Vol 35 No 6

24 March 2025

AUSTRALIA

The Great Australian Housing Con
- David James
- 04 April 2025
As house prices soar and home ownership slips out of reach, Australia’s property market has become a $10 trillion engine of inequality — and yet, no major party will touch it. With an election looming, silence on the housing crisis reveals a deeper dysfunction: a political economy captive to debt and speculation.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Whose marbles?
- Gillian Bouras
- 04 April 2025
The Parthenon Marbles have long stood at the centre of a cultural standoff between Britain and Greece — art or artefact, spoils or stewardship? As negotiations inch forward, the ancient stones carry modern weight, raising urgent questions about restitution, identity, and what it means to right the wrongs of empire.
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AUSTRALIA

The quiet crisis in childhood vaccination
- Jo Skinner
- 03 April 2025
Immunisation has protected communities for centuries, from early smallpox prevention in 200 BC to the eradication of deadly diseases. Yet today, vaccine confidence is slipping. Misinformation, social media, and shifting parental anxieties are fuelling a quiet backlash, raising urgent questions about trust and public health in a changing world.
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INTERNATIONAL

Trumpland abroad: The foreign policy of a deal-maker
- Binoy Kampmark
- 02 April 2025
No one can predict President Trump’s next move on the global stage. But what appears to be chaos has a clear historical precedent, rooted in a long American tradition of swaggering, often improvisational power. In Trump’s hands, diplomacy is spectacle: alliances unravel, spectacle dominates and self-interest rules.
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AUSTRALIA

It’s election season. Where’s the budget for the common good?
- Joe Zabar
- 02 April 2025
As Australia heads toward a federal election, the government’s latest budget offers relief but fails the deeper test of justice. In a nation facing rising inequality and entrenched disadvantage, what’s missing is a vision anchored in the common good, a politics that serves not just voters, but the voiceless.
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AUSTRALIA

Legal ways to spoil the child
- Andrew Hamilton
- 02 April 2025
Countering a rise in youth crime with tough new bail laws will ensure community safety, but risks compounding the very crisis they aim to solve. As more children are placed in detention, the changes raise urgent questions about justice, policy failure, and the long-term social cost of prioritising punishment over prevention.
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RELIGION

What the Church can learn from its exile to the margins
- Vincent Long Van Nguyen
- 01 April 2025
As war rages, the climate suffers and inequality grows, the ancient idea of Jubilee feels newly urgent. Can an economy built on profit give way to one rooted in justice? Can the Church trade power for presence? Renewal may begin where the poor, the displaced and the earth come together.
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AUSTRALIA

Five years on, did we learn the wrong lessons from Covid?
- David Hayward
- 28 March 2025
Covid offered a rare chance to reimagine the role of the state. What might have become a pivot to care and collective responsibility became a bonanza for entrenched interests. The crisis passed. Inequality returned. And the deeper reckoning that beckoned was quietly deferred, perhaps indefinitely.
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AUSTRALIA

Why the debate over AFL origins won't go away
- Jenny Sinclair
- 28 March 2025
The origins of Australian Rules Football are officially recorded, but not necessarily complete. As new questions emerge about Tom Wills, marngrook, and the silences in our national story, the game’s history becomes a mirror reflecting not only what we remember, but what we choose to forget.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

The band that could-a-been
- Barry Divola
- 27 March 2025
Glide were an ’90s Australian band set for big things - a new documentary is a cautionary tale about how critical success doesn’t always translate into commercial success, and how the quest can lead to casualties along the way.
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AUSTRALIA

What the 2025 federal budget does and doesn't do
- David James
- 27 March 2025
Australia’s Federal Budget offers a mix of tax cuts, spending increases, and modest relief for households, but fails to address the seismic shifts in global economics. With rising defense spending and minimal solutions for mounting debt, it remains unclear whether this budget can navigate the country’s economic vulnerabilities in an unpredictable world.
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INTERNATIONAL

Europe prepares for war
- Binoy Kampmark
- 27 March 2025
Europe’s escalating defence spending, driven by the Russian threat, marks a shift toward militarisation. The EU’s new budget plan, designed to free up billions for weapons and security, raises critical questions about how far Europe will go in fortifying itself and the long-term impact on its stability.
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AUSTRALIA

Cyclone Alfred exposed a health system in disrepair
- Jo Skinner
- 25 March 2025
When Cyclone Alfred swept through Queensland, the damage was swift, but its most enduring effects are harder to see. As the clean-up began, a quieter crisis emerged: disrupted care, rising health risks, and a fragile health system ill-equipped to cope.
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EDUCATION

Universities are placing limits on protests for student safety
- Erica Cervini
- 25 March 2025
As campus protests grow increasingly disruptive, universities face an uncomfortable choice: uphold students’ right to protest or ensure their safety and right to education. The debate over free speech and campus security has never been more urgent.
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RELIGION

Synodality and the federal election: What should the bishops say?
- John Warhurst
- 25 March 2025
As Australia approaches another federal election, the Catholic Church, long ambivalent about democratic politics, prepares to weigh in. Its official statement could play it safe, as in years past — or it could offer a deeper moral vision, confronting the global drift toward division with the quiet radicalism of synodality.
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AUSTRALIA

On riding Trojan horses no more
- Andrew Hamilton
- 24 March 2025
With America's reliability in question, Australia is rethinking what security really means. Should it double down on military self-reliance, or reconsider the cost of placing defence above all else? As alliances fray and power shifts, the country faces a deeper reckoning: whom can it trust—and at what price?
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AUSTRALIA

The age of outrage is hollowing us out
- Max Jeganathan
- 24 March 2025
Amid rising hate speech and tighter laws, something deeper festers. In a culture wired for outrage and shaped by tribal algorithms, we’re learning not just to disagree, but to despise. What happens when identity is built on enmity, and public debate becomes less about ideas and more about who we’re against?
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Vol 35 No 6