Latest Story
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Hold the line
Peter Fritz | October 16, 2026Another interest rate rise in November would close more businesses without bringing down the prices driving inflation as nearly half of them are set by governments and institutions.
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Democracy for sale
Gabriele Gratton | October 16, 2026Caps on donor funding may allow the political agenda to be led by foreign governments, multinationals and Big Tech with unlimited finances who are entirely unaccountable to the Australian voters.
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The ignorance settlement
Roger Chao | October 16, 2026As AI allows our institutions to know or infer more about us, we will have to come up with an ignorance settlement that we are prepared to live with.
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The high cost of health
Open Forum | October 16, 2026Hospital spending in Australia reached $123.4 billion in 2024–25, up 4% from the previous year and continuing to grow faster than spending on primary health care and prevention, according to new data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
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Bridge over troubled water
Bernard Paul Corden | October 15, 2026The deaths of 35 construction workers building Melbourne’s West Gate Bridge on 15 October 1970 continues to cast a long shadow over Australia’s construction industry, but have the lessons from that tragedy really been learned?
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Pacific voices heard before COP-31
Kathryn Bowen | October 15, 2026A series of meetings in Fiji before the COP 31 climate conference in Turkey heard pleas from Pacific leaders for more action on climate change.
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Storm clouds ahead
Open Forum | October 15, 2026CEDA’s analysis of the “misery index” which combines inflation, unemployment and interest rates, finds that all the improvement recorded since 2023 has now been reversed, driven by higher prices and interest rates.
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Fight the genie
Holly Elmore | October 15, 2026Calls are growing to halt the development of frontier AI models until it is safe to go ahead and public consent is obtained, as outlined by the founder of Pause AI USA in a recent debate at the Political Union at Yale University in the United States.
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What a fire leaves behind
Roger Chao | October 15, 2026A burn can have many cultural purposes and may also provide ecological benefits, but if we investigate the ecological effects of cultural burns, we should do so with Traditional Owners and respect their decisions about what information can be shared.
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The economy of the common good
John Hawkins | October 14, 2026International economist Mariana Mazzucato argues that governments should do more to shape how markets are governed in her new book “The Common Good Economy”.
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Tweedledum and tweedledumber
Stefan Wolff | October 14, 2026The deal struck by American autocrat Donald Trump with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on October 9 to allow Russia to sell millions of tonnes of diesel underlines Trump’s support for Russia against the democracies of Europe and Ukraine.
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The return of Josh Frydenberg
Michelle Grattan | October 14, 2026Josh Frydenberg, the Coalition’s former deputy leader and federal treasurer, is edging towards a political comeback after walking away from politics when he lost his seat.
