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Read This: John Rebus Will Outlive Ian Rankin

21 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Ian Rankin introduced Detective John Rebus in his 1987 novel Knots and Crosses. Since then, Rankin has published another two dozen books in the s...

What Trump’s no-show means for AUKUS

19 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

At the G7 summit in Canada, Anthony Albanese had prepared carefully for a meeting with Donald Trump – even reaching out to Trump’s golfing...

How Trump could make Australian medicines more expensive

18 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Medicine in Australia could soon become more expensive and harder to come by. The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme – the safety net that keeps our...

How abortion is weaponised in the courts

17 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Abortion was fully decriminalised across Australia in 2023, meaning people can end a pregnancy without fear of prosecution. But that hasn’t stop...

Why Israel attacked Iran in the middle of US-Iran talks

16 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On Friday, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, sending roughly 200 fighter jets to hit more than a hundred sites across Iran – including part...

The consulting firms reshaping our universities

15 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A quiet transformation is underway at Australian universities. Behind closed doors, powerful consulting firms are helping to reshape higher education;...

Read This: Hoot and Holler for Kaliane Bradley

14 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On the surface, Kaliane Bradley’s debut is a time-travel novel — it’s speculative fiction meets romance and espionage. But underneat...

From AUKUS to tariffs: Should Albanese repair ties with Trump?

12 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As Anthony Albanese heads to the G7 summit, the future of Australia’s most important defence pact is suddenly uncertain.  The Trump adminis...

Trump, Musk and the big, beautiful break-up

11 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Elon Musk and Donald Trump were once political partners – sharing praise, power and ice-cream parties. Now the pair have been trading insults on...

How Trump’s mass deportations sparked a riot

10 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

US President Donald Trump’s agenda of mass deportations has reached a tipping point. After ICE raids in Los Angeles sparked street riots, the pr...

Albanese’s ‘bizarre’ reversal at Home Affairs

09 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When Anthony Albanese first became prime minister, he began dismantling the Home Affairs super-ministry, which had been overseen by Peter Dutton. Labo...

What young voters want from Albanese

08 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

At the recent election, a generational shift became undeniable.  Nearly half of all voters were Millennials or Gen Z – and their votes help...

Read This: Torrey Peters’ Never-Ending Transition

07 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Torrey Peters’ debut novel, Detransition, Baby, was an instant sensation. Longlisted for the Women’s Prize in the UK and named one of...

Albanese’s push-back against Trump

05 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Donald Trump’s return to power is testing Australia’s decades-old reflex to stand with the United States. When the US defence secretary, P...

The years of lobbying behind Woodside’s North West Shelf approval

04 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Greg Bourne, former BP Australasia president, once worked alongside Australia’s biggest LNG venture: Woodside’s North West Shelf. Now a co...

How Labor’s new super tax works

03 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Labor is poised to move forward with its plan to increase the tax on superannuation balances over $3 million. Critics are calling the idea unfair and ...

How Advance ‘siphoned’ funds and helped the Liberals lose

02 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As the search to explain the Coalition’s disastrous election results continues, there’s one group being singled out inside Liberal campaig...

Sussan Ley: ‘I’ve been underestimated a lot’

01 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

For anyone doubting her ability to rehabilitate the Coalition after its thumping May 3 loss, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has a message: people have q...

Read This: Kevin Wilson Is Wonderfully Weird

31 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Kevin Wilson writes weird books about weird people — in the best possible way. In 2019’s Nothing to See Here, two children have a con...

Fresh cabinet, old wounds: The Coalition’s uneasy truce

29 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

After a week of turmoil, the Coalition has patched things up and Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has unveiled her new shadow ministry. The appointments s...

‘A total, miserable, self-loathing poser’: The neuroscientist taking on Elon Musk

28 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Philip Low’s brain-mapping breakthrough made him a billionaire. Now a blistering Facebook post has thrust the neuroscientist into a new fight &n...

Syria’s president: From rebel fighter to meeting with Trump

27 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Until late last year, the United States had a US$10 million bounty on Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa. A former leader of the al-Nusra Front and al-Q...

‘A cancer’: How Abbott and Credlin control the Liberals

26 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Tony Abbott was on a layover in Dubai when he phoned Natasha Griggs – the president of the Country Liberal Party – and set off a chain rea...

The ‘carbon bomb’ awaiting Australia’s new environment minister

25 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Australia has a new environment minister – and he has a big job ahead of him: fixing the country’s broken environment laws. Murray Watt ha...

Read This: What’s On Jessica Stanley’s Bookshelves?

