During the nine years of the previous Coalition government, the ABC came under relentless attack. As Denis Muller writes, this included “accusations of left-wing bias, a succession of pointless and enervating inquiries, punitive funding cuts, and the use of the ABC for target practice in the Coalition’s interminable climate and culture wars”.
On top of all this, the government joined forces with News Corp in a pincer attack on the national broadcaster, and then – worst of all – stacked the board. In May this year, the board announced it was appointing an ombudsman to oversee the complaints system. That ombudsman reports directly back to the board, a move Muller argues is an “outright betrayal of editorial independence”.
So what now under the Albanese Labor government? A reset is necessary, but it won’t happen quickly. And a major test for the ABC will be whether its board can genuinely defend the broadcaster’s independence and – importantly – send the message to its journalists, who are often doing difficult and fraught work, that it has their backs.
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Amanda Dunn
Section Editor: Politics + Society
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Denis Muller, The University of Melbourne
One of the national broadcaster’s most urgent challenges will be ensuing its journalists feel management has their backs.
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Gemma Paech, University of Newcastle
Some people report insomnia symptoms, where they struggle to fall or stay asleep. Others report feeling constantly fatigued, and seemingly can’t get enough sleep. So what’s going on?
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Lorna Piatti-Farnell, Auckland University of Technology
Kate Bush has been ‘discovered’ by a younger generation of fans, proving that her music has a timeless appeal.
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Rebecca Pearse, Australian National University; Daniel J Cass, University of Sydney; Linda Connor, University of Sydney; Riikka Heikkinen, University of Technology Sydney
In the first major study of its kind, the authors travelled to where renewable energy is expanding in NSW to ask communities how they feel about the changes.
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Jane Gleeson-White, UNSW Sydney
Pure Colour confirms Sheila Heti as one of the most inventive, searching, scintillating and mind-bending writers working today.
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Peter Martin, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
Australia already imposes a super-profits tax of 40% on gas producers, but very little is paid. Yet we know how to simplify the system, so we’re not gifting billions to multinational companies.
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Politics + Society
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Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra
Michelle Grattan discusses politics with politics + society editor, Amanda Dunn
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Adrian Beaumont, The Conversation
Senate numbers are close to being finalised in other states, too.
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Peter Brent, The University of Melbourne
History shows that opposition leaders elected after an election job struggle to hang onto their jobs. Will this time be different?
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Health + Medicine
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Fiona Doolan-Noble, University of Otago; Ally Calder, University of Otago; Elaine Hargreaves, University of Otago; Hui Xiao, University of Otago
When it comes to men’s health strategies, New Zealand has fallen behind countries like Mongolia, Iran and Malaysia. In Men’s Health Week it’s time to ask: what is the plan to save men’s lives?
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Ben Marais, University of Sydney; Jocelyne Basseal, University of Sydney; Lyn Gilbert, University of Sydney; Tania Sorrell, University of Sydney
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has promised to create an Australian centre for disease control-style organisation to manage future pandemics. Here’s what it needs to do.
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Science + Technology
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Culum Brown, Macquarie University
Frilled sharks haven’t changed for about 80 million years! And while they may look a bit like snakes from a distance, they are actually much more similar to other sharks close up.
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Oscar Davis, Bond University
A Google engineer claims one of the company’s chatbots has become sentient. Experts disagree, but the debate raises old questions about the nature of consciousness.
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Environment + Energy
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Jerry Vanclay, Southern Cross University
Lismore’s residents and businesses on the floodplain need to look at relocation, not rebuilding