establish instead a future fund for NSW.
The inferno in London's Grenfell Tower has rung alarm bells across the globe. As British authorities scramble to check cladding on high-rises and struggle to cope with large-scale evacuations, the whole government approach to social housing is now under attack. But the fire was still smouldering when wider repercussions started to emerge. If a design flaw in the tower contributed to the blaze, then buildings elsewhere could have a similar problem.
They're launched each year with a fanfare: the latest model mobile phones are held aloft to cheering crowds by their designers and promoters, photographed in loving close-up like jewels or miracles of nature, exhibited 20 metres wide on billboards, or flashed across the internet on fan sites and ads. And their appeal is instantaneous and almost universal.
The secretive process surrounding the sale of the Sydney GPO raises questions.
Parliament heads off for the winter break with the Turnbull government on a high from perhaps its most significant political victory yet: the passing of the so-called Gonski 2.0 school funding reforms through the House of Representatives.Â
Who is weeping more copiously, the Rugby League fans of this state who watched their team snatch defeat from the jaws of victory on home ground in State of Origin II? Or the long-suffering followers of Rugby Union who had to witness the Wallabies' ignominious loss to Scotland
Playing to the crowd can sometimes, paradoxically, undermine precisely the democratic values that underpin the privilege of Australian citizenship, especially when it involves a cynical appeal to fear.
The state's finances are in rude good health but the government seems deaf to the resulting opportunity for significant tax reform
Australians like to think we are all equal under the law but in the area of racial inequality, criminal injustice grows unhindered.
The "roid in Android" ad was a sick joke reflecting a concerning disconnect.
The battle lines over the Finkel climate change review have been rapidly drawn, but there remains plenty of room for compromise.
The government would not have parted with a single dollar, let alone $90 million, if it believed it could successfully contest the claims of negligence and false imprisonment on Manus Island in court.
It is quite clear that the Chinese Communist Party is waging an opaque campaign to interfere in Australian politics and institutions, using the political donations system to gain access.
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