Latest Story
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Mama, we’re all political now
Intifar Chowdhury | August 14, 2026Young people have become ‘fluid citizens’ who eschew formal institutions but retain the energy and drive to transform what people believe, fear, reject and demand
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China’s broken dream
Robert Wihtol | August 14, 2026Minxin Pei’s new book lifts the lid on China’s great democratic leap backward under Xi Jinping, revealing why the country’s embrace of capitalism has given rise to hard authoritarianism, mass surveillance, and one-man rule instead of greater democracy as many in the West had foolishly hoped.
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One Nation is coming for Labor as well
Emily Foley | August 14, 2026Much of One Nation’s surge in support has been driven by disaffected Coalition voters but Pauline Hanson’s appeal to working class voters worried about immigration and the economy should give Labor genuine cause for concern.
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The Thucydides trap in Western tech
Justin Bassi | August 13, 2026For the first time in modern memory, the nation posing the most threats to Australia – under sea, on the sea, in the sky, in cyberspace and in space itself – is our largest trading partner.
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Shouting into the void
Vivi Tan | August 13, 2026Complaints about accounts or content sent to online platforms often go nowhere so using AI moderators help, given their lack of human staff.
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25 years after A.I.
Nathan Abrams | August 13, 2026Released in 2001, Steven Spielberg’s “A.I.” predated smart phones, let alone Large Language Models but the film feels newly relevant as it explored the emotional and ethical questions that emerge when people form relationships with machines.
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Stitching nature’s wounds
Michelle Ward | August 12, 2026The federal government signed a global pledge in 2022 to protect and restore Australia’s degraded natural environment, but how much progress towards this laudable goal is really being made?
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The authoritarian arms trade
Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan | August 12, 2026China’s reported sale of shoulder-launched missile systems to Iran should be concerning not just to the United States but also to Australia and other major powers in the Indo-Pacific.
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Garbage in, garbage out
Open Forum | August 12, 2026Some AI models designed to predict stroke and diabetes risk may be based on datasets whose origins cannot be verified, according to new research.
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Delivering combat mass
Malcolm Davis | August 11, 2026The pressing need to resist the Russian invasion and a lack of support from the West has forced Ukraine to supercharge its own weapons development in ways that Australia can learn from when combating its own regional threat.
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Trucks v people
Milad Haghani | August 11, 2026Australian drivers in massive trucks – often armed with huge bullbars and driven with little care for other drivers or the rules of the road – are killing more pedestrians ever year.
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AI is already taking people’s jobs
Elise Stephenson | August 11, 2026After decades of telling young people to enter the knowledge economy, AI is threatening to take every job within it, leaving the traditional physical jobs performed by men the last refuge for gainful employment.
