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Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation is cutting 5% of its jobs around the world, with over a thousand employees in the newspaper business about to be let go. But it’s not the only upheaval within the Murdoch media empire. Plans to merge Fox Corporation with the newspaper side of the business have recently been shelved. So what does that mean for Rupert’s successor, eldest son Lachlan? Today, contribu...

He was one of the most senior members of the Anglican Church, then became the governor-general of Australia. But last week, Peter Hollingworth sat in secret hearings which could decide his legacy. Those hearings are investigating his handling of child sexual abuse claims – with several complaints being heard about his decisions while he ran the Brisbane diocese. As a result, he could be stripped o...

Youth crime has become a national issue once again – front page stories from Queensland, to the Northern Territory, to Western Australia are all raising the alarm that young people in regional towns are making the streets unsafe. The WA Premier Mark McGowan said last week: “parents and families need to parent”... and people shouldn’t point the finger at governments. But his government’s only youth...

He’s reportedly the world’s third richest man. But perhaps not for much longer. Indian businessman Gautam Adani is best known here for the controversial Carmichael coal mine – but his empire also spans airlines, media networks and, crucially, what he is best known for in Australia: coal. But now, Adani’s fortune is tumbling, questions about whether he has been protected by powerful political allie...

Clem Bastow reads her piece about borrowing teen magazines from the library. As a kid, Clem couldn’t afford the monthly price of Girlfriend Magazine, or Seventeen, or my personal favourite, Dolly. So the library became her gateway to fashion trends, makeup advice, and the hottest Home and Away stars.  As Clem got older and earned her own money, her relationship to libraries evolved. In her piece,...

If you think you might have ADHD, it can take months, maybe even a year to get a diagnosis. A public conversation about the condition, led by advocates, has meant more people are seeking help — but the system for getting assessed is laborious and costly. Now, Greens Senator Jordon Steele-John, a key force behind getting the disability royal commission set-up, is taking on ADHD and will use a parli...

Tension in the Greens over the Voice to Parliament has culminated this week in the abrupt defection of high-profile Senator Lidia Thorpe. Publicly, Greens leader Adam Bandt is calling her resignation ‘sad’. Privately, other Greens members are reportedly calling it a catastrophe. As for Lidia Thorpe, the newly-Independent Senator says her focus now will be on representing a grassroots Blak sovereig...

Making a living in Australia as a writer, musician, or artist has become an increasingly tenuous proposition.  In recent years the arts sector has been transformed — lockdowns and streaming services have radically changed the market, with work becoming more insecure and lower-paid. Now, the federal government has unveiled the first major injection of funding in a decade: under a new national cultu...

You would expect that when you give your personal data to the government, that data remains safe. But that’s not how it was for some people who were sent debt notices under therobo-debt scheme – and in at least one case, that information was released after the person had suicided. So who should take responsibility when private data is used to protect an unlawful system? And how do we stop that fro...

On Australia’s doorstep, one country has taken the global war on drugs to the extreme. When Rodrigo Duterte became president of the Philippines in 2016 he promised to slaughter drug dealers – and his hardline anti-drug regime lasted until last year, when he was beaten in elections. But has the end of Duterte really ended the slaughter? Has the new government lived up to its promises? Or do the bod...

Australia is supposed to be reducing its emissions at a rapid pace, and last year, the Albanese government put a new target into law. Now, we will finally get to see exactly how Labor plans to force our biggest polluters to reduce their emissions. But will the proposal win the support it needs? And how will it shape the political year to come? Today, columnist for The Saturday Paper Paul Bongiorno...

More and more people have to pay to see a doctor, GPs are leaving the profession, and the cost of seeing a specialist is rising at an alarming rate. That’s why the government is promising the biggest overhaul to Medicare in its 40-year existence – the details of the plan could be released any day now. Everything is on the table for consideration: increasing the Medicare rebate, giving pharmacists...

Between his death, two weeks ago, and his burial tomorrow, a furious battle has raged over George Pell’s legacy. If you happen to read The Australian newspaper, though, you probably wouldn’t be aware there are two sides to the debate. The Murdoch newspaper has been glowing about Pell’s influence. Why is the Murdoch media so invested in how the former Catholic cardinal is remembered? And what are t...

