Artificial intelligence will upend our economy. We’re utterly unprepared. The AI revolution promises a vastly more efficient economy. But who pays the price of massive job losses, soaring inequality and social dislocation?
Which state has the worst housing crisis? The crisis is everywhere – and it’s the result of decades of deliberate neglect and failed ideology. This analysis reveals how each state rates, from the least-bad to the worst.
Crime levels sink. Prisoner numbers soar. What’s going on? In Australia’s smallest state, a natural experiment shows a humane and rational approach to crime works – and tough-on-crime strategies fail.
Progressive politics always (in the end) wins. Here’s why. Throughout modern history, conservatives have won battles but lost the wars. It’s the other side – the reformists or ‘progressives’ – who eventually shape the world.
How civilised? A scorecard of the 20 richest nations. The wealthiest countries have no excuse for neglecting their own people. Here’s an assessment of the good – and the not-so-good.
Does gun control work? Australia’s much-praised gun laws have almost eliminated mass shootings. But they’ve done little about the homicide rate, and nothing at all about suicide.
Inequality and the neoliberal legacy. Half a century of trickle-up economics has decreased prosperity, overburdened the health system – and caused a vast number of premature deaths. In Australia, the Howard government did most of the damage.
Profit from pain: how our most corrupt industry really works. When the Tasmanian government announced the nation’s first pre-commitment system to limit harmful betting on poker machines, there was unrestrained fury from the pokie lobby.
After 50 years of cuts, is it now too late to rescue the ABC? For almost half a century, the ABC has been squeezed between two opposing forces – rapidly increasing costs on one hand, savage budget cuts on the other.
Rednecks on the run: how Australia transformed itself. The bookies don’t think much of Peter Dutton’s chances of becoming Prime Minister. Shortly after the last election, Sportsbet put the chances of a coalition victory in 2025 at $3.10. That’s probably generous.
What’s gone wrong in mental health? For the past 50 years, governments have taken money and resources out of the mental health sector. Now, we have a ballooning crisis that disproportionately affect women, the poor, the young, and homosexual men and women.
Treatment, not prison: Australians now firmly reject the war on drugs. Many powerful interests – police drug agencies, mafias, bikie gangs, law-and-order politicians – base their business models on continuing the war on drugs. Voters, though, have a different idea.
Climate change is already turning Australians into refugees. But it's only the beginning. Over the next couple of decades, hundreds of thousands of people will have to find somewhere else to live.
Thousands dying. A whole economy in chaos. Hospitals in pandemonium. Why won’t our governments do their bloody job? Almost everyone now knows that living-with-Covid isn’t working. Everyone, that is, except the people we have elected to run the country.
How will we survive this cascade of crises? Around twice in every century, an old era ends and a new one begins. The Global Financial Crisis. Climate change. The precipitous decline of the United States. China. Ukraine. The pandemic. No wonder we’re feeling depressed.
No God, please, we’re Tasmanian. Tasmania has become the first – and only – Australian jurisdiction in which the majority of people no longer believe in God. According to the census, 54% of Tasmanians have no religion. That’s 11% higher than the national average.