How Meleane Taufa Built a Culture of Care

When Meleane (Mel) Taufa first joined St Andrew’s College in late 2020, she never imagined just how transformative her journey would be for herself, her family, and the students she came to support. In a short time, her impact became significant. Mel became Housekeeping Manager, Indigenous Support Officer, a mentor, and a trusted confidante to…

ByEditorial Team11 October 2025

Creative Uncategorised

When I Become a Panther

Foreword: This fictional piece was inspired by my interest in the psychological and neurodevelopmental effects of childhood trauma, which began after reading The Boy Was Raised as a Dog by Bruce D. Perry and Maia Szalavitz. Throughout this story, I have attempted to touch on the powerlessness felt by victims of child abuse and the…

ByLucy Smith22 September 2025

Creative

The Centre Does Hold

There all the barrel-hoops are knit, There all the serpent-tails are bit, There all the gyres converge in one, There all the planets drop in the Sun. – W. B. Yeats, Supernatural Songs, IV 'There' The Brown Betty teapot’s older than the Hills Hoist and twice as stubborn. Five generations of paddy women, and decades of…

ByAtlanta Gervasoni29 August 2025

Creative

Triptych

Constrict Me Serpent Burns the light above Does on petty eyes of mine. From high up as if to guide light To my fingertips and my knuckles. Such advice deemed little To a boy so confused, he forgot how to write. Melancholy, some shout, Others pensive, More merely stranded youth. Yet they…

BySam Singleton22 August 2025

Feature

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

Creative

Aithrí

In Her Name Mary Magdalene is posited as Christianity’s exemplar of repentance, the apostle of Christ, the faithful woman, freed of seven demons. Worthy of hymnal adoration, and biblical heralding… but the rankle, the blister, the problem was she was robust, energetic. A prostitute. None of which were revered in the picture of the Christian…

ByAlice Wilson6 June 2025

Opinion

So What?: Deconstructing the common rhetoric and shame surrounding casual harassment

I was five years old when a boy took hold of my shoulders behind the water fountain without warning and pressed his lips against mine. The common rhetoric I often encounter as an indirect response is that of “so what?”; essentially, how can such a trivial act lead to tangible detriment to the woman? I…

ByEllie Craven30 May 2025

Opinion

Fascism’s Insidious New Mutation: How gym bro influencers, the alt-right pipeline and Netflix’s viral show ‘Adolescence’ are connected

After watching Donald Trump’s 2024 election victory, the politically astute and the ignorant alike sat up in their seats – it was a final, overwhelming announcement that fascism is back in. The EIU's 2024 Democracy Index resoundingly supported this proposed democratic backsliding, reporting a historical low with 130 of 167 states registering stagnation or decline…

ByAtlanta Gervasoni22 May 2025

Poetry

Into the Jacaranda-Garden

‘And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.’ – T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets Laid out lulled in luscious green, sweet muslin drawing on the breeze Springtime in our courtyard with the jacaranda tree Misty mauve effusive, Her visitation draws…

ByAtlanta Gervasoni7 May 2025