Australian law is far from perfect. Not only can it be unjust, it’s sometimes simply no longer fit to do what it was intended to. The person responsible for maintaining our federal laws is the attorney-general. And, since the last election, that’s Mark Dreyfus. Today, national correspondent for The Saturday Paper Mike Seccombe – on Mark Dreyfus, what drives him, and why he says Australia’s treatme...

Tony Windsor was a politician and, as an independent, he helped hand minority government and the prime ministership to Julia Gillard. He says that at the end of the day, politicians are, by their nature, weak. And if there’s any example that’s taught him that, it’s the decades-long fight over our water and how we protect it. Today, former Independent MP Tony Windsor on our water, how gas developme...

A crime wave in Alice Springs grew into a national crisis this week, with politicians jumping on planes in a last-ditch effort to listen to a community whose concerns have fallen on deaf ears. But how did the crime rate in Alice Springs become an issue for Anthony Albanese? And how could the situation have deteriorated so far? Today, columnist for T he Saturday Paper Chris Wallace on how giving co...

It’s been over 30 years since the high court acknowledged that terra nullius was a lie, that this country was not empty – that Indigenous Australians had an ongoing claim to the land beneath our feet. But still today, officially, large swathes of Australia are held as what’s called ‘crown land’. What is it? And what do the assumptions about crown land say about the attitude to land ownership in mo...

Jacinda Ardern’s decision to resign as the Prime Minister of New Zealand shocked her country and the world.  She had seemed almost universally beloved. And the young, empathetic and energetic politician was the most world-renowned prime minister New Zealand has ever had. So what made Ardern unwilling to continue? And does she leave her country with the kind of meaningful change she set out to make...

The Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia has been a battleground for months – and now, it’s the target of Russia’s newest offensive. Fighting there could be about to get a lot worse.  Ukrainian forces are readying a defense, but the war effort in this part of southeastern Ukraine involves more than fighting back on the frontlines. Dr Natalya Mosol is a psychologist, and for the past year, she’s been w...

The premier of NSW, Dominic Perrottet wore a Nazi uniform to his 21st birthday party. Since the revelations, Jewish groups in NSW have told journalists that they have fielded calls, particularly from elderly members of the community, in tears after hearing about the incident. But why did Perrottet come out and admit the scandal? Does it have anything to do with the looming election? And who was ci...

Summer has provided everyone with a respite from politics, even our politicians. But as they return, they’ll need to face up to problems that have been long in the making. The pandemic is still with us, and clues from the northern hemisphere point towards variants that authorities will have to keep a close eye on. And in the meantime, this week, we have been warned that inequality got worse throug...

When Liberal MP Julia Banks quit the Morrison government in 2018, her resignation was cited as an example of how hostile the political environment can be towards women. But Banks’ story and her resignation happened to coincide with a landmark report: Respect@Work. That report, and the changes it recommended, languished on the desk of the former government. But reform is now finally coming into eff...

George Pell’s body is returning to Australia after last weekend’s funeral service in the Vatican. He will be interred in the crypts below St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney. To his supporters, Pell was a guardian of traditional faith and doctrine, whose conviction on charges of child sexual abuse was overturned by the High Court. To thousands of survivors of child sexual abuse perpetrated by priests ac...

This year Peter Dutton has begun to spread doubt about the Voice to Parliament. His question is: where’s the detail? One woman has spent years fleshing out the proposal. Marcia Langton co-authored a report on The Voice, and briefed every party room in Canberra about what the model could look like. Today, Professor at the University of Melbourne Marcia Langton on the details of the Voice to Parliam...

Elon Musk has lost more money than any human being who has ever lived. It’s not because of his purchase of Twitter – well, not directly, anyway. It’s because in the last 12 months, the share price of his other company, Tesla, has plummeted. But why is Elon Musk, the erratic entrepreneur, so intertwined with Tesla? How has the company become an extension of one man’s ideas? And is that healthy? Tod...