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Opinion

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Hawthorn’s coach Sam Mitchell has made a quick impact.
Analysis
AFL 2024

Pressure check: How the Hawthorn Hawks lost the game and won the season

Port Adelaide, pumped and primed to atone for their embarrassing display against Geelong, gave Hawthorn precisely what they didn’t experience against the Western Bulldogs one week earlier.

  • by Jake Niall

Latest

We are encouraged to believe that carefully selected work can provide rich rewards beyond money.
Opinion
Jobs

Looking for the ideal job: The big but misguided claim about work

We are encouraged to believe that carefully selected work can provide rich rewards beyond money.

  • by Jim Bright
Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley.
Analysis
AFL 2024

Old school versus Hokball: Inside Ken Hinkley’s attack on Jack Ginnivan

The most lenient view of the Ken Hinkley invective towards Jack Ginnivan is of an old-school coach unable to abide the look-at-me antics of modern footballers.

  • by Jake Niall
The Bulldogs ball control has hurt them as much as anything in the past fortnight.
Analysis
NRL 2024

What has happened to the best defence in the NRL? And can it be fixed?

In just two weeks, Canterbury’s prize-winning defence has been demolished by finals opponents. But it may take only a simple fix to restore its steel.

  • by Dan Walsh
Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy with quarterback Dak Prescott.

Only in America: Dallas Cowboys’ season theme lost in translation

Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up. The Dallas Cowboys have done us all a big favour.

  • by Peter FitzSimons
Defence Minister Richard Marles this week stripped officers of medals.
Editorial
ADF

Caution is needed, but war crime investigation delays are of concern

The Office of the Special Investigator needs to proceed carefully but every day that justice is delayed increases the chances that it will be denied.

  • The Age's View
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Steven Smith, a 200-game player and best and fairest with the Demons, outside the MCG in 2021.
Analysis
AFL 2024

Why a Demons presidency candidate put Melbourne in the too-hard basket

Former 200-game Demon Steven Smith had been seen as someone who could take over as president.

  • by Caroline Wilson
Prospective buyers are being taken for a ride.

I’m a real estate agent and would-be buyers are being conned at auctions every weekend

Auctions have always been a balance between integrity and street theatre, but the balance has been disrupted and infiltrated by deceitful practices.

  • by John Keating

When our King visits Oz, it’s the monarchy that should go ‘walkabout’

If Australians are too preoccupied with the cost of living to care about the monarchy, perhaps King Charles could take the initiative – and self-abolish his reign over us.

  • by Malcolm Knox

Kamala played all the Trump cards, but one of them was risky

By emphasising race – something she has so far downplayed, as Obama did in 2008 – Kamala Harris runs the risk of playing into her opponent’s hands.

  • by Nick Bryant

If we’re going to ban kids off social, what on earth will they do outside?

Banning access to social media for young people is an honourable idea, but we need to make sure they have other things to do instead.

  • by Daisy Turnbull
There are methods for feeling less guilty about doing nothing.

What does it mean to be retirement ready?

Here are the levers you should start with to take charge of your retirement.

  • by Bec Wilson
Panthers halfback Nathan Cleary.
Analysis
NRL 2024

If there is a rugby league God, maybe he wears the Panthers No.7

Six days ago, the Panthers finally looked like they’d run out of puff. Turns out the joke was on us.

  • by Adam Pengilly
Letters to the editor
Opinion
The Age

My Age letters keep getting rejected. Don’t people realise I’m Erudite of Aireys Inlet?

I’ve been studying the most successful letter writers from across Victoria and I think I’ve cracked the code. For a start, live near a large body of water.

  • by Megan Stoyles
Sydney’s Isaac Heeney takes a spectacular mark against GWS.
Opinion
AFL 2024

Hey Sydney, it’s OK little bro, we haven’t forgotten you

Rumblings out of Sydney about how Melbourne is shunning the Swans and Giants betray a paranoia that used to be a Melburnian affliction.

  • by Greg Baum
Dustin Martin played his final AFL match against the Kangaroos on July 30.
Analysis
AFL 2024

‘A good fit’: Inside Dusty’s bid to rekindle his career with Hardwick’s Suns

The renewal of talks between the triple Norm Smith medallist, arguably the greatest Tiger of all time, and Gold Coast happened quickly, after an initial slow burn.

  • by Sam McClure and Jon Pierik
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“Free lunch and milk”. A campaign poster outside a Prabowo Subianto rally before the February election.

