By Kate Lycett, Senior Research Fellow, School of Psychology, Deakin University
Georgie Frykberg, Project Manager, School of Psychology, Deakin University
Warwick Smith, Honorary Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, The University of Melbourne
Results from a new national survey show Australians feel worse about many things than they did during COVID. Now governments need to use these data to do better.
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By Bianca Williams, PhD Candidate in the History Program, La Trobe University; The University of Melbourne
Megan Wilding’s Game. Set. Match., now playing at Malthouse, is both a powerful reckoning with colonial violence and a love letter to self.
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By Jon Richardson, Visiting Fellow, Centre for European Studies, Australian National University
Putin is under growing pressure at home as Ukraine continues to strike far inside Russia and more critics are voicing discontent with the war.
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By Kevin Morrison, Industry Fellow, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney
Producers of liquefied natural gas (LNG) on Australia’s east coast will have to set aside 20% of their gas exports to be sold to domestic users from July next year.
The long-awaited gas reservation plan, unveiled on Thursday, is well overdue. But it will not come into effect until July 2027,…
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By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image Cattle walk along an illegally deforested area in an extractive reserve near Jaci-Parana, Rondonia state, Brazil, July 12, 2023. © 2023 Andre Penner/AP Photo (Brussels) – The European Commission’s announcement that it would not initiate a process to further amend the text of its milestone anti-deforestation regulation paves the way for it to be implemented by the end of 2026, Human Rights Watch said today. However, at the same time, the Commission has proposed to exclude leather from the list of products covered by the regulation, which would create a major loophole.“It…
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Wednesday, May 6, 2026
Briefing by Elyse Mosquini, Permanent Observer to the United Nations, at the UN Security Council Arria-formula Meeting: “A Decade of Resolution 2286: Protecting Medical Care in Conflict Amid Evolving Threats”.
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By Julian Koplin, Lecturer in Bioethics, Monash University; The University of Melbourne
Megan Frances Moss, PhD Candidate, Philosophy, Monash University
In recent days, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins wrote an op-ed suggesting AI chatbot Claude may be conscious.
Dawkins did not express certainty that Claude is conscious. But he pointed out that Claude’s sophisticated abilities are difficult to make sense of without ascribing some kind of inner experience to the machine. The illusion of consciousness – if it is an illusion – is uncannily convincing:
If I entertain suspicions that perhaps she is not conscious, I…
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By Chris Murphy, Visiting Fellow, Economics (modelling), Australian National University
Up to 14% of what renters paid for housing in the past decade could have been due to taxes that don’t apply to owner-occupied homes, new estimates show.
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By Stacey Savin, Postdoctoral researcher, Vascular Immunology of Pregnancy Group, University of Adelaide, University of Adelaide
Pregnancy can be a time of joy and anticipation. But it can also be a nerve-wracking experience, with many factors affecting when and how a baby arrives.
A new study, published today, suggests when pregnant women are exposed to high levels of humid heat during pregnancy, they are more likely to have a preterm birth.
However, this…
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By Peter Thompson, Associate Professor in Media and Communication, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
The announcement by Media and Communications Minister Paul Goldsmith that the government was abolishing the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) came as no real surprise.
But it leaves a big question hanging: will the news media still be held accountable to basic standards which protect the public interest and the core functions of the fourth estate?
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