Society

The case of the bouncy castle bombings. Image of bouncy castle

The case of the bouncy castle bombings

Society / Law and order

An arson spree and a missing party-hire boss

The lie of ‘responsible gambling’. Image of poker machines

The lie of ‘responsible gambling’

Society / Gambling

Australia’s world-beating gambling addiction and the deception hiding it

Hate speech isn’t freedom of speech. Illustration

Hate speech isn’t freedom of speech

Society / Law and order

Australia’s debate over free speech online must go beyond Israel Folau

Aged care in crisis. Illustration

Aged care in crisis

Society / Health

Stories of neglect and abuse from the royal commission


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The lie of ‘responsible gambling’. Image of poker machines

➊ The lie of ‘responsible gambling’

Australia’s world-beating gambling addiction and the deception hiding it

Hate speech isn’t freedom of speech. Illustration

➋ Hate speech isn’t freedom of speech

Australia’s debate over free speech online must go beyond Israel Folau

The sentencing of George Pell. Illustration

➌ The sentencing of George Pell

It took a judge to explain power to a cardinal

The endless reign of Rupert Murdoch. Image of Rupert Murdoch and Jerry Hall

➍ The endless reign of Rupert Murdoch

After decades of influence, the media mogul isn’t so much a person as an epoch

Environment


The parable of Lyle Shelton and Dianne Thorley. Clive Berghofer

The parable of Lyle Shelton and Dianne Thorley

When Christianity, climate change and drought collided in Toowoomba

The Murray–Darling’s dry mouth. Illustration

The Murray–Darling’s dry mouth

Scientists are witnessing the ecological collapse of South Australia’s Coorong

How Australia’s coal madness led to Adani. Image of Abbot Point

How Australia’s coal madness led to Adani

The real reasons keeping the Carmichael mine alive

Report from India: Tracing Gautam Adani’s ruthless ambition. Image of Adani’s thermal power plant at Mundra, India

Report from India: Tracing Gautam Adani’s ruthless ambition

The parallel rise of the coal baron and Prime Minister Narendra Modi

Formal night in Gunnedah. Illustration

Formal night in Gunnedah

Not even a drought can stop this NSW country town’s night of nights

Activists of a certain age. Illustration

Activists of a certain age

Meet the septuagenarian fronting a new generation of protesters


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Media


Free speech has never been ‘free’. Illustration

Free speech has never been ‘free’

The idea that all opinions should be ventilated is misguided

Greg Hywood: the model modern chief executive. Source

Greg Hywood: the model modern chief executive

How Fairfax became a business at journalism’s expense

Jeremy Heimans: the up-start. Image of Jeremy Heimans

Jeremy Heimans: the up-start

The co-founder of GetUp! might be the most influential Australian in the world

‘Slow Burn’: Trump, Nixon and the art of the podcast. Image of Donald Trump

‘Slow Burn’: Trump, Nixon and the art of the podcast

Slate Plus’s podcast on Watergate urges patience on its audience

Spheres of influence

Social media is blurring the line between opinion and advertising

Names have been suppressed

Attempts to encourage censorship and deliberate amnesia seldom work


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Health


The desperate, secretive drama: ‘Choice Words’ edited by Louise Swinn. Book cover of Choice Words

The desperate, secretive drama: ‘Choice Words’ edited by Louise Swinn

Personal stories consider questions of choice, legality and stigma surrounding abortion

Ticked off. Illustration

Ticked off

Being bitten by a tick just got a whole lot stranger

The F45 gym revolution. Illustration

The F45 gym revolution

The Australian fitness franchise is high-fiving its way around the world

Chasing the miracle of gene therapy. Image of Isla and Jude Donnell

Chasing the miracle of gene therapy

For Megan Donnell’s family, the DNA-altering revolution cannot come soon enough

Screen addiction. Illustration

Screen addiction

As more of our lives are lived online, more people aren’t coping

At the edge of comprehension. Image of Rene Kulitja, The Man in the Log

At the edge of comprehension

In Central Australia, the Anangu people and Western health professionals are working towards a common language


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Economics


What the government thinks you’re worth

Our nation’s economists have a price on your head, dead or alive

APEC comes to PNG . Illustration

APEC comes to PNG

Shipped-in Maseratis and single-use venues are a world away from real life in Port Moresby

Labor’s great big new tax plan. Illustration

Labor’s great big new tax plan

Bill Shorten wants to reframe how we tackle the budget

Dead Right. Image of Quarterly Essay 70, ‘Dead Right’, by Richard Denniss

Dead Right

How neoliberalism redefined growth in the ugliest of ways – a Quarterly Essay extract

A very early retirement

One man’s pursuit of a life without work

Held to account

Why is the cost of banking in remote communities so high?


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History


The search for the Endeavour. Illustration

The search for the Endeavour

After all that, where did Cook’s ship end up?