An election promise of free food may end up with fish milk on the menu

It is a rather unpleasant sounding beverage but, we are assured, tasty substitute for the real deal.

  • by Zach Hope and Karuni Rompies
Repeating the training process over and over again is frustrating.
Opinion
Employment

Work and identity: It’s a complicated relationship

The biggest risk to defining yourself by your job is what happens when it gets taken away.

  • by Tim Duggan
Pickleball racquets are a super-light paddle, bigger than a table tennis bat but smaller than a tennis racquet. The balls are made of perforated plastic.
Opinion
Wellbeing

My tennis club banned pickleball. Here’s what happened next

I’m not sure why it’s turned into an “us and them” match. I’m yet to hear any pickleballer complain about tennis players.

  • by Gayle Bryant
Storm scrum try to Grant Anderson against Penrith.
Analysis
NRL 2024

Why scrums are now rugby league’s sexiest play

The humble rugby league scrum allows for more one-on-one defensive match-ups than anywhere on the field.

  • by Dan Walsh and Roy Ward
Nick Kyrgios

Mic drop: Why we need Nick Kyrgios off our TV screens

Charismatic and insightful and vulnerable as the Australian is, these qualities do not offset the abusive and misogynistic behaviour he has once again demonstrated.

  • by Emma Kemp
Australian Federal Police examining seized equipment.
Analysis
Naked City

The predators that locked doors can’t stop

Criminal syndicates will provide anything for a price – and that includes child abuse material. For police, it’s a race against time to rescue the victim.

  • by John Silvester
The chocolate brown labrador that answers to Moose … his Australian owner, Manhattan-based writer  Greg Truman, wants to assure New Yorkers that he is not about to make a meal of Moose.

I’m a legal alien in New York. I promise I won’t eat your dog

Ever since Donald Trump cried wolf – “they’re eating the dogs” – it’s hard to look one in the eye without pondering: “Poached or roasted?”

  • by Greg Truman
Prince Harry will turn 40 later this week.

Prince Harry is about to find out how deceptive your 40s are

He has a show-stopping wife, healthy kids, creative freedom. But Harry’s next 10 years are going to be like playing Mario Kart.

  • by Kate Halfpenny
Australia’s female athletes led the way at Paris 2024, starting in the pool.

Sport’s push for board equality is laudable, but athletes must come first

If governing bodies aren’t managed for the athletes, and with their best interests at the epicentre, then frankly the organisations should be detonated.

  • by Darren Kane
When staff are treated differently it’s easy for some to be perceived as the “haves” and others, the “have-nots”.

Economists get things wrong – a lot. There’s one glaring problem

It starts with our 17 and 18-year-olds, but flows through to our toughest decisions. Here’s how we change the game.

  • by Millie Muroi
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Ivan Cleary and Jarome Luai.
Opinion
NRL 2024

How much longer can Penrith keep producing superstars for other clubs?

It takes considerable discipline to let players like Kikau, Crichton, Luai, Leniu and a score of others leave.

  • by Andrew Webster
I’d parked in a two-hour spot, knowing I’d be away for 30 minutes longer.
Opinion
Real life

Is there any joy so great as escaping a parking ticket?

Oh, the exhilaration. Oh. they joy! It’s like being handed $136, the crisp notes counted into my hand by a beneficent deity.

  • by Richard Glover
The Jacinta Allan government has made a number of policy switches.

Jacinta Allan’s list of broken promises is growing. Instead of being a bug, it should be a feature

For each backflip/reversal/change of heart, the Labor government has offered up an excuse. Some are more justifiable than others.

  • by Annika Smethurst

Albanese and Dutton have agreed on something. Just don’t expect a lasting bromance

On two big policies, the prime minister and opposition leader have reached agreement, but it’s hardly the start of a beautiful friendship.

  • by David Crowe

My colleague is being ridiculed for burping. How should I deal with this?

This could become a more serious issue if it’s left unaddressed.

  • by Jonathan Rivett

Why Larry the cat of 10 Downing Street wishes Starmer hadn’t won the election

This all seems a gigantic first-world problem for Larry, who could be on the mean streets of Ohio getting eaten by Trump’s illegal immigrants.

  • by Michelle Cazzulino
Nine chief executive Mike Sneesby.

Nine CEO is out the door and it was only a matter of time

The countdown to Mike Sneesby’s exit from Nine Entertainment started the minute his greatest board ally – former chairman Peter Costello – left in June.

  • by Elizabeth Knight
About 40 per cent of Australian enrolments are in non-government schools.

