• Security

    Water is a national security priority


    James Mortensen |  February 27, 2021


    It’s time for water management to receive scrutiny and oversight befitting our most pressing national security challenges. We need to catch the moment while the rain is falling, rather than face a hangover when our taps run dry.


  • Space

    Successful engine test brings Australian space launch capability a step closer


    Open Forum |  February 27, 2021


    An Australian research consortium has successfully tested a next generation propulsion system that could enable high-speed flight and space launch services. The team’s rotating detonation engine, or RDE, is a major technical achievement and an Australian first.


  • Politics and Policy

    Nurturing the deep roots of democracy


    Hilary Gopnik |  February 27, 2021


    The widely accepted story that democracy was a brilliant, even miraculous, invention of 5th-century BCE Athens, and that the West is the heir to that moment in time, has obscured the universal hard work that’s required to make democracy work well.


Latest Story

  • Tabi on racial matters: Let’s do better in normalising the talk about what racism is; through acceptance, knowledge and attitudes

    Gloria Tabi     |      February 22, 2021

    It’s everyone’s responsibility to combat racism, and younger workers want a work environment that is embedded with equality, diversity, inclusion and safety.

  • Can 2021 still be Australia’s year of Southeast Asia?

    Melissa Conley Tyler     |      February 22, 2021

    With multiple initiatives set to launch, 2021 was supposed to be the year Australia pivoted to Southeast Asia. Recent events in Myanmar will make this more challenging, but the underlying reasons for investing in Southeast Asia remain.

  • Counterpoint by Mark Nicol – What if versus what Is

    Mark Nicol     |      February 22, 2021

    The Western liberal tradition, and current progressive movements, are proving inadequate in the face of the existential environmental threat to the human species.

  • COVID helped restore our faith in government and each other

    Open Forum     |      February 21, 2021

    A new survey of public trust and cohesion finds the pandemic has brought us together, rather than driving us apart.

  • The new normal should be better than before

    Ross Garnaut     |      February 21, 2021

    Talk about returning the economy to normal after the crisis is misguided. Before the crisis, normal was nowhere near good enough and we can do better now.

  • Judicial repression in Hong Kong

    Brendan Clift     |      February 21, 2021

    Communist China’s remorseless strangulation of freedom in Hong Kong extends to its courts as well as politics and security.

  • Facebook could face serious consequences over news ban

    Craig Donaldson     |      February 20, 2021

    Facebook’s botched takedown of content publishers yesterday will likely have serious reputational and commercial consequences for the social media platform, says UNSW Business School’s Rob Nicholls.

  • China’s Hitler or Stalin?

    Charlie Lyons Jones     |      February 20, 2021

    Xi Jinping’s assumption of total power, his brutal internal repression of dissent and increasingly naked aggression against neighbouring countries has drawn comparisons with both Hitler and Stalin, but which of the 20th century’s great dictators does this 21st century tyrant most resemble?

  • QUT researchers celebrate Mars touchdown

    Open Forum     |      February 20, 2021

    QUT researchers are now ready to play their part in NASA’s search for signs of ancient life of Mars with the successful touchdown of the Mars Perseverance Rover.

  • Business changes tune on China

    Andrew Forrest     |      February 19, 2021

    It has taken years of blatant bullying from Beijing for Australian firms to finally realise that nothing short of complete capitulation would get Australia back on China’s good side.

  • Feel like breaking up with Facebook?

    David Tuffley     |      February 19, 2021

    Users of Open Forum’s Facebook page will note it has been stripped of content by the American social media giant. By way of celebration, here’s a user friendly guide on ridding Facebook from your life as well.

  • Facebook shoots itself in the foot

    Diana Bossio     |      February 19, 2021

    Facebook’s ban on Australian news is winning it no friends around the world, and may force it to return to its original purpose of facilitating personal connection and social networking, rather than posing as a forum for public information.