The Kazakh president thought he’d been palmed off with second-rate visitors, but the vice-regal Australians eventually got under his guard ...

When another Newspoll dropped this week (51–49 in the Coalition’s favour, again) the Australian mentioned a change in how its pollsters will be estimating two-party-preferred figures between now and ...

“I cannot live with You —” goes Emily Dickinson’s poem. “It would be Life —/ And Life is over there —/ Behind the Shelf.” Once upon a time many Australian homes had the books of Patrick White out ...

Nations are built with pens and brushes not just hammers and nails. They exhibit their character in what they say about themselves as much as what is said about them. — Bruce Pascoe, Convincing Ground ...

Housing affordability is the barbecue stopper of the moment. Both state and Commonwealth governments have declared it a priority. But before governments launch into policy changes, it’s worth ...

Australian schooling lives within the comprehensive failure of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard’s “education revolution.” David Gonski’s proposals, by some margin the best of a bad lot, had only limited ...

Given the torrential rainstorms that battered the Brazilian city of Belém as COP30 concluded a couple of weeks ago, it wouldn’t be strictly accurate to say that the dust has settled on the latest UN ...

Late July 1923, Newdegate district, Western Australia. It is not a sublime landscape, but beauty may yet be found in its intricate, fragile detail. The slender trunks of the merrit mallees glow pink ...

In July 1966 a special federal conference of the Australian Labor Party voted, in dramatic circumstances, to abandon its opposition to “direct state aid” for non-government schools. The decision was ...

Moree might be booming thanks to cotton and other crops, but many of the benefits haven’t yet reached the local Aboriginal people, the Kamilaroi, who comprise at least a fifth of its 9000 people.

After months of public brinkmanship, with interest groups and commentators barracking from the sidelines and the threat of a double dissolution election hanging overhead, the federal government has ...

While it’s generally poor taste to mention an author’s age, it’s uplifting for many reasons to read a highly accomplished biography by a ninety-four-year-old writer dealing with an author who produced ...