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When starting out at university, it’s normal to want to meet new friends and establish a community. But for some young Australians, that formative time has led them down the path of a secretive and extreme religious group accused of using deceptive tactics to draw in young people:  Shincheonji.   According to one former member, the group took over his life – leaving him sleep...

For decades, liberal democracy came with a promise: that with each generation we would become freer, wealthier, and have more control over our lives. But after years of economic shocks, war and political upheaval, more and more people seem to have stopped believing that promise. And in its place, we’re seeing political movements emerge that don’t just want different policies – th...

For years, Donald Trump’s attacks on the media were treated as part of the spectacle of his politics. Now, three major news organisations have had their White House passes revoked – and Trump says others could follow. Here in Australia, we’re seeing Pauline Hanson follow the same playbook – with One Nation repeatedly deciding which news organisations can attend its press co...

It’s an uncomfortable fact our government doesn’t like to face: 25 years on from the Tampa affair, we’re still paying a tiny island micro-nation hundreds of millions of dollars to keep immigration detention alive. One of the ways we’re doing that is by helping to prop up Nauru Airlines – a company riven with financial, governance and safety issues. Today, independent...

One of the defining themes of Donald Trump's presidencies has been his war against the media. Last week, he banned journalists from three media outlets from the White House, saying he’s had enough of the negative stories about him. This week, those outlets sued him over the ban. And just last year he proved no one’s off limits,  taking media mogul Rupert Murdoch to court in a ten-...

Australia in 2066 will be older, richer, and – according to the treasurer – transformed by artificial intelligence. The latest intergenerational report says, despite an aging population, our real incomes will be 55 percent higher by 2066. And Jim Chalmers says AI will get us there. But the same report says younger Australians aren’t seeing the same gains in income, wealth and hom...

A whole new galactic battleground has just opened up. The United States has declared it has weapons in space, and it’s ready to use them. So, are we entering a new era where the opening moves of a war could happen hundreds of kilometres above us? Today, Senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Dr Malcolm Davis on the space weapons now at the ready, and the likelihood of a...

Last year, the company that ran Australia’s immigration detention network for over a decade, British conglomerate Serco, lost its contract, but not before helping build what’s been called one of the world’s ‘most extreme and secretive’ detention regimes. The question at the time was whether its replacement – American private prison operator MTC – would be...

Migration is shaping up to be the next big battleground in federal politics as Labor desperately tries to wrestle back control of the narrative from One Nation. But does this week’s long-awaited plan leave the government stronger or weaker politically? And could going harder on Pauline Hanson hold the key to tackling One Nation? This week, the major parties gave it a try as some of Hanson&rs...

After one false start and a hell of a lot of political pressure from the right, Labor has finally unveiled its long-awaited immigration plans. Backpackers, students and visa overstayers will all be targeted by the measures – designed to bring net overseas migration down from around 300 thousand, to 225 thousand by 2028. So what impact will the overhaul have on our economy, our communities, a...

Last week, countries including the UK, Canada and France announced plans to restrict trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank. In the past, Australia has joined its overseas allies in actions on Israel. This time it’s different – with Foreign Affairs Minister, Penny Wong, saying Australia isn’t considering joining the ban.  So – why not?  Today, Commissione...

In the last week, AI bosses around the world have suddenly grown a conscience – urging a global slowdown amid fears the race to develop artificial intelligence could outstrip humanity’s ability to control it. For Dex Hunter-Torricke, that realisation came a little sooner. The big-tech insider walked away last year, disillusioned, after spending 15 years inside the belly of the beast. H...

The numbers are almost incomprehensible – last month US debt hit 40 trillion dollars. With an interest bill of more than three billion dollars a day. And that’s before Donald Trump’s trillion dollar promise to hand every adult in America a cheque for five thousand bucks! Now, as global debt levels rise to record highs, and the cost of paying that debt rises too – experts ar...

One by one, the Aboriginal leaders, organisations and watchdogs the Northern Territory government is supposed to work with are walking away. The Children’s Commissioner has resigned. An Indigenous MP has left parliament after more than a decade. And now almost the entire Aboriginal side of the Territory’s Justice Policy Partnership has suspended its involvement. They’re all makin...

From afar, Alice Springs is a whirlpool of myth and truth. A town with competing interests and few solutions, marked by chaos and decades of government overreach. In cities and towns across Australia, we read about a “crisis” about “rampages”. One newspaper described the children of Alice Springs as “tiny menaces stuck on a turnstile of trouble”. In this first e...

In 2020 Anthony Albanese called for the sacking of then-sports minister Bridget McKenzie over her involvement in the infamous sports rorts – which he labelled a farce. Not long after, she resigned. But now that similar pork barrelling claims have been levelled at the Prime Minister, he’s come out swinging – refusing to admit any wrong-doing over his failure to declare membership...

When Donald Trump was sworn in for a second time, some of the most powerful men in the tech world had the best seats in the room. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg – a display of just how close silicon valley had aligned itself to the administration. But within that world, journalist Gil Durán says, is a smaller, more radical group with a much bigger ambition: get rid of democrac...

Last month, an emotional Jacqui Lambie revealed a private health battle connected to her time in the army – a debilitating prolapse that required surgery. The Tasmanian senator called out gaps in health care services for female veterans, and raged against the government’s plans to introduce a $5,000 cap on allied health services for veterans. This week fellow veterans joined her calls,...

One Nation is copping heat for a proposal that would let Australians take some of the money going into their super as extra pay instead. For up to three years, renters and mortgage holders could choose to take home a quarter of the money that would normally be put into their retirement – worth about $44 a week for someone on the average full-time wage. At the same time, the Coalition has bee...

In imposing scenes in the UK over the weekend, hundreds of masked men belonging to the hard-right group Patriot Platform stopped traffic. Around the same time, political party AfD was making history in Germany – becoming the first far-right party to win in the country since World War two. And on the other side of the world, Australia’s high court will today hear from our most high prof...

On the Mid North Coast of New South Wales, Labor has promised a vast new national park to protect more than 12,000 koalas. But there’s a catch. The New South Wales government wants carbon credits to help pay for it. By ending planned logging, it could generate credits that are then sold to companies to offset their emissions. For the Greens, that creates a dilemma at a moment when both major...

For years, Australia has made cigarettes increasingly expensive in an effort to drive down smoking. Now, the Coalition wants to dramatically reverse course. It's promised to slash the tobacco excise by 80 per cent, arguing that soaring cigarette prices have fuelled a violent black market. It also wants to legalise and regulate vapes and nicotine pouches. Labor says there’s no evidence the ta...

Paul Keating has been out of office for thirty years. But he’s never really left the national conversation. Keating wanted Australia to find its security in Asia, not from it, and to stop defining itself through bigger powers in the Anglosphere. That vision now sits uneasily alongside AUKUS, a more powerful China, and an Australia tied ever more closely to the United States. Today, historian...

Speaking at the Press Club this week, consent education advocate Chanel Contos outlined how social media companies are feeding misogynistic content to young men online.  Now, she wants the government to compel social media companies to give people the option to restrict their algorithm.  So can, and should, the algorithm be contained? And would social media companies even comply?  T...

They’ve been dubbed pervert glasses. And with good reason  – women around the world are reporting being sexually harassed, filmed without their consent, often without their knowledge. But this week, the federal government ruled out an import ban on smart glasses – as concerns about the technology rise and examples of their misuse flood the internet. Today, Associate Dean of...