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Indigenous leaders across the country welcomed Victoria’s treaty. The legislation enshrines a democratically elected body for First Peoples, called Gellung Warl, that will be consulted on laws and policies affecting Indigenous communities. Now there are calls for other states and territories to use the Victorian example as a model to establish their own treaties. But there’s also pushb...

This week, the Albanese government moved to rein in the NDIS, making a hard political argument that one of the most impactful reforms in recent memory now has to be smaller to survive. In Canberra, a Senate hearing pressed on another pressure point: whether, at a time of global instability and rising costs, Australia should be getting more from its gas exports. And in the first electoral test for...

The government says the NDIS has drifted too far from its original purpose, has grown too fast and too loosely, and that it now needs a major reset. Health Minister Mark Butler says the changes, which will see eligibility tightened, participants reassessed and 160,000 people booted from the NDIS are about making the scheme sustainable and pulling it back to the people it was originally designed to...

It’s not often politicians are taken to task by regular Australians on the issues that fill them with rage. But that’s exactly what happened at this week’s senate inquiry into taxing Australia’s gas companies for their windfall war profits.  Konrad Benjamin, a former high school teacher, gave evidence at the hearing – and he didn’t hold back The self procla...

This week, accused war criminal Ben Roberts-Smith, who is out on bail for five charges of murdering unarmed Afghan civilians and prisoners in 2009 and 2012, came out swinging. The highly decorated soldier categorically denied the allegations against him, saying he will never give up the fight. Roberts-Smith insists he’s proud of his service in Afghanistan, and of the men and women who served...

This year a Russian documentary filmed at a school in Russia won an Academy Award. Its hero? A Russian Primary school teacher, Pasha Talankin. After Russia invaded Ukraine Mr Talankin found himself trapped in the job of teaching propaganda to students. He filmed it all until he was forced to flee the country. And what he captured offers a rare glimpse into Putin’s Russia, and the classroom p...

It’s been dubbed by underworld kingpins as “ dis organised crime” A new wave of young, amateur gangsters is changing the scene – with brazen daylight attacks, hit jobs on rivals’ family members, and cases of alleged mistaken identity. Of course, it’s all about money, notoriety and settling scores. Today, Mark Morri, crime editor at the Daily Telegraph, on the ev...

The images coming out of the US-Israeli-led war in Iran have been described as apocalyptic. Oil depots have burned for days. Strikes have hit petrochemical facilities and the area around the Bushehr nuclear power plant. In Tehran, toxic black smoke has blanketed the city, with residents reporting black acid rain falling from the sky. After thousands of missile and drone strikes, Iran and parts of...

One of Australia’s most prestigious universities is now at the centre of three investigations and could be about to face a fourth. Last year, ANU vice-chancellor Genevieve Bell resigned after pressure over a massive restructure and the hidden role consultants played in shaping it. Now two inquiries are now looking at whether the changes, meant to save $250 million, were ever justified. A sep...

This week, the Albanese government has been forced to confront a growing sense of instability, with fresh warnings from the IMF about the global economy, including the potential impact on Australia.  It’s placed new pressure on Treasurer Jim Chalmers ahead of the budget, as the government deals with a fuel supply scare that pulled the prime minister back to the country in the middle of...

For years, gambling advertising has spread far beyond the ad break, becoming a familiar part of how Australians watch sport, follow news about sport and spend time online. Three years after the Murphy review called for a comprehensive ban, the Albanese government has finally responded.  But the government’s plan to reign in online gambling advertising has drawn sharp criticism. With cam...

It started as a bunch of mummy bloggers on the internet trading tips on everything from breastfeeding to toddler tantrums.  Now the world of child and family influencers has become a billion-dollar business where kids equal content and absolutely nothing is off limits. Today, Fortesa Latifi, author of the new book “Like, Follow, Subscribe: Influencer Kids and the Cost of a Childhood Onl...

