The kids aren’t all right

A survey of 1,243 Year 11 students from 39 schools across Eastern Australia raises some worrying questions about teenagers’ mental health.

Smooth sailing or choppy waters?

Australia, New Zealand and the US are working hard to build trust and demonstrate their reliability to their Pacific partners, but much work remains to be done.

Give gambling ads the boot from sport

Society gained from removing tobacco advertising from our TV screens and billboards and we should treat the pernicious and ubiquitous gambling adverts which have infected sport just the same.

Down in the dumps

Australians’ satisfaction with life as a whole is at its lowest level in 21 years, according to the latest Australian Unity Wellbeing Index survey.

Make room, make room!

Successive Australian governments have used high levels of immigration to artificially inflate growth figures and create demand in the economy, but the influx of hundreds of thousands of people a year into Australia’s cities has contributed to the housing, schooling and congestion crisis now affecting all Australians.

Stampeding to the cliff

Lemmings don’t willingly jump off a cliff as a group, but humans often can. An international group of doctors and public health experts have joined the clamour for a moratorium on AI research until the development and use of the technology are properly regulated.

China’s water grab drains the Mekong Delta

The once mighty Mekong Delta has been starved of water in recent years by Chinese dams and extraction upstream, causing environmental and economic havoc for Vietnam.

Perusing the Budget Papers

The economic data released in the Budget papers show the economic outlook remains grim.

Pomp and circumstance

The first coronation of a British monarch since 1953 comes at a time of reckoning for the monarchy, the royal family and the Commonwealth.

What does a King do all day?

The monarch’s various duties may be largely symbolic, but symbols are powerful articulations of our shared values, relationships, and histories.

On deterrence

The discussion of deterrence in the Government’s new defence review opens an interesting debate on the use and relevance of the concept to the future of warfare.

The hardscrabble lives of the selectors

In the second half of his family memoir, Bernie O’Kane explains the struggles of early farmers in Victoria, the trials of family life and the coming of mechanisation in the late 19th century.