The Crucible: Open justice in Australia

Marta: Truth and illusion, George; you don’t know the difference. George: No, but we must carry on as though we did. Edawed Albee, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf Edward Albee’s 1962 play, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, rips down a compulsive response in the human psyche: hysteria. What is worth believing? So too did Arthur…

ByJasper Derwent7 September 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

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

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

Opinion

Shades of Red: The fractured identity of an ascendant right

With more than eighty countries having held elections, 2024 was the “Year of Democracy”, confronting pluralist politics with its “biggest test” as its already battered ideals were tried over and over. While clear trends emerged – global sentiments of anti-incumbency, the emboldening of election challengers – perhaps the most salient of these was a broad…

ByMia Seisun5 March 2025

Opinion

Who Gets to be Smart?

Over a year ago, my mum was accepted into Oxford for her Master’s in Global Health Leadership. While this achievement may be a significant personal milestone to some, for our family, it was a generational milestone. My mother was raised in apartheid South Africa by a single mother who could no more imagine studying at…

ByArya Moodley30 January 2025

Opinion

The Economics of Naming Rights: Are We Living in a Corporate Naming Dystopia?

My first encounter with the bizarre world of corporate sponsorships and naming rights was at the age of 11, during the construction of a new ice hockey arena in Detroit, Michigan. This coincided with the death of professional ice hockey player Gordie Howe. The timing seemed perfect for a posthumous tribute to a beloved Michigan…

ByEvelyn Doan8 January 2025

Opinion World

The Erasure of Women: Afghanistan’s Silent Crisis

There is approximately 11,500 km of distance between Sydney, Australia, and Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. That’s a completely useless fact that will mean almost nothing to you – if you are a man, it means even less. But if you are a woman, that distance is a blessing. The Taliban’s Ministry for the Promotion…

ByLucy Millar23 December 2024