Comment

On April 11, the fifth anniversary of his imprisonment, I lined up outside Belmarsh prison to visit Julian Assange. The process of entering the vile brick buildings, even as a visitor, is designed to humiliate and degrade.

I have seen the worst our world can do. I have covered war and misery in more than 50 countries. I have seen the Hobbesian world: a war of all against all. Sometimes killers praised God – sometimes God was at the head of the armies. But that wasn’t God … Suffering did not drive me from God, it drew me to God.

Without fanfare, the prime minister attended early mass at St Christopher’s Cathedral in Canberra last Sunday, where he joined other worshippers in praying for the victims and survivors of the Bondi Junction shopping centre knife attack. The prayers were also for the nation and its leaders in times that had suddenly become dramatically less certain.

Scathing independent assessments of the Environment Protection Biodiversity and Conservation (EPBC) Act, amid mounting evidence of biodiversity loss and habitat destruction, have presented the Albanese government with a once-in-a-generation opportunity to strengthen Australia’s environmental framework.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has cleverly set the framework for the contest at the next election with his recent speech outlining his vision for this country as a low-carbon economy.

Glue traps were first patented in America in 1980, apparently by pest controller J. T. Eaton, although they were almost certainly used at an earlier date. In this way, they are like cocaine lunches in the Sydney media.

Poor strategic planning is a disturbing feature of government in this country. It may be attributable in part to the short political cycle, which mandates a federal election within three years.

The fissures between our political parties over the six-month-old conflict in Gaza widened dramatically this week after a major speech by Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong. It is a harbinger of the sort of bitter campaigning we can expect in the run-up to the next election.

The problem is a society-wide ... failure to accommodate the needs of autistic people, embrace our way of thinking, and treat us equitably. It’s general ignorance of the nuanced reality of autism that has resulted in stigma, shame, stereotyping, systemic discrimination and disadvantage.

There are more billionaires today than at any other point in history. Their combined wealth is greater than the gross domestic product of every country except China and the United States. That wealth has more than doubled in the past decade.