24 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

London-based Australian author Jessica Stanley’s second novel, Consider Yourself Kissed, opens with all the beats of a classic romantic com...

Is the Coalition back from the dead?

22 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Yesterday we were saying “rest in peace” to the Coalition – but today there are signs it could be reborn. The Liberal and National p...

RIP the Coalition

21 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Just a week after taking charge in the wake of the Liberals’ disastrous election result, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley now finds herself without ...

The fake orphans trafficked to Australia

20 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Thousands of children from South Korea have been adopted by Australian families over decades. In many cases, these children were raised to believe the...

Why Trump didn’t visit Israel and what it means for Gaza

19 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Two weeks ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his plans to step up his country’s attacks on Gaza, with “extensive gro...

Larissa Waters seems nice

18 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Larissa Waters is the new leader of the Australian Greens. She steps in as the party reels from its election wipe-out, losing three of its four seats ...

Read This: Josephine Rowe Isn’t Interested In Efficiency

17 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Josephine Rowe’s writing has been described by the New York Times as “gorgeous” and “precise”. This is particu...

The quiet force behind Labor’s landslide

15 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When Labor insiders are asked who was responsible for their thumping election victory, one name keeps coming up: Paul Erickson. Even though Erickon li...

Can Sussan Ley rebuild the Coalition?

14 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Three years ago this month, Sussan Ley stood beside Peter Dutton as his deputy, the newly installed pair projecting confidence about the contest ahead...

‘Factional assassins’ and Albanese’s new ministry

13 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When Anthony Albanese’s new ministry was sworn in this week, it was overshadowed by the axing of Ed Husic and Mark Dreyfus. Husic in particular ...

Julia Banks on what it’s like to be a woman in the Liberal Party

12 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today, the Liberal Party will elect a new leader. Whoever is chosen will have to figure out how to attract women back to the party – both candid...

The Greens ‘stunning’ election defeat

11 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Just before 4.30pm last Wednesday, Antony Green called it for the ABC: Greens leader Adam Bandt had lost his seat. Fifteen years after Bandt won the i...

Read This: James Bradley Thinks Kindness is a Superpower

10 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In addition to being an established novelist, James Bradley is also a journalist and writer of non-fiction, much of it concerned with the natural worl...

Anthony Albanese’s next big test

08 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A week ago, most pundits were predicting a hung parliament as the likely outcome of Australia’s federal election. Instead, Labor has secured one...

How ASIO’s pursuit of people smugglers really works

07 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In 1999, Ali Jafari fled the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and was resettled as a refugee in Australia. But then, while visiting Pakistan, his permane...

Firebombs and gang wars: The bloody fallout of Australia’s tobacco crackdown

06 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In January, Katie Tangey was killed in a Melbourne house fire believed to be part of the ongoing “tobacco wars”. Police say she was an inn...

Inside the battle for the soul of the Liberal Party

05 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As Peter Dutton conceded his 24-year hold on the Brisbane seat of Dickson, he said the Liberal Party will “rebuild”. The party’s sou...

How this victory will change Anthony Albanese

04 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Karen Middleton has known Anthony Albanese for more than 30 years – since before he entered parliament. She’s watched his rise, and docume...

Anthony Albanese’s election night party

03 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The mood inside Labor HQ was jubilant as it became clear that against all expectations, Anthony Albanese had led the Labor party to victory, with a si...

Sean Kelly on what killed Peter Dutton’s campaign

02 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It’s election day! While Anthony Albanese’s campaign has been modest and predictable, Peter Dutton’s has been marked by missteps and...

Why the major parties won’t fix the domestic violence crisis

01 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Since the election was announced, just five weeks ago, at least five women have been killed by their partners in Australia. Yet this crisis has barely...

Why Grace Tame will never go into politics

30 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

There’s one question Grace Tame is asked all the time: when is she going into politics? And her answer is always the same – never. Like ma...

‘Devastating’: Why the Liberals are preferencing One Nation

29 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Under Peter Dutton’s leadership, the Coalition has placed One Nation candidates second on scores of how-to-vote cards across the country. In ret...

Adam Bandt’s plans for the next parliament

28 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

If things go the Greens’ way this weekend, the party could hold the balance of power in a minority Labor government. But given the prime ministe...

The seats that will decide the election

27 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As we head to the polls this weekend, election analyst Ben Raue has been calculating the path to victory for the major parties.  The Coalition ne...

Read This: Chris Flynn’s New Book Arrived in a Dream

26 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The opening scene of Chris Flynn’s fourth and latest novel, Orpheus Nine, came to him in a dream. Not long after, he had the whole story do...

