Comment

When Bill Shorten began his reform of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the agency responsible for the scheme commissioned “narrative” work to help sell the changes. The man tasked with reviewing the scheme was shown the research before he was shown any modelling on cuts.

Australia cannot hold the weight of our diversity and claims for equality if there is not both a consensus and a commitment to what being Australian means. That is the first question we must ask ourselves: Who are we?

A lot of comparisons have been made with the 1979 oil price shock in recent weeks. The difference is that, in 1979, Australians had no choice but to absorb the shock. This time, many who can are quietly plotting their exit from petrol and diesel.

There is a view in the engine room of the federal government that the real leader of the opposition at the moment is not Angus Taylor but United States President Donald Trump. No one has done more to put Anthony Albanese’s government on tenterhooks than the mercurial incumbent at the White House.

In its response to this global fuel crisis, the Coalition has picked up the Trump administration’s fervent cry of ‘Drill, baby, drill.’ The most appropriate response should be: ‘Think, baby, THINK!’

My mother used to warn me that I was an easy target, and it turns out that extends well beyond my body. The people with the least power are always the easiest to question, the easiest to blame, and that is what ableism looks like when it is embedded into systems.

Truth-telling is not new in this country. For generations, First Peoples have been telling the truth about our histories, what was taken, and the enduring impacts of colonisation. What is new is this: Australia is starting to listen.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese won’t be the only world leader hoping that reconvened peace talks between Iran and the United States actually deliver what Donald Trump proclaimed this week had already happened.

Pete Hegseth increasingly sounds like Vladimir Putin. That association would, no doubt, flatter him. Like Putin, the United States Secretary of War speaks in biblical terms. As with Putin in Ukraine, Hegseth likens his Iran campaign to a holy war. Like Putin, he revels in the language of vengeance and violence. Like Putin, he has the bread of apocalypse in his mouth.

Projections suggest data centre cooling demand in Sydney could reach 250 megalitres a day by 2035, potentially accounting for up to a quarter of the city’s drinking water supply … There is currently no federal regulatory framework governing this demand.