Tessera

Australia spends more than $1.3 billion a year on disability employment, yet many people with high support needs remain excluded from mainstream jobs – and some can legally earn as little as $3.31 an hour, Alistair McEwin writes. #auspol #Disability #Employment

Australia is failing disabled workers – and it doesn't have to

Australia spends more than $1.3 billion a year on disability employment, yet people with high support needs remain excluded from mainstream work and can still legally be paid a fraction of the minimum wage.

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Self-funded retirees compare term deposits, shares and managed funds. Charles Coppel argues they should also consider home electrification – an investment that cut his household energy bills by more than 80%. #auspol #Renewables #Electrification

Home electrification is an investment hiding in plain sight

For self-funded retirees, home electrification can cut energy bills, reduce exposure to petrol and gas prices, and add value to the home.

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Comparison is not competition. The government appointed envoys for Islamophobia and antisemitism, and Muslim communities are entitled to ask whether both responses reflect equal protection, Sara Cheikh Husain writes. #auspol #Islamophobia #Antisemitism

The Hormuz crisis has exposed a stark divide: countries with fiscal, industrial and administrative capacity can shield farmers from fertiliser shocks. Poorer import-dependent states often cannot, Jianbo Wu writes. #FoodSecurity #Hormuz #Geopolitics

The Hormuz crisis has become a test of state capacity

The Hormuz crisis shows that food security now depends not only on harvests and markets, but on whether governments have the fiscal, industrial and administrative capacity to secure fertiliser supplies.

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A new round of inquiries may expose more than corruption and mismanagement. The deeper danger is what money, secrecy and insider access have done to public trust in politics and institutions, Jack Waterford writes. #auspol #Integrity #Corruption

The truth, forced out, is more damaging than coming clean

A new round of royal commissions and public inquiries may expose not only corruption and mismanagement, but the deeper erosion of public trust in politics, parties and institutions.

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Australia champions Indigenous rights abroad, yet the militarisation of northern Australia raises urgent questions about consultation, consent and the use of Indigenous lands for defence purposes, Henry Reynolds writes. #auspol #PineGap #IndigenousRights

The weakly supported Hague ruling anniversary statement exposed how isolated the US and Australia have become on the South China Sea. ASEAN is choosing diplomacy, not grandstanding, Geoff Raby writes. #auspol #China #ASEAN

Has China won the South China Sea?

The weakly supported anniversary statement on the Hague ruling showed how isolated the US and Australia have become on the South China Sea, with ASEAN preferring diplomacy over confrontation.

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In the final part of his six-part series on AUKUS infrastructure, Peter Briggs argues Pillar 1 cannot deliver on schedule or budget – and Australia should pause the HEU pathway and assess proven LEU alternatives. #auspol #AUKUS #Defence

AUKUS Infrastructure, part 6: It is not too late to change course

In the final part of a six-part series on AUKUS infrastructure, Peter Briggs argues that Pillar 1 cannot deliver on schedule or budget, and that Australia should pause its HEU pathway and assess proven LEU alternatives.

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Green steel is not just a climate opportunity. Done strategically, it could unlock investment, create regional jobs, strengthen sovereign capability and make the energy transition a national security multiplier, Elizabeth Thurbon writes. #auspol #GreenSteel #Renewables

Australia needs green energy statecraft

Australia’s iron and steel sector shows why climate policy, industrial strategy and national security now need to be governed together, not treated as separate problems.

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China is not abandoning globalisation. It is trying to reshape it around technological self-reliance, industrial resilience and reduced strategic dependence on the West, G Venkat Raman writes. #China #Globalisation #Geopolitics

Britain’s railways helped transform the modern world, but in colonial Ghana they also carried conquest and extraction. History is harder than choosing either pride or shame, Komla Tsey writes. #History #Colonialism #WesternCivilisation

Australia cannot control wars and political upheavals overseas. But it can choose whether those conflicts are allowed to fuel suspicion, hatred and division at home, Mainul Haque writes. #auspol #Multiculturalism #SocialCohesion

AI is advancing faster than societies, laws and institutions can absorb. National regulation is not enough: the world needs international oversight, verification and shared rules, Ana Palacio writes. #AI #Technology #Governance

AI needs its own Paris Agreement

AI is advancing faster than societies, laws and institutions can adapt, making international governance, verification and shared oversight essential.

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Australia’s sky-high cigarette excise and restricted legal access to vaping have helped fuel a vast illegal nicotine market. Harm reduction, not prohibition-style denial, should guide tobacco control, Alex Wodak writes. #auspol #PublicHealth #Vaping

Time to reform Australia’s failed policy on smoking and vaping

Australia’s sky-high cigarette excise and severely restricted legal access to vaping have helped fuel a vast illegal nicotine market, undermining public health, law enforcement and government revenue.

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Hyperscale data centres can use as much water as a small town. As AI demand grows, governments face a new test: how to allocate, monitor and protect already-stressed water resources, Delia Paul writes. #AI #Water #Sustainability

With hyperscale data centres, water governance faces its biggest challenge

Hyperscale data centres are adding new pressure to already stressed freshwater systems, testing whether governments can allocate, monitor and protect water fairly.

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In the fifth of a six-part series on AUKUS infrastructure, Peter Briggs examines the HEU problem: weapons-grade reactor fuel brings proliferation risk, tighter safety margins, waste burdens and tougher civil infrastructure demands. #auspol #AUKUS #Defence

Life has repeatedly remade Earth by changing how matter and energy are processed. This week’s environment round-up moves from ancient biosphere revolutions to China’s coal and renewables boom, habitat gardens and Cape Grim, Peter Sainsbury writes. #Climate #Environment #Renewables

Environment: Six revolutions and four billion years made today’s biosphere

This week’s environment round-up looks at the metabolic revolutions that remade Earth, China’s simultaneous coal and renewables boom, habitat gardens and Australia’s Cape Grim climate monitoring.

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Labor promises cost-of-living relief and more tax cuts, but that leaves the structures driving insecurity largely untouched. The real issue is not just the cost of living – it is the cost of capitalism, Stewart Sweeney writes. #auspol #Labor #Economy

Labor should talk about the cost of capitalism

Labor’s promise to ease living costs and cut taxes may offer relief, but it avoids the deeper question of who owns, controls and profits from the systems making life insecure.

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