Protesters marked national day of action after NSW recorded the highest number of Aboriginal deaths in custody across any state or territory in a single year * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The families of those who have died in custody have braved the rain to tell their stories and cry out for change. Donning shirts emblazoned with the faces of loved ones, they marked a national day of action to oppose Black deaths in custody at Sydney’s town hall on Saturday. Continue reading...

Hardly anyone now believes in the neoliberal myth that giving more money to already highly paid executives leads to better companies * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The news that companies including CSL and Optus, which pay no company tax in Australia, have awarded massive bonuses to their chief executives raises a question. If their tax returns are to be believed, these companies are making losses. So why do their CEOs deserve a bonus? That’s the obvious question. But there are plenty more to ask – not just about bonuses but about privatisation. John Quiggin is a professor at the University of Queensland’s school of economics Continue reading...

When Tim Fischer called High Court judges “pissants” in the ’90s, after they recognised native title and overturned terra nullius, he created the rare spectacle of a government minister excoriating a ...

What’s wrong with a rake?

Exclusive: Poverty rapporteur says governments must rethink welfare state as essential to fabric of society

When Western Sydney University announced it would shed hundreds of staff, its vice-chancellor described the decision as part of a “necessary transformation.

Whether because of temporary disability or permanent need, the demand for accessible holiday accommodation is growing with our ageing population.

The ruinous result of the US approach to freedom of information and media has made anti-democratic contagion impossible to ignore * Past/Present is a new column which places current events in historical context For a generation of liberal democratic leaders shaped by the verities of the 1990s, the prospect that new media and communications technologies would deliver their citizens to fascism and war has seemed, until recently, unthinkable. Today, waves of racist violence facilitated by mass-scale misinformation have finally invited the beginnings of some response. The fate of the US, and the poisonous entente of corporate media monopoly and far-right leadership, has made the prospect of anti-democratic contagion now impossible to ignore. Measures to protect the young have taken shape with relative speed, with Australia extolling its pioneering (and unproven) initiatives on age-verification and social network restriction due to take effect on 10 December. Continue reading...

Communication must be freed from clickbait and misguided thinking, head of Catholic church tells journalists The Pope has condemned clickbait as a “degrading” part of journalism, at a private audience with global newswires. Australian media representatives were among those to hear directly from Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican on Thursday with about 150 members of newswire alliance MINDS International. Continue reading...

For most of its history, the Australian Labor Party spoke of education as a public good, the light on the hill, a vision of collective progress through strong institutions, universal access, and the elevation of ordinary citizens.

Rising inequality and declining living standards have posed a threat to democracy in several democracies, but so far not in Australia. However, the increasing inequality of wealth, driven by housing becoming unaffordable without rich parents, is a threat.