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Former prime minister Kevin Rudd was deposed a decade ago.

Only one way Scott Morrison can end a decade of political dysfunction

Ten years after Julia Gillard knifed Kevin Rudd, the coup culture is alive and well.

  • by Peter Hartcher

Latest

China has issued a warning for students travelling to Australia.
Opinion
University

Proposed overhaul of university fees nothing short of radical

Liberal arts graduates are taught to question power and democracy. It's tempting to see this move as a step towards cultivating compliant, "quiet Australians" instead.

  • by Tim Soutphommasane
Dan Tehan has proposed significant changes to fees for university courses.
Opinion
University

A simpler reset could have met Dan Tehan's education aims

The central concern is that the winners from the package will get discounts to study courses they would have chosen anyway.

  • by Andrew Norton
A new civil rights era may be about to dawn and catch out Prime Minister Morrison.
Opinion
Racism

Wave unleashed by Black Lives Matter may yet overtake Scott Morrison

If the Morrison government continues to react defensively on race it may find itself out of step with our US ally.

  • by George Megalogenis
Letters
Letters

History teaches lessons for future generations

What Ben Boyd did was wrong by today's standards but, like much of history, you have to consider it in the context of its time.

Former Powerhouse Museum director Peter Denham in front of the Boulton and Watt steam engine in 2017.
Opinion
City life

Powerhouse Museum will run out of puff in Parramatta

The Powerhouse 'move', now imminent, will see its priceless collection broken up, separated, decontextualised, diminished, disrespected and mothballed.

  • by Elizabeth Farrelly
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Illustration by Kerrie Leishman.
Opinion
Careers

Change can be a slow process – and that's the way it should be

When we feel powerless to make changes or want them quickly, we can be susceptible to the lure of simple formulas.

  • by Jim Bright
The defaced statue of Captain Cook in the Edinburgh Gardens, North Fitzroy.
Opinion
Indigenous culture

Archives are only what the victors have left behind

That might be why a lot of writers who are interested in the past, and how it got us to today, are writing fiction.

  • by Jenny Sinclair
Off-Grid Guy particularly loved George Calombaris and Pete Evans and often wondered how they’d been faring.
Opinion
Satire

Off-Grid Guy emerges into a wonderful new world, or so he thinks

After six months in a cave it seemed the world had transformed into a kinder, cleaner and more civilised place.

  • by Danny Katz
Minister for Education Dan Tehan at the National Press Club in Canberra.
Editorial
University

The agony and ecstasy of a degree in humanities

The federal government should not gut arts degrees to pay for STEM courses.

  • The Herald's View
Prime Minister Scott Morrison reveals a state-based cyber attack targeting Australian government and business.
Analysis
Cyber security

Don't dismiss cyber threat as an imaginary problem or political stunt

The Prime Minister faced questions over whether he was crying wolf when it emerged there was no single incident to trigger an alarm on cyber security.

  • by David Crowe
Protesters made their feelings clear outside Rio Tinto's Perth headquarters.
Opinion
Governance

Rio failed, now comes a big test for shareholders

Rio Tinto's blunder in destroying the Juugan Gorge cave site will test big shareholders' views on corporate social responsibility.

  • by Elizabeth Knight
Australia and New Zealand are joining forces for the 2023 Women's World Cup bid.
Analysis
FIFA Women's World Cup

'Not that way': Lessons from failed 2022 World Cup bid give Australia and New Zealand hope

After controversially spending $45 million 10 years ago, Australia is putting its faith back in FIFA to win the right to host the Women's World Cup in 2023.

  • by Dominic Bossi and Michael Lynch
Workers prepare a grave to bury suspected COVID-19 victims at Pondok Ranggon cemetery in Jakarta, Indonesia, last Friday.
Analysis
Coronavirus pandemic

The world's next coronavirus hotspot is emerging next door

Indonesia's coronavirus infection rate is rising rapidly, and the government faces a stark choice.

  • by James Massola
Fair Work Commission President Iain Ross has handed down the minimum wage decision.
Analysis
Please Explain podcast

Please Explain podcast: what does a higher minimum wage mean for the economy?

National editor Tory Maguire is joined by industrial relations reporter Nick Bonyhady to discuss the decision to raise the minimum wage.

  • by Tory Maguire
Despite our ease with A-to-Z, the sequence needed time to embed into the Western mind.
Opinion
WordPlay

Alphabetical order is not always as easy as ABC

Despite our ease with A-to-Z, the sequence needed time to embed into the Western mind.

  • by David Astle
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Jockey Billy Egan rides Plein Ciel to a tight victory last weekend - breaking the whip rules in the process.
Opinion
Horse racing

Flouting the whip and Cojuangco's passing show racing's depth of change

Jockeys using a ball and chain, like medieval jousting, will be the only way a protest will be upheld in Australia for whip abuse this weekend.