How the Pope’s death changed the election campaign

25 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Paul Bongiorno is one of the 1.2 billion Roman Catholics who mourned the loss of Pope Francis this week. As he read tribute after tribute of the impac...

From Trump’s America to Queensland: The people fighting back against trans healthcare bans

24 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In January, Donald Trump signed an executive order targeting the trans community by banning some medical care for minors. The move has had a chilling ...

Bri Lee on the Liberal Party’s problem with women

23 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When Scott Morrison lost his job as prime minister, it was women who sacked him. A review commissioned by the Liberal Party after the 2022 election fo...

Labor vs the Coalition: Which housing plan is worse?

22 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When Peter Dutton’s son, Harry, fronted the media to talk about his dream of home ownership, it was an attempt by the opposition leader to seem ...

Saul Griffith on how the major parties could get to net zero

21 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In a coastal corner of Australia, scientist Saul Griffith has been quietly working away on a plan to turn 500 households completely off fossil fuels. ...

Why asylum seekers are barred from Australian universities

20 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As a child refugee in India, Harini dreamt of making it to Australia to study medicine and become a doctor. She arrived in Australia in 2013 when she ...

Read This: The Imaginary Village of Niall Williams

19 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Over four decades Niall Williams has made a name for himself as one of Ireland’s leading novelists. In his latest novel, Time of the Child,...

What the major parties are offering on Indigenous affairs

18 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

At one point during this term of government, Indigenous affairs dominated national debate. Politicians, pundits and the public couldn't stop talking a...

This castle is tax deductible

17 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Last year, reporter Mike Seccombe looked into the divide between Australia’s richest and poorest schools to find out why this gap keeps widening...

Albanese v Dutton: The second leaders’ debate

16 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Last night, Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton went head-to-head in the second leaders’ debate of the campaign. The difference between the two le...

How Albanese is using Trump as a weapon

15 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Donald Trump’s presence looms large on the campaign trail, as both leaders face questions about how they would handle his trade war. The market ...

Protecting the ABC from Dutton

14 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In January, Jonathan Holmes met with the ABC’s then managing director, David Anderson.  Jonathan and his colleagues at ABC Alumni wanted to...

Tim Flannery on the Coalition’s energy plan

13 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As a scientist, Tim Flannery says he’s seen climate change kicked around parliament for decades. Australians are now paying for the years of den...

Read This: Nothing Happens In Ayşegül Savaş’s Book and That’s Great

12 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Turkish-born, Paris-based writer Ayşegül Savaş’s third novel opens with a young, ex-pat couple who are apartment hunting. Both foreigners...

How big should Australia be?

11 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Peter Dutton says he’ll cut migrant numbers by 100,000 people a year as soon as he gets into office. He says it’s part of his plan to free...

Why Elon Musk doesn’t want NASA to go to the moon

10 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Elon Musk is pressing NASA to abandon its planned journeys to the moon – projects that have been decades in the making, with billions already sp...

Elon Musk’s plan to take over NASA

09 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Donald Trump wants to write the next chapter in US spaceflight history. With billionaire tech CEO and SpaceX founder Elon Musk by his side, he’s...

Albanese v Dutton: The first leaders’ debate

08 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Anthony Albanese won the first leaders debate of the election campaign last night. But it was a tight contest, with both leaders well prepared and pol...

‘They’re panicking’: Why Dutton reneged on job cuts and work from home

07 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

“We made a mistake” are tough words for any politician, but in the heat of an election campaign, they can really hurt. In a spectacular re...

How Trump's mass deportations targeted men with tattoos

06 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It looked like a scene from a very different period of history: US Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, standing in front of a prison pen fill...

Read This: The Long Ireland of Colm Tóibín

05 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Colm Tóibín is regarded as one of Ireland’s greatest authors — and for good reason. With a career spanning 30 years and 11 a...

Albanese v Dutton: Who won week one?

04 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It’s only been a week, but the election campaign is already off script.  Trump’s tariffs have landed like a grenade in the middle of ...

Ruby Jones on the government’s plan to demolish public housing

03 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Barry Berih has lived in the same Melbourne flat for most of his life. He has mild cerebral palsy and is cared for by his mother. He has all the medic...

The $11 billion warship decision testing Australia’s alliances

02 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Australian defence officials are preparing to choose whether to buy warships from Germany or Japan. It’s an $11 billion decision – and is ...

The Mar-a-Lago accord: The real reason Trump wants tariffs

01 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Today in the White House Rose Garden, President Trump will unveil his next round of tariffs – an event he’s calling “Liberation Day&...