It’s a controversial proposal – immigration based on blatant discrimination. Opposition leader Angus Taylor has laid out the beginnings of the Liberal Party’s hard line migration policy in a provocative speech in Canberra. Some of his proposals had echoes of Donald Trump, others of John Howard – as he made a play for One Nation’s growing pool of lapsed Liberal voters....

Israel has passed a new law allowing for the execution of Palestinians convicted of deadly attacks. The law passed through the country’s parliament despite opposition from Israeli and international human rights groups, as well as the governments of the UK, Germany, France and Italy. Israel’s national doctors’ union has refused to carry out lethal injections, meaning those sentenc...

More than a decade after he retired from AFL, John Barnes collapsed without warning and began having seizures. The former Essendon and Geelong ruckman says years of head knocks left him with epilepsy, memory problems, and a life he barely recognised. Now, as a growing class action takes on the AFL over concussion, Barnes is speaking about the damage he says the game caused – and the accounta...

In September of 2012, Australian soldiers descended on the rural village of Darwan in Afghanistan, killing four men. That raid and the events of that day were central to the defamation action brought by Ben Roberts-Smith. The court eventually found it was substantially true that he had committed war crimes – including kicking Ali Jan, an Afghan villager, off a cliff and ordering his executio...

The fighting may have temporarily eased in the Middle East, but the fallout is still moving through the global economy. Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remains disrupted, fuel markets are unsettled, and Australia is exposed. Now, Anthony Albanese is in Singapore trying to secure supply, as the opposition presses the government over how prepared the country really is. Today, Tony Wood, Energy...

Ben Roberts-Smith was once held up as the face of Australia’s war in Afghanistan. This week, he was arrested and charged with war crimes. Ben Roberts-Smith maintains his innocence. For journalist Chris Masters, the road to that moment began almost two decades ago, when he travelled to Afghanistan to report on the war up close. Over time, he began hearing whispers that some elite soldiers had...

Eighteen years ago, Kevin Rudd apologised to the Stolen Generations and said those injustices must never happen again. But in that same year, Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts was taken from her family at just 10 years old. Now, as a lawyer and advocate, she says Australia is still taking First Nations children from their families – and that the number in out-of-home care is today higher than the est...

It’s been a war of shifting deadlines for President Trump. And now, his latest one expires this morning. Trump is threatening that if Iran fails to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the US will strike the country’s bridges and power plants in what he’s calling "Energy Plants Day and Bridges Day” – stating 'a whole civilisation will die tonight' if Tehran ignores his ultima...

T he first official report from eSafety on how the government’s under-16 social media ban is going has been released. And the early picture is grim. Kids are getting around the ban, and eSafety says it has seen no drop in cyberbullying or abuse reports involving children on those platforms. So is this just a messy start, with the government right to ask for more patience? Or is it proving th...

Under one of the most remarkable landscapes in Australia is one of the world’s largest undeveloped reservoirs of onshore gas – and a Texas oil man wants to get it out. Project Valhalla would drill an initial 20 fracking wells across an area twice the size of Victoria in the Kimberley. And after the WA EPA recommended it for approval, the proposal is now one step closer to going ahead....

In 2007, future United States president Donald Trump stepped into the wrestling ring for a showdown with Vince McMahon, then head of World Wrestling Entertainment and Trump’s close friend. Trump played the villain perfectly. For decades now, Trump has been shaped by a love affair with professional wrestling. It taught him how to control and manipulate a crowd, how to speak, and how to respon...

For months, Jim Chalmers has been trying to write a budget about the future – productivity, reform, repair. But events have a way of dragging budgets back into the present. And right now, the present looks expensive. People are still under pressure. The economy’s been hit by another oil shock. And the Treasurer is trying to make the case for restraint without looking like he’s as...

Readers and writers have been left reeling after a horror novel became the first book to be cancelled over AI claims. The New York Times has reported that an AI detection program indicated that ‘Shy Girl’ was 71 percent AI generated. The news has shocked the publishing industry, with the novel discontinued in the UK and pulled from publication in America. So what are the implications f...