Essays & reportage
23 October 2013
Charmian Clift’s Peel Me a Lotus has inspired Australian women travel writers for over half a century, but the result has been a quite different kind of writing,…
Essays & reportage
14 October 2013
A murder trial in Alice Springs held up a mirror to the town’s dealings with issues of race, writes Kieran Finnane, and the inter-racial dynamics turned out to be…
Essays & reportage
14 October 2013
Unlike Australia, the European Union buckled on plain packaging in the face of fierce lobbying, writes James Panichi. Still not satisfied, the tobacco industry sought to…
Essays & reportage
27 September 2013
Within months of the end of the second world war, an iron curtain had fallen across Europe. Its impact reached into the inner suburbs of Melbourne, writes Geoffrey Barker
Essays & reportage
26 September 2013
Indi’s new local member Cathy McGowan fits into a long tradition of independently minded country MPs. In this extract from her new book, Jackie Dickenson traces the…
Essays & reportage
24 September 2013
Has the environment movement failed to frame the climate debate effectively?
Essays & reportage
15 September 2013
Measured by income, most Australians have never had it so good. But some groups are falling dramatically behind. Peter Whiteford warns of the dangers of residualising the poor
Essays & reportage
10 September 2013
The electorate of Indi has been changed forever, write Cambell Klose and Nick Haines from Cathy McGowan’s campaign
Essays & reportage
6 September 2013
Can conservation, tourism and industry coexist in Tasmania’s Tarkine wilderness? Kimberley Croxford looks at the current controversy and the contending pressures
Essays & reportage
3 September 2013
Kathy Marks visits Australia’s most-watched suburbs
Essays & reportage
2 September 2013
A cross-dressing MI6 agent and a shadowy British anti-communist propaganda outfit were key players in the development of Australia’s cold war “soft diplomacy” program
Essays & reportage
26 August 2013
In many ways the opposition has already won this election by shifting the political middle ground, writes Dennis Altman
Essays & reportage
23 August 2013
Political bloggers brought a new rigour to interpreting the polls
Essays & reportage
20 August 2013
Has Labor’s campaign taken a fatal turn? History shows that divided control of campaign messages can be a disaster, writes Stephen Mills
Essays & reportage
30 July 2013
In his first stint as prime minister, Kevin Rudd set a target of halving homelessness by 2020. If he is still committed to that goal, then the Common Ground approach might chart a…
Essays & reportage
29 July 2013
How much has changed over the past four decades, asks Dennis Altman in this extract from his new book, The End of the Homosexual?
Essays & reportage
25 July 2013
The looming centenary of the landing at Gallipoli is a reminder of unfinished business between settler and Indigenous Australia after a decade of incomplete reconciliation
Essays & reportage
5 July 2013
Germaine Greer’s advice to Julia Gillard to “get rid of those bloody jackets!” created a furore. But perhaps she was onto something
Essays & reportage
4 July 2013
Disagreements about acceptable levels of inequality often rest on a misunderstanding of the existing distribution of income and wealth, writes Andrew Leigh
Essays & reportage
2 July 2013
The Grattan Institute has much of importance to contribute to the education debate, writes Dean Ashenden. Its hits and misses reveal a lot about Australian schooling, and…
Essays & reportage
1 July 2013
Targeting marginal seats is nothing new in politics, but the gambling industry has shown it can work for lobby groups too. James Panichi pieces together the story
Essays & reportage
29 June 2013
As managing editor of the Melbourne Herald, Keith Murdoch battled employers, sensation-mongering and overly large headlines in a remarkable series of notes to his senior…
Essays & reportage
21 June 2013
Despite the lack of boat arrivals, New Zealand has introduced new laws to deal with irregular migrants arriving by sea. Could it be that the New Zealand government is afraid that…
Essays & reportage
9 May 2013
The NT government’s abolition of the Banned Drinkers Register has divided opinion in Central Australia, writes Eleanor Hogan
Essays & reportage
30 April 2013
By the end of the year, Australia’s cinema industry will no longer be a film industry. Jock Given looks at what this means for storytelling on the big screen
Essays & reportage
30 April 2013
Amateur astronomers are making a unique contribution to science’s understanding of the universe, reports Marilyn Moore
Essays & reportage
3 April 2013
What would success taste like, wonders a Melbourne AFL supporter
Essays & reportage
1 March 2013
Overuse of antibiotics is not only creating resistant bacteria but also changing the ecology of the human body, writes Melissa Sweet
Essays & reportage
21 February 2013
We need to drop the idea that executive pay is some kind of “wage” that can be explained as an exchange on a labour market, writes Raewyn Connell
Essays & reportage
15 February 2013
The current system of teacher education isn’t working for many students. Dean Ashenden looks at the alternatives, and their adversaries