Reform must not be captured by politics
Our future income and living standards, as well as good jobs for our kids, depend on "shifting the dial", as the Productivity Commission report highlights.
Our future income and living standards, as well as good jobs for our kids, depend on "shifting the dial", as the Productivity Commission report highlights.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says US President Donald Trump has changed the game with North Korea. It does indeed seem that his wild man approach to diplomacy – contradictory, aggressive, manipulative – has at least altered China's thinking a little.
That individuals are endeavouring to find increasingly bizarre ways to avoid jury service is perhaps to be expected.
The foreign power has a new government and Australia is only slightly embarrassed.
Today is the day the dream dies. By tonight, Holden's factory in Elizabeth, South Australia, will be shut down for good, and large-scale car making in Australia will be no more.
The system failed Ashley Bryant. It destroyed his health, then left him, alone and with insufficient resources, to cope with the consequences.
Politics and reliability drown out Finkel and planet concerns
The relief is palpable. Although counting has not finished, it seems the Berejiklian government will hold the two rural seats it contested on the weekend.
Though the establishment in the United States, and the rest of the world for that matter, may detest the idea, Donald Trump overshadows all in the political scene.
In the case of excessive sugar intake, prevention is better than cure.
A system that removes assessment from human agency and hands it over to a machine shows disrespect to both teacher and pupil.
Catalonia's independence leaders have pulled back from the brink, but not very far, and possibly not for long.
If Sydney is to grow, become more dense and stay livable it needs good, fast public transport. Motorways are not the answer.
It's that time of year when the country's big bank bosses have their turn in the hot seat.
It is brave that Jess Hodak, a young woman who has Dissociative Identity Disorder, allows us to tell her remarkable story.
The US National Rifle Association (slogan: "I'll give you my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands") has relented on one small issue of gun control.
The Prime Minister's new anti-terror measures infringe significantly on civil liberties and curtail traditional freedoms.
There are good reasons why some states and territories have clamped down on fracking.
Even before the full scale of the slaughter was known, the US gun lobby was swinging into action.
No one who has watched a loved relative die of a smoking-induced disease will have much sympathy for the tobacco industry. To see someone with emphysema fighting for every breath, or to watch the painful decline of someone with lung cancer – these are harsh lessons that change lives. Smoking doesn't just kill; it kills with pain, horror and indignity. Many people will thus understand and sympathise immediately with Andrew Forrest's new anti-smoking campaign, intended to cut youth smoking and make the industry pay for some of the damage it causes. But are they right? Is this the most effective way to reduce smoking, and the harm it causes, to the minimum possible?
The Prime Minister has long been accused of lacking clear thinking on the issue of meeting this country's future energy requirements. It is an opinion unlikely to be diminished over the last few rollercoaster weeks where the joint issues of electricity generation and gas supply have been high on the news agenda.
As the campaign surrounding the same-sex marriage survey has rolled on, what has been remarkable is the energy which both sides have brought to it.
The rainfall statistics in the Bureau of Meteorology website make for disturbing reading.
In their day, the Family Law Act and no-fault divorce were major social advances, but they need updating.
It may surprise some readers to know Australia has a space industry. What the industry lacks is a coherent strategy to ensure its services are secure.
The shape-shifting nature of modern terrorism requires constant innovation in response to a continuously morphing threat.
Most observers across the world will be congratulating the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, on her fourth straight victory in national elections on Saturday, and breathing a provisional sigh of relief.
Transparency and accountability underpin effective and efficient public policy, political probity and good corporate governance – all of which are involved in the government's proposed overhaul of political influence laws, a response primarily to concerns about clandestine meddling in Australia by the Chinese Communist Party.
Countless people in aged care are being harmed through neglect born of profit-driven cost-cutting and a failure to properly regulate an industry trusted by some of the most vulnerable people and their families.
Every driver knows the feeling. Stuck in a traffic jam with no sign of movement: it is hard to stay patient. Tempers flare easily.
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