News

Closing the Gap deal sets 16 new targets aimed at improving the lives of Indigenous Australians in several key areas.

Central banks are stretched to the limit, trying to support the economy during the unprecedented COVID-10 recession. The Bank of England is now considering cutting its base rate to below zero.

During the COVID-19 pandemic we’re constantly being reminded to practise good hygiene by frequently washing our hands and regularly cleaning the spaces where we live and work.

The good news in the Reserve Bank’s latest quarterly set of forecasts is that the recession won’t be as steep as it thought last time.

Australia’s long-awaited cybersecurity strategy, released yesterday, pledges to spend A$1.67 billion over the next ten years to improve online protection for businesses, individuals and the country as a whole.

Democrats in Congress want to send US$1 trillion to help out states and cities in their version of the relief bill. The GOP’s bill has, so far, no money for states and cities, though reportedly its position has moderated recently.

Stockpile in NSW city of Newcastle said to be four times bigger than that which created the Beirut blast.

Head of policy think tank says business community should be able to speak out on China without their loyalty being questioned.

COVID-19 has now made us two Australias. There’s Victoria – most specifically Melbourne – and then there’s the rest of the country.

Melburnians have now been wearing mandatory face coverings in public for two weeks. Yet Premier Daniel Andrews yesterday announced another grim milestone in Victoria’s second wave of COVID-19 infections: 725 new cases, a record daily tally for any Australian state since the pandemic began.

The Australian Alps in southeast New South Wales is the traditional home of three Aboriginal groups: the Ngarigo, Walgalu and Djilamatang people. It is home to Australia’s highest peak, Mount Kosciuszko.

New modelling shows that under a worst-case scenario, Australia will be 1.4 million people - or 4% - smaller in 2040, than if COVID-19 had not happened.

In his address to the Aspen Security Forum today, Prime Minister Scott Morrison stressed the importance of Australia’s alliances with fellow liberal democracies.

From early on Saturday morning, nobody from NSW and ACT will be able to enter Queensland. Premier says ‘tough decision’ is necessary.

The self-proclaimed Principality of Hutt River in outback WA is back in the Australian fold as lack of tourists hits its economy.

Virgin Australia’s plan to sack about 3,000 of its 9,000 staff, axe its budget brand Tigerair, streamline its fleet to only Boeing 737s and suspend long-haul international flying indefinitely should come as no surprise.

Americans were alarmed last week when their president suggested on Twitter that the November 3 presidential election should be delayed because mail-in ballots would be fraudulent.

Australian embassy to Lebanon severely damaged by a massive Beirut explosion which has injured consular staff and left one Australian dead.

The Lebanese capital Beirut was rocked on Tuesday evening local time by an explosion that has killed at least 78 people and injured thousands more.

When the pandemic broke, the cruise industry was decimated as its ships became floating outbreaks. Efforts to kick-start it are floundering.

As Victorians face yet another long period of enforced lockdown, serious concerns are being raised about people’s capacity to comply.

HMAS Canberra rushes to the assistance of three sailors shipwrecked on an uninhabited Pacific island.

Urban living brings many benefits, but city dwellers worldwide are seeing a rapid increase in noncommunicable health problems, such as asthma and inflammatory bowel disease.

Americans who lost their jobs because of the pandemic had been getting a US$600 bump on top of state benefits in their weekly unemployment checks since March.

The world continues to reel from the pandemic and, among many other things, the shortage of medical supplies that has resulted.

The restrictions in place for metropolitan Melbourne now are in some ways stricter than those that were in force during New Zealand’s COVID-19 lockdown.

Social media erupts as an unnamed ‘large celebrity and influencer’ in LA offers a ‘part-time’ 24/7 job from hell.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has announced sweeping changes to businesses across metropolitan Melbourne, including closure of retail stores and restrictions on some industries, including construction.

Tit-for-tat as New Zealand’s decision to suspend extradition treaty with Hong Kong is matched by China’s own move.

In recent years wildfires have entered urban areas, causing breathtaking destruction.

The announcement of stage 4 restrictions in Victoria marks a new, and depressing, stage in Australia’s response to COVID-19.

Non-essential retailers across Melbourne will be shut except for “click and collect” and delivery sales, and industries including meatworks and construction will be drastically scaled back, under Victoria’s unprecedented lockdown.

OPINION & ANALYS: Professor Jenny Hocking's victory in the release of the Palace letters is a significant one for truth and history, writes Tess Lawrence.

Creative destruction “is the essential fact about capitalism”, wrote the great Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter in 1942.

While masks are not mandatory in NSW, Premier Gladys Berejiklian outlines four key scenarios for wearing them.

Air pollution contributes to as many as 9 million premature deaths worldwide each year – twice as many as war, other violence, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined.

Existing lockdown measures were not proving successful so Premier moves to up the ante with yet tougher regulations.

A “state of disaster” has been declared for the whole of Victoria from 6pm, Sunday August 2, for a month.

James Murdoch is not the most obvious candidate for editorial heroism. His route to resigning from the News Corp board because of “disagreements over certain editorial content” has been circuitous and colourful.

The Crew Dragon spacecraft, produced by private company SpaceX, is scheduled to return from the International Space Station (ISS) and splash down in the Atlantic ocean on August 2.

COVID-19 testing has two purposes. The first is to confirm a diagnosis so that medical treatment can be appropriately rendered. The second is to do surveillance for tracking and disease suppression.

In Outback Queensland, Kevin and Carol are in big strife and barred from the only watering hole in town.

Road transportation is a major consumer of fossil fuels, contributing 16 per cent of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, which warm up the Earth’s atmosphere and cause changes to the climate.

New Zealand’s Prime Minister shows that a soft, emotionally mature touch does not indicate weakness, say experts.

For a long time, richer developed countries have been underwriting the costs of climate change in poorer developing countries, leaving them reliant on Western solutions to their climate-related issues.

Stronger Indigenous languages are more than a standalone target. Every policy area needs to consider the language backgrounds of the people affected.

The COVID-19 crisis has led many to argue that the current crisis has exacerbated the inequalities inherent in the current economic order.

This recession is the result of the forced hibernation of large parts of the economy in order to reduce the spread of COVID-19.

Territory’s Health Minister expects no quick end to tight border controls as more Qld hotspots are added to list.

COVID-19 has shown how damaging ill-health can be for the economy. But it has also shown how measures that benefit health (lockdowns) can be seen as bad economic prosperity.