Blaming private schools for the underfunding of state schools is nonsense

Australia has far more private schools than most other countries in the OECD, so it is not surprising we spend more money on them.

  • by David Hastie
James Tedesco and Luke Keary last month.
Analysis
NRL 2024

The Roosters have a 5 per cent win record against Penrith and Melbourne. So, why are they any hope?

Even the Tigers have a better record against the two best sides of the past five years. But tenth time might be lucky for Trent Robinson against the Panthers.

  • by Dan Walsh
Trump

How Donald Trump’s ‘catastrophic’ debate shook up Wall Street

For much of this year, markets have been pricing in the implications of a second Trump presidency. After Wednesday’s debate, those “Trump trades” started to unravel.

  • by Stephen Bartholomeusz
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The pressure is building on Port Adelaide captain Connor Rozee, his team, and his coach.
Opinion
AFL 2024

Captain crunch: Star holds the key to team, and coach’s, finals fate

If the Power’s skipper doesn’t step up on Friday night, his team will be torn apart by the Hawks and the coach could lose his job.

  • by Kane Cornes
Many of my friends were supportive when I became a parent, but some have gone out of their way to tell me they don’t want to know about it.
Opinion
Parenting

I thought our friendship could survive anything. Then I fell pregnant

We tend to assume that it’s parents who ditch their child-free friends when a baby arrives. For me, though, it’s been the other way around.

  • by Zoya Patel
New York Jets’ Aaron Rodgers.

Why the NFL should not bring a game to Sydney

Hey, Mr Goodell, follow the ... ahem ... great success of rugby league and use Las Vegas to attract new fans.

  • by Peter FitzSimons
Bulldogs captain Stephen Crichton.
Opinion
NRL 2024

Bulldogs have had a great season – but this is why the party is about to end

This is one of the best weekends of the year – and I think the biggest winner will be one few are expecting.

  • by Andrew Johns
The Reserve Bank should be open to criticism.

Chalmers has every right to comment on what the Reserve Bank is doing to the economy

The RBA has a job to do, but let’s never forget it’s a bunch of unelected people wielding what amount to extraordinary powers. It’s not infallible, and it should not be verboten for an elected parliamentarian to note the effects of the RBA’s choices.

  • by Shaun Carney
Alcoa bauxite mining operations in an area that was once jarrah forest in Western Australia.

Australia’s nature-positive laws at risk as WA drives ‘nature negative’

The West Australian government, and sections of our media, are presenting a false picture of what WA voters want to the rest of the country.

  • by Jess Beckerling

The PM is sigma, but his ban plan belongs in the skibidi toilet

Of course Albanese was right when he declared “parents are worried sick” about social media, but we cannot return to the golden days when it didn’t exist.

  • by Alexandra Smith
The digital rage.
LETTERS
Letters

What is the point of an expo of war’s hardware?

Age read react to the military expo in Melbourne and the social media proposal by the PM.

Taylor Swift has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of the 2024 US election.

You need to calm down: Why Taylor’s endorsement hasn’t won Harris the election

Democrats may be dancing – metaphorically and probably literally. But is an Instagram post from Taylor Swift a signed, sealed and delivered election victory? Not yet.

  • by Katy Hall
Before the current standoff: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (left) and BHP chief executive Mike Henry (second from left) at BHP’s Kwinana nickel refinery in October 2022.

Tickets on sale: It’s the Big Australian vs the Australian government

So intense has the standoff between BHP and the Albanese government become that the parties are even contesting who started the fight.

  • by Elizabeth Knight
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Kamala sliced Trump like sashimi, when he wasn’t doing it himself

Trump saved his best for last, but it was too late to recover from what will go down as a genuinely shocking performance.

  • by Bruce Wolpe
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Opinion
Oil

Bleeding billions: The oil cartel is losing control of the market

The world is overflowing with oil, and OPEC has failed in its latest attempt to stop prices tumbling.

  • by Stephen Bartholomeusz
Graham Arnold deals with more dejection against Indonesia from the dugout in Jakarta.

Socceroos doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results

As unpleasant as it is to say, Australia’s struggles in possession against anything resembling an organised defence are starting to look like a Graham Arnold problem.

  • by Emma Kemp
Asking Google to undo the glitch became a saga.
Opinion
WordPlay

It’s hard to convince Google you’re not dead - just ask Tom Faber

The freelancer was shocked to find that the search engine had conflated him with a dead physicist.

  • by David Astle