• The face of evil

    Matthew Sharpe     |      November 24, 2023

    Adolf Eichmann presented himself as a petty apolitical bureaucrat following orders in a vain attempt to escape the gallows, but his own words revealed him to be a ruthless ideologue committed to the Nazi regime and its ghastly goal of annihilation.

  • Moral fights

    Alan Stevenson     |      November 23, 2023

    Our commitments to moral values can hamper rather than motivate progress towards basic humanitarian goals, indeed, moral motivations frequently exacerbate rather than relieve suffering, injustice and hatred.

  • The great energy rip-off

    Open Forum     |      November 22, 2023

    Australia’s sky-high electricity prices are often blamed on the gradual switch to renewables or global inflationary pressures but the fact remains that network businesses have pocketed supernormal profits of $11 billion – on top of “normal” profits of $16 billion – since 2014.

  • The identity trap

    Hugh Breakey     |      November 17, 2023

    Yascha Mounk’s new book skewers the fashionable but flawed paradigm of post-Marxist identity politics which splits people into social groups to stoke conflict and revel in ‘oppression’.

  • Why don’t Jews feel safe?

    Michelle Grattan     |      November 13, 2023

    Jewish organisations have criticised Foreign Minister Penny Wong over her latest comments on the Israel-Gaza conflict, while Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles has said Jewish Australians “have never felt less safe”.

  • Australia’s seismic tremor

    Bob Ford     |      November 12, 2023

    Shockwaves from the violence in the Middle East have exposed and exacerbated the growing fault lines in Australian society, and only a fresh commitment to liberal values and national unity will help to heal them.

  • Fear, uncertainty and doubt

    Howard Manns     |      November 1, 2023

    Politics is a people business, and appealing to emotions – or ignorance – can be more effective than rational, fact based campaigns.

  • Addressing Australia’s gambling problem

    Patrick Whyte     |      October 28, 2023

    A QUT researcher has called for stronger government policy to regulate the online gambling environment, restrict marketing, establish behaviour change programs and provide better support for people with a gambling problem.

  • Eyes wide open

    Brendan Walker-Munro     |      October 27, 2023

    An unprecedented public announcement by senior officials in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance has identified China as the most sophisticated and sustained thief of intellectual property in the world.

  • First, do no harm

    Rachelle Buchbinder     |      October 24, 2023

    A prominent Monash academic argues that the medical system remains rife with overtreatment, overdiagnosis, and the medicalisation of normal conditions.

  • Remembering Bill Hayden

    Paul Strangio     |      October 22, 2023

    Opposition Leader, Foreign Minister, Governor-General, and perhaps the best Prime Minister Australia never had, the late Bill Hayden enjoyed a significant public career in service of his country.

  • Picturing loneliness in aged care

    Barbara Barbosa Neves     |      October 13, 2023

    Gerontology tends to offer a biomedical understanding of growing old but the arts and social sciences can look at cultural dimensions to understand ageing beyond “biological decline”.