Wealth is shifting upwards, basic universal services are outsourced and improving the lives of the Australians doing it toughest is being ignored. So where can we find hope? The Christian scripture “Peace on Earth and goodwill to all” is not only the hope of those who celebrate Christmas, it’s also both the weary longing of those who don’t profit from the war, violence and division that has characterised recent local and global history, and the go-to solution for political and community leaders looking for solutions. In practice, however, “goodwill to those like us and ‘please stay peaceful’ to those who aren’t” may be a more accurate characterisation of our collective experience as wealth shifts inexorably upwards, basic universal services are outsourced – disability support, early education, aged and health care – shifting shareholders into the role of primary beneficiaries, and the corporatisation of not-for-profits has social services providers placing increased market share higher on their priority list than improving the lives of the Australians doing it toughest. Continue reading...

Santa Claus has devised a special ice esky throne to beat the heat in outback Australia this year.

The Campbell’s keeled glass-snail is officially extinct, but researchers have ‘high hopes’ that translocation will allow the population to thrive * Sign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter here On a grey day in early June, a commercial plane landed at Norfolk Island Airport in the South Pacific. Onboard was precious cargo ferried some 1,700km from Sydney: four blue plastic crates with “LIVE ANIMALS” signs affixed to the outside. Inside were thumbnail-sized snails, hundreds of them, with delicate, keeled shells. The molluscs’ arrival was the culmination of an ambitious plan five years in the making: to bring a critically endangered species back from the brink. Continue reading...

Prime minister announces first firearm buyback since Port Arthur massacre, and designates Sunday a national day of reflection in honour of Hanukah shooting victims

By linking decades of weather and income data, University of Arizona economist Derek Lemoine shows how routine temperature shifts have already become an economic force.

The brother of a survivor shot during the weekend terrorist attack in Sydney says it is "utterly shameful" the Australian prime minister has not attended funerals of the victims and has called on him ...

An AI agent ran a snack operation in the WSJ newsroom. It gave away a free PlayStation, ordered a live fish—and taught us lessons about the future of AI.

In the hours after the Bondi Beach mass shooting, AI misinformation began to eat its own tail, with Musk's X bot absorbed and regurgitated in record time.

Amid a spate of collapsed projects in Australia’s nascent offshore wind sector, one developer is forging ahead.