A Norfolk Island mutiny. Illustration

A Norfolk Island mutiny

Australia’s remote territory is agitating for autonomy

Barron Field and the myth of terra nullius. Detail of a painting of Barron Field

Barron Field and the myth of terra nullius

How a minor poet made a major historical error

Filling a big hole in the property market. Illustration

Filling a big hole in the property market

The old Cave Hill quarry in Melbourne will be home to thousands

Laurie Matheson, our man in Moscow. Image of Laurie Matheson

Laurie Matheson, our man in Moscow

Was ‘Australia’s James Bond’ working for the KGB? Or ASIO? Or both?

Mike Parr’s invisible performance and Tasmania’s complex past. Image of Mike Parr, Underneath the Bitumen the Artist

Mike Parr’s invisible performance and Tasmania’s complex past

Underneath the bitumen in Hobart, history becomes art


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Science & Technology


What happened to broadband in Australia?. Image of Stephen Conroy and Michael Quigley

What happened to broadband in Australia?

NBN Co’s former CEO on how the Coalition broke the internet

What is life?. DNA model at the American Museum of Natural History, New York, 1964

What is life?

In search of a unified theory of everything

A new theory of cancer. Coloured transmission electron micrograph of a cross-section through a cancer cell

A new theory of cancer

After billions spent for little benefit, it’s time to look at the disease in a different way

Performing the Anthropocene. Illustration

Performing the Anthropocene

Scientists, anthropologists and artists gather to make sense of the Earth’s new epoch

Can David Sinclair cure old age?. Image of David Sinclair

Can David Sinclair cure old age?

The Australian geneticist believes ageing is a disease we can treat

What we knew when about global warming. Illustration

What we knew when about global warming

Greenhouse gases took 200 years to become a hot topic


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Education


On Louise Adler, academic publishing and cultural barbarism

The debate about MUP has been remarkable for its intellectual poverty

Abbott, ANU and the decline of Western civilisation. Illustration

Abbott, ANU and the decline of Western civilisation

How the Ramsay Centre’s degree stopped before it started

The end of civilisation?. Image of John Howard launching the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation

The end of civilisation?

On the hyperbolic reaction to ANU’s decision to part ways with the Ramsay Centre

Salvaging ANU’s sodden books . Illustration

Salvaging ANU’s sodden books

How and why did the Chifley Library flood?

Could a computer mark a NAPLAN essay?

If student assessment is automated, what might it miss?

Screen time, all the time. Image of child looking at screen

Screen time, all the time

Do smart devices in classrooms help kids learn?


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World


Revisiting the kids of Angeles City. Photograph by Dave Tacon

Revisiting the kids of Angeles City

Three years on, how are the Filipino children of Australian sex tourists faring?

Fallen angels. © Dave Tacon

Fallen angels

The children left behind by Australian sex tourists in the Philippines

Censorship, sex and scandal in Singapore

For the city-state’s academics, freedom of speech is a sensitive subject

The Insult. Statue of a kouros in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens

The Insult

An incurious encounter takes flight

 The work of catfish. Katsushika Hokusai, 'Under the Wave off Kanagawa', c

The work of catfish

Reflections on Japan

The foundering miracle. Prime Minister Naoto Kan of Japan addresses the nation about the worsening situation at Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, 25 March 2011

The foundering miracle

Reflections on Japan


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Food


A near-impossible sell. Illustration

A near-impossible sell

Sprout farmer Bruce Adams has created one of Australia’s more unlikely oversized highway attractions

The next big thin

Dissecting dietary fads and habits

Masaaki’s sushi. Illustration

Masaaki’s sushi

Join the queue for Tasmania’s most sought-after Japanese

The dining boom. Wine distributors from China visit the Barossa Valley

The dining boom

Australia’s food and wine industry is the next big thing in China

Degustation Laconic

The language of menus

Gone Walkabout

The last Aussie-themed pub in London


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Travel


Walking the Wukalina Walk. Illustration

Walking the Wukalina Walk

A new four-day tour in Tasmania is owned and guided by Aboriginal people

Walking the Wukalina Walk. Illustration

Walking the Wukalina Walk

A new four-day tour in Tasmania is owned and guided by Aboriginal people

On the road to Gundagai. Source

On the road to Gundagai

An unexpected stop prompts the question: Just what is the deal with the Dog on the Tuckerbox?

Lessons from camels. © Juniors Bildarchiv GmbH / Alamy

Lessons from camels

A ten-day camel trek through the South Australian outback. With your parents.

The stopover

The prospect of 12 hours in Singapore airport gives rise to an existential crisis

The perfect cup of coffee

On an island in Nicaragua, a rocky incline stands between Steve Hely and the Holy Grail of caffeine


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Family & Relationships


Life in a coroners court. Illustration

Life in a coroners court

Meet those who speak for the dead to protect the living

How to speak ‘farm’. Illustration

How to speak ‘farm’

Warning: grubby work comes with grubby language

The death doula

Annie Whitlocke is helping to break the silence around grief and dying

To have or not to have: Sheila Heti’s ‘Motherhood’ and Jacqueline Rose’s ‘Mothers’. Covers of Motherhood and Mothers

To have or not to have: Sheila Heti’s ‘Motherhood’ and Jacqueline Rose’s ‘Mothers’

Heti’s novel asks if a woman should have a child; Rose’s nonfiction considers how society treats her if she does

Child protection doesn’t always protect children. Text of transcript from Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory

Child protection doesn’t always protect children

When families in the Northern Territory need help, removing children isn’t necessarily the answer

The amazing true story of a sex ed outrage. Illustration from the book The Amazing True Story of How Babies Are Made

The amazing true story of a sex ed outrage

Why did a children’s book published three years ago suddenly go viral?


