The moral economy of intelligence

We do not have to keep finding things that humans can do and machines cannot in order to preserve human moral standing.

Justice as recruitment

Countries have a duty to see that migrants who leave their birthplace for richer countries do so under conditions that make sense.

Welfare-barrelling

Politicians are right to be worried that economic insecurity can fuel radical politics and Labor should do more to understand why some economically pressured voters are moving to parties it fears.

One standard

One Nation politicians deserve the same allowances for personal privacy, sexual freedom and rehabilitation after youthful indiscretions as everyone else.

When condemnation becomes distribution

News organisations must report offensive political speech without becoming its most efficient broadcaster.

Australia’s most expensive illusion

Why have Australians, otherwise alert to unfairness and quick to condemn political failure, accepted a settlement around work and housing that now punishes so many of them?

My roster doesn’t fit the world

If we want a country where the people who care for us can also care for their own children without breaking, we need to build a world where a nurse’s roster fits the world.

When the bus doesn’t come

Until we start treating regional mobility as part of the basic infrastructure of opportunity, not an optional extra, we will keep producing young Australians who are told, relentlessly, to “have a go”, while quietly being denied a way to get there.

Making people

Early childhood educators do some of the most important work in the country and our failure to honour them and pay them properly is undermining our future in the name of short-term thrift.

Perpetual peace – perpetual relevance

18th century German philosopher Immanuel Kant remains a central figure in modern philosophy, but his argument that ethics and governance should be rooted in reason rather than self-interest or superstition is threatened even in the Western world by the current resurgence of nationalism, authoritarianism and religious fundamentalism.

Sleeping in the driver’s seat

Older women’s homelessness confronts Australia with an uncomfortable truth – the line between “secure” and “homeless” has become thin enough that a respectable life can fall through it quickly.

Orientation week on the outside

Orientation or freshers week at University can be an exciting time for new students, but also brings burdens of its own.