Hilary McPhee co-founded McPhee Gribble, the legendary Australian publishing house responsible for Monkey Grip, Puberty Blues and Cloudstreet.

Independent Planning Commission says climate change impacts from Hunter Valley project will be ‘outweighed’ by economic benefits * Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates * Get our new political email, free app or daily news podcast The New South Wales independent planner has approved the biggest coalmine project to ever go before it, allowing mining to continue until 2045 at a Hunter Valley project described by climate groups as a “carbon bomb”. The Independent Planning Commission (IPC) has green lit the Hunter Valley Operations Continuation Project after a contentious assessment that drew in climate and environment groups, unions, state authorities and more than 10,000 public submissions. Continue reading...

For decades, successive governments have kept unemployment payments in Australia below all accepted measures of adequacy - JobSeeker now sits at just 41% of the minimum wage, and Youth Allowance is ev...

YouTube video by The Australia Institute

The Old Order is fading.What should Australia build next?Wars rage, great powers flout international law, alliances are under strain and economic nationalism is back. In New Game, New Rules: A Foreig...

The lower house in Tasmania has narrowly passed new firearm legislation, which falls well short of the agreement in National Cabinet at the start of this year. The vote for the Firearms Amendment (Str...

Here’s a question you’ve probably never asked yourself: Why does Nauru Airlines exist? There’s a simple answer – Australia’s offshore detention regime. Australia’s “resettlement” program in Naoero req...

Musicians, performers and other artists may worry that being too political will alienate their audiences. But polling shows that audiences are far more likely to take action if their favourite Austral...

Australian society has been riven by a combustible debate about antisemitism, criticism of Israel and the boundaries of free speech. The royal commission could have provided the intellectual and moral...

YouTube video by ABC News (Australia)

“Don’t prompt the AI tool on the company account” will become the new “don’t put that in writing”. Or ask the model for five framings and pick one, which leaves no record of what you were after. Nothi...

The Point, helping readers make sense of the issues shaping their lives today.

One guy in Sydney has 371 of them. Who needs 371 guns?

Romania halted operations of its only nuclear plant on Thursday, a rare shutdown due to a drought scorching Europe that has caused the Danube river, whose waters cool the plant, to fall to record lows...

Anthony Albanese is weighing up the options

Last night, Queanbeyan local Omar Musa won the 2026 Miles Franklin award for the 'novel with the highest literary merit which presents Australian life.' He received a $60,000 prize, only he won’t get ...

Malaysian Australian author Omar Musa has taken out the Miles Franklin Literary Award with his second novel, Fierceland, set between Malaysian Borneo and Sydney.

While pregnancy loss is common, gaps in official data mean its impacts on different demographic and geographic groups remain unknown.

If you have retreated to physical books because the internet is too full of AI slop, bad news — now they’re shredding the books to feed their AI slop machines.