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Law & Order


The cases against Colin Manock. Illustration

The cases against Colin Manock

Calls mount for a royal commission into SA’s former forensic pathologist

The retrial of David Eastman. Image of David Eastman’s arrest, 1992

The retrial of David Eastman

AFP officer Colin Winchester was gunned down 30 years ago, and yet another twist in the case only just played out

How you are when you leave

This must be how it feels to retire

Drugs: on medication, legalisation and pleasure. Image of cannabis crop

Drugs: on medication, legalisation and pleasure

What role can cannabis and psychedelics play in modern medicine?

Courtroom drama, Broadmeadows style

The hopeful and the hapless flow through a magistrates’ court

Islam on the inside. Illustration

Islam on the inside

Queensland’s first Muslim prison chaplain has first-hand experience of the system


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Indigenous Australia


A fresh canvas for Indigenous politics. Photo of Anangu artists Christine Brumby, Charmaine Kulitja, Rene Kulitja and Happy Reid with the Uluru statement canvas

A fresh canvas for Indigenous politics

The Uluru statement is headed for referendum

Tuckshop intervention . Illustration

Tuckshop intervention

How did buying lunch in a Northern Territory school get so complicated?

Saving Jabiru. Illustration

Saving Jabiru

What happens when a Northern Territory town reaches its mandated expiry date?

Tony Abbott: from backbench rebel to backbench envoy on Indigenous affairs. Image of Tony Abbott

Tony Abbott: from backbench rebel to backbench envoy on Indigenous affairs

This Clayton’s appointment has already come unstuck

The return of the Moree Boomerangs. Illustration

The return of the Moree Boomerangs

The First on the Ladder arts project is turning things around for a rugby club and the local kids

Voice, Treaty, Truth. Illustration

Voice, Treaty, Truth

An uncoordinated approach to treaty-making creates a quandary for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples


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National Security


Nuclear brinkmanship and the doomsday scenario. Image of Marshall Islands, 1946

Nuclear brinkmanship and the doomsday scenario

The risk posed by the global weapons complex is much worse than you know

Looking for moles. Image of surveillance of David Combe

Looking for moles

The third volume in ASIO’s official history confirms infiltration by Soviet intelligence

China flexes. Illustration

China flexes

The dispute over the South China Sea will come to affect more than just China’s near neighbours

Spies like Oz. ASIO surveillance photograph of the 1968 May Day March in Wollongong

Spies like Oz

John Blaxland’s ‘The Protest Years: The Official History of ASIO 1963–1975’

Oil and water. Robert Domm interviews Xanana Gusmão, October 1990

Oil and water

Australia blurs the lines with Timor-Leste

Lines in the sand. Mischief Reef, Spratly Islands, June 2015

Lines in the sand

The US and China’s struggle for power in Asia


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Gender


Terri Butler’s rise through the rancour. Illustration

Terri Butler’s rise through the rancour

The Queensland Labor MP on the hustings and the hating

Notes from a strip club. Image of a strip club

Notes from a strip club

Work as a stripper wasn’t quite what this newcomer imagined

A woman walks alone at night. © Mohd Shahrizal CC BY 2

A woman walks alone at night

On freedom and creativity, limitation and control

Making women’s unpaid work count. Image of Women’s Liberation march, Sydney, 1972

Making women’s unpaid work count

Feminist economics pioneer Marilyn Waring on care and the unfinished feminist revolution

Taking stock of #MeToo

How do we make sense of such a complex movement?

The snip. © Eraxion / iStock

The snip

It’s a simple procedure, but having a vasectomy can raise questions of masculinity and equality


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Sport


An AFL 2019 census. Illustration

An AFL 2019 census

A droll-call of the season’s best and brightest

Feliks Zemdegs, Rubik’s champion . Illustration

Feliks Zemdegs, Rubik’s champion

Meet the world’s fastest cuber

The AFL’s concussion problem. Matt Dea, July 27, 2018

The AFL’s concussion problem

Is the league running interference on the damage concussion can cause?

The Commonwealth Games: inspired integration. Image of Kurt Fearnley

The Commonwealth Games: inspired integration

The level of inclusion on the Gold Coast has been a breakthrough

It’s just not cricket. Image of Malcolm Turnbull

It’s just not cricket

Sledging is unlikely to improve, on the field or in politics

Nick Kyrgios: talent to burn. Image of Nick Kyrgios

Nick Kyrgios: talent to burn

Five short pieces about one of tennis’s most misunderstood players


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