When Amateur Hour Met Happy Hour: The Balter Story

Where’s Currumbin? What does it have to do with brightly coloured beer? Angus Taylor’s economic beer theory? A ‘Kerrupt-flip’? Be patient ’til the last. In 2022, on a surf trip to the Pacific, I first came across Bede Durbidge. Bede – a former WSL veteran of a decade and decorated Pipeline Master – told…

ByJasper Derwent15 August 2025

Feature

Are We Witnessing the Decline of Feminism?

Is this still what we fought for? That’s the question that seems to hang quietly behind so much of the cultural discourse right now. From album covers to courtrooms, from social media trends to political movements, feminism feels at once everywhere and somehow nowhere at all. Its language has been adopted, repackaged, and monetised to…

ByChloe Gillis8 August 2025

Feature

Fifty Years Since the Fall of Saigon: A legacy of war, resilience, and reflection

On April 30, 1975, the world witnessed the fall of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam. North Vietnamese troops rolled into the city, marking the end of a decades-long conflict and the reunification of Vietnam under a single government. For some, this was a day of liberation and national reunification. For others, it signalled the…

ByKevin Hua30 April 2025

Feature Research Article

Asteroid Mining: A new frontier for Australia and sustainability

Asteroid mining refers to the extraction of minerals and raw materials from planetoids in outer space. Some of these Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs) contain an “abundance of Rare Earth Elements” (REEs), which are essential for powering many modern technologies. Valuable volatiles and commodities such as silver, gold, platinum, aluminium and cobalt (among others) are also found…

ByEddie Gerard10 April 2025

Feature

At Dawn We Remember: a lasting tribute to the ANZACs

My dad is a quiet man. Joining the navy at 19, he trained to become a clearance diver - a navy seal. His quiet persistence and unwavering emotional aloofness held him in good stead throughout the training period or as David Goggins calls it, ‘Hell Week’. He seems to reminisce fondly, finding comedy in the…

ByJamie Podmore Taylor22 April 2024

Feature

‘The Kid’ from Orange: Phoebe Litchfield’s rise up the order

Mid-November is a time of stress for most 17-18 year olds in New South Wales. Rows of students organised in cold bricked halls across the state, tapping pens and gliding fingertips along the outlines of HSC papers. A flurry of rustling emerges as reading time begins. For Phoebe Litchfield, who sits in a hotel room…

ByClancy Aboud11 October 2022

Feature

M4 Madness: a grand final for the West

Out went the Rabbitohs and the Sharks. Then there were two. A national title between a 35-kilometre strip on the M4. Parramatta and Penrith go toe-to-toe for the first time in rugby league history, a fitting grand final given the past of these two trying outfits. If you watch rugby league, you’ll know the Eels…

ByStirling Taylor30 September 2022

Feature

No need to ‘iel’: the French non-binary problem

When you finally unwind after a busy semester, your mind starts to follow trains of thought that looming deadlines and dense readings would have stopped. I had such an experience recently. I was sitting at Hammersmith tube station, reminiscing about Euphoria, which I had watched during a post-exams Netflix binge. Nostalgia blended with eagerness for…

ByJules Vahl28 September 2022

Feature

#Twinning!

Phoebe Lotz talks about growing up with a twin sister. The common reply I hear when I first meet someone and tell them about myself is “Oh my gosh, you have a twin? That must be so cool!” To which I respond “Yeah, I know right. She’s my best friend.” Which Sophie is, but at…

ByPhoebe Lotz29 July 2022