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When I was working with CNN in Hong Kong, we organised a battle of the bands. Musically inclined staff members formed our own ensembles and pitted our modest talents against each other. The band immediately before mine was good. They were better players …

Canberra is a small city. Forget six degrees of separation. If you’re not actually living across the road from the prime minister, you could well be next door to his chief of staff, married to his press sec, playing golf with his departmental head, …

The latest results from the annual national literacy and numeracy tests in schools shows what we already knew: Australian education systems are not getting any better or fairer. The Better and Fairer Schools Agreement (BFSA) that the federal government …

Far from rattling the Albanese government, Paul Keating’s verbal pyrotechnics over the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal have been taken as confirmation its credentials on national security are firmly anchored in the United States alliance – exactly where …

In the red dust of East Arnhem Land, on the far reaches of the Northern Territory’s Gove Peninsula, Peter Dutton buried any pretence of national consensus on the importance of truth-telling regarding the dispossession of First Peoples or on recognition …

In the early hours of Monday morning, Australia’s ambassador to Washington stirred the prime minister from his slumber with news that Joe Biden had quit the race for a second term as president of the United States. Anthony Albanese didn’t roll over …

Last month, when Zali Steggall accused Peter Dutton of racism, Sky News reported that the opposition leader was seeking legal advice. Presumably he chose not to pursue it. Truth is one of the few solid defences available under defamation law.

On the playground, it is the final and most pathetic offer. It is the bargain of the uninvited schoolboy, the boy who gets carsick and smells of mandarin skins, made when there is nothing really to give: I’ll be your best friend.

The night Bill Shorten lost, the room where he was standing tasted of cigarette smoke and sour cheesecake. The lights burnt the wrong colour. At the podium, he said he was “proud we argued for what was right, not what was easy”.

Martin McKenzie-Murray’s article about my “impossible profession” was all too familiar (“The impossible profession”, September 14-20). However, there was one other factor McKenzie-Murray’s article did not mention: despite a national teacher …

Former New South Wales Supreme Court judge Anthony Whealy says it all in one pithy opinion: the National Anti-Corruption Commission “betrayed its core obligation and failed to carry out its primary statutory duty” by refusing to investigate six public …

Jason Koutsoukis’s interview with Mike Pezzullo is tellingly troubling (“Pezzullo: Labor has ‘picked a side’ in war with China”, August 31–September 6). Pezzullo is right – it appears the Australian government has already taken sides with …