Amy Remeikis on what the election should be about

31 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As the federal election campaign kicked off over the weekend, chief political analyst at the Australia Institute Amy Remeikis was paying close attenti...

The real impact of Trump's cuts to Australian research

30 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In recent weeks, Australian researchers began receiving a questionnaire. Sent by the US government, it asked things like “can you confirm that t...

Read This: Zanzibar Is Still Home for Abdulrazak Gurnah

29 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Tanzanian-born, London-based author Abdulrazak Gurnah was midway through writing his latest novel, Theft, when he received a call letting him know he&...

Albanese v Dutton: What's at stake on May 3

28 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In his press conference announcing the May 3 federal election, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Australians have a choice, warning Opposition Lead...

Peter Dutton and the billionaires

27 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

While Peter Dutton’s electorate braced for Cyclone Alfred, the opposition leader flew to Sydney to attend a $25,000 dollar-a-head dinner at Just...

The tabloid panic rewriting bail laws

26 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Traditionally, the idea of bail meant that someone accused of a crime had the right to be free until their trial. But over nearly fifty years, that ha...

The election budget: What's in it for you?

25 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Jim Chalmers has handed down the Labor government’s election budget. Front and centre was a surprise tax cut for all Australians, along with man...

The end of the Gaza ceasefire

24 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The ceasefire in Gaza collapsed a week ago as Israel launched a series of airstrikes. Since then, more than 600 people have been killed, including chi...

‘The gangsters have gone f*cking nowhere’: The failed clean up of the CFMEU

23 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When footage of a CFMEU “health inspector” assaulting a woman was made public last week, it shocked a lot of people. But many union member...

Read This: Robert Dessaix Is a Fox (Not a Hedgehog)

22 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Tasmanian writer Robert Dessaix is a man of many talents when it comes to the written form – from travel memoir and fiction to biography and phi...

‘If I was on the Labor side of politics, I'd be worried’

21 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Kos Samaras spends hundreds of hours listening to what voters really think. In focus groups and in surveys, his research and political strategy firm, ...

China, Australia and the warships off our coast

20 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Over the past month, a flotilla of Chinese military ships came close to Australian shores unannounced. They conducted live-fire drills off the coast o...

The Catholic Church’s legal loophole for abuse

19 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Are Catholic priests employed by the Church, or by the hand of God? This question was at the heart of a five-year legal battle between a survivor of c...

‘Frankly terrifying’: Albanese’s secret climate report

18 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In December last year, a group of crossbenchers dialled into a secret call with the Albanese government. It was to get a briefing on a government-comm...

Peter Dutton and the caravan of explosives

17 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The discovery of an abandoned caravan full of explosives on the outskirts of Sydney earlier this year triggered widespread panic and fear.  There...

Part 2: What happens to America if DOGE succeeds

16 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Donald Trump’s full-throated support of Elon Musk continues, despite more and more people questioning why an unelected billionaire is exerting e...

Part 1: Inside Elon Musk's takeover of the US government

16 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Acolytes of Elon Musk, working in the Department of Government Efficiency, are currently gutting the US government, with Musk claiming he’ll fin...

Read This: How Sonia Orchard Reclaimed Her Story

15 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Novelist Sonia Orchard was in her 40s when a revelation during a therapy session turned her life upside down. Could the relationship she’d had i...

How Chinese voters will shape the election

14 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Australia’s Chinese community proved to be a powerful voting bloc in the last election.  And as the time draws near to vote again, a growin...

The real impact of Trump’s tariffs on Australia

13 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Donald Trump’s trade war is escalating, as his wide-ranging tariffs take effect.  Australia had hoped to avoid a 25 per cent tariff on our ...

Falsified deaths: The systemic problems in Tasmanian hospitals

12 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When Launceston nurse and midwife Amanda Duncan appeared at a Tasmanian parliamentary inquiry into ambulance ramping last year, her testimony was maca...

Peter Dutton, Donald Trump Jr and the Australian weapons mogul

11 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As Trump’s radical reshaping of the US pulls into focus, so too has the list of those who have gained entry to his inner circle.  That list...

Trapped in a Cambodian scam factory

10 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Most Australians have been targeted by a scam attempt, from spam text messages to intricate love fraud. The scams have cost us billions. But behind th...

Julie Bishop and the mine that could ruin Greenland

09 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Julie Bishop built her career as a politician representing Australia on the world stage.  Now, she’s taken on a new lobbying role, working ...

Read This: Andrea Goldsmith Finds the Poetry In Death

08 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In Andrea Goldsmith’s ninth and latest novel, The Buried Life, she unpicks the relationships between people and the undercurrents of doubt ...