  • by Max Presnell
Zhang Xiaogang's Bath. The White Rabbit Collection, Sydney © Zhang Xiaogang.
Opinion
Review

Chinese artists paint subtle messages in Sydney's most engaging show

White Rabbit presents stellar paintings and a "must-see" video by Liu Chuang, intriguingly titled "Bitcoin Mining and Field Recordings of Ethnic Minorities".

  • by John McDonald
Samraing Chea, As that Moving Truck Arrives, A Heroic Kid and His Family are about to Move their Stuff from Their House, 2017; greylead and colour pencil on paper, 25 x 32.5 cm
Spectrum

Problematic or romantic? Why self-taught artists don't quite fit

The establishment can't quite decide what to do with artists such as Samraing Chea.

  • by Tiarney Miekus
Vivienne Westwood wedding dress, from Sex and The City. Movies and shows marketed to women still often feature female actresses as the girlfriend, bride or wife.
Opinion
Marriage

Why is marriage still viewed as a prize?

When I was growing up, my parents emphasised school and career before marriage. Social and pop culture taught me otherwise.

  • by Amisha Padnani
Analysis
NRL 2020

From cap cheats to team to beat: how Eels got mojo back after 34 years

Parramatta had million-dollar players before million-dollar players were even a thing. But things have changed.

  • by Michael Chammas
who can remember what the office looks like or if the pot plants are alive?
Opinion
Workplace

Navigating the terrain of the office jungle again

After three months working from home, I’m back in the office from Monday. I hope I’ll remember the rules.

  • by Richard Glover
Sydney Domestic Airport during travel restrictions.
Opinion
Coronavirus pandemic

Travellers from NSW and Victoria are low risk so why aren't we talking about opening borders to them?

The risk of allowing people from NSW and Victoria to travel to no-virus zones are not negligible but they can be mitigated.

  • by Tony Blakely
Organising extracurricular activities such as piano lessons often falls to the mother.
Opinion
Budgeting

Five questions to decide if you should keep or kibosh your kids' activities

Post-isolation, almost every parent wants to cut the chaos of extracurricular activities as well as some of the cost.

  • by Nicole Pedersen-McKinnon
Kevin Roberts' eventual replacement will have plenty of work to do uniting all facets of the game.
Opinion
Cricket Australia

Roberts axing symptomatic of cricket's wider malaise

While it has suffered no financial loss (yet) to the COVID crisis, cricket has suffered all the pain and a change at the top won't be an instant fix.

  • by Malcolm Knox
Former Adelaide star Mark Ricciuto.
Analysis
AFL 2020

Why can't Crows shake off the 'C' word?

Adelaide are still haunted by the ill-advised training camp after their 2017 grand final capitulation.

  • by Caroline Wilson
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“Working from home results in an employee performing worse," researchers found.
Opinion
Work in Progress

Why working from home is bad for productivity

A new global study is casting doubt on the idea that remote work is as good as face-to-face.

  • by James Adonis
Tim Mannah may be retiring, but he will remain involved with the Eels.
Opinion
NRL 2020

Why should acrobats have a better safety net than NRL players

The NRL’s decision to cancel Isaac Moses’ accreditation as an player agent is both important and also illustrative of the inherent weakness in the governing body alone regulating agency activities.

  • by Darren Kane
Josh Frydenberg confirmed Australia is in recession earlier in June and there will be tough times to come.
Opinion
Australian recession

Recovery from recession won't get us out of the low-growth trap

Nearly all the stimulus to get the country going again will need to come from the budget but even if we do recover from this recession it won't eliminate the economy's structural weakness.

  • by Ross Gittins
Peter Tuchman
Analysis
World markets

Wall Street rewrites market playbooks as second wave looms

As the world braces for a second wave of infections from the coronavirus, investors are dumping tried and true strategies.

  • by Ruth Carson and Abhishek Vishnoi
A statue of King Leopold II in Brussels earlier this month.
Opinion
Rwanda

Why the name of a monster, Leopold, has no place on Australian soil

The King Leopold Ranges are to get a new Indigenous name. About time. And here's why.

  • by Tony Wright
The Bank of Japan has unleashed its largest injection of US dollar liquidity since the GFC.
Opinion
Currencies

Japan's currency could be the safest bet there is in an uncertain world

With no truly safe bets during a wild year for financial markets, there's now a hunt to cover all eventualities and Japan's yen could offer a peculiar twin role.

  • by Mike Dolan
Who controls what in our harbour? Tensions have erupted between the federal and state Coalition governments.
Opinion
Sydney landmarks

My federal colleagues dudded NSW on Sydney Harbour

The NSW Minister for Planning and Public Spaces writes of his anger at being kept in the dark by Coalition colleagues in Canberra about the harbour's future.

  • by Rob Stokes
A Black Lives Matter protest in Sydney, where protesters held a banner for both George Floyd in the US and David Dungay Jr in Australia.
Opinion
Black Lives Matter

Remembering George Floyd in grief, outrage and a fierce desire to do better

The US ambassador to Australia writes of his heartbreak over George Floyd's death. He says friends such as the US and Australia rightly hold each other to high standards.

  • by Arthur B. Culvahouse jnr
The Captain Cook statue in the Edinburgh Gardens, Fitzroy North was defaced with phrases including 'Destroy white supremacy'.
Opinion
Indigenous

Lack of reconciliation remains our crowning failure

Reconciliation isn’t some gift to give magnanimously to Indigenous people, but something the nation as a whole needs for its own sake.

  • by Waleed Aly
Letters
Letters

The stain on both sides of politics is hard to remove

Just when it was looking as though social distancing might be helping to keep one pandemic at bay, another perennial plague rears its head.

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Illustration: John Shakespeare
Opinion
Work therapy

Watching Trump makes me feel more competent at my job

Every now and then I feel useless and worry I'm a fraud, but I have my own way of dealing with this.

  • by Jonathan Rivett
In the Herald
Australia

In the Herald : June 19, 1982

Breath test buses, National Trust book sale and saving the milko.

  • by Lyn Maccallum
Those who have lost jobs or lost work – two crucially different things – can sense the end of the support they need.
Opinion
Australian economy

Disentangling stimulus payments comes with extreme political risk

The Morrison government is taking its time to work out a way of winding back its fiscal stimulus. The stakes - social, economic and political - could not be higher.

  • by David Crowe
How do you handle conflict when you and your partner or flatmates differ on how to interpret the new rules?
Opinion
Coronavirus pandemic

New pandemic rules: When you are right and everyone else is wrong

How do you handle conflict when you and your partner or flatmates differ on the new rules?

  • by Linda Blair
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - JUNE 18: Bachar Houli of the Tigers handballs during the round 3 AFL match between the Richmond Tigers and the Hawthorn Hawks at Melbourne Cricket Ground on June 18, 2020 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
Analysis
AFL 2020

Done and Dusty-ed: Tigers flunk the Martin test

This was probably the worst half of footy Richmond has offered since 2016, in terms of intensity and execution. The pressure on the opposition - the trait that most defines the Tigers since 2017 - was as absent as Dustin Martin.

  • by Jake Niall
Column 8 granny dinkus
Opinion
Column 8

Unusually limber bovines and other concocted scenarios

Transition from city to country contained in the dust cloud.

Brett Cumming, Principal of Broken Hill North Public School.
Opinion
MyCareer Education

'Our school is really like a big family'

One school principal's journey from banking, hospitality and labouring to teaching.

  • by Brett Cumming
Josh Frydenberg and Scott Morrison talk about the heartbreak unemployment figures.
Editorial
Federal budget

Fiscal stimulus needed to stop unemployment rising still higher

The government must not fatalistically accept a prolonged recession.

  • The Herald's View
Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge may need to change his messaging to his players.
Opinion
AFL 2020

Does Luke Beveridge need to switch up his approach with the Bulldogs?

What he managed to do with the Bulldogs back in 2016 was nothing short of incredible. But does Luke Beveridge need to change his messaging after another lacklustre performance?

  • by Wayne Carey
Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg during Question Time at Parliament House in Canberra on Thursday 18 June 2020. fedpol Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
Analysis
Please Explain podcast

Please Explain podcast: The thing keeping the PM up at night

In this episode, national editor Tory Maguire is joined by national economics correspondent Jennifer Duke to discuss housing prices, migration levels and the May jobs report released today. 

  • by Tory Maguire
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Trent Robinson, Michael Gordon and Danny Buderus Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest free-standing mountain in the world.
Opinion
NRL 2020

Sermon on the mount: Trent Robinson's greatest pre-game speech

It didn't come in a dressing-room but on the side of Mount Kilimanjaro as part of a Mark Hughes Foundation trek to raise funds for brain cancer research and support.

  • by Andrew Webster
Beverly Johnson during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in 2014.
Opinion
Racism

I was the first black model on the cover of Vogue. The fashion industry still isn't fixing its racism

An American supermodel and actress proposes a new rule in her name to address entrenched racism.

  • by Beverly Johnson
Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.
Analysis
Coronavirus pandemic

The budget rebuild runs into the reality of a terrible jobs market

Unemployment figures have highlighted the tension facing the Morrison government with demands to repair the budget and the need to support the economy.

  • by Shane Wright
A Chinese man who goes by the internet alias "Forest Intelligence" is a member of one group spreading anonymous calls online for pro-democracy protests in China.
Analysis
Trade wars

Welcome to the splinternet: We're heading towards a digital cold war

As tensions between the US and China intensify over trade and COVID-19, it is not just the internet which is splitting in two. Two distinct tech worlds are taking shape, threatening to bring a new era of tensions.

  • by Margi Murphy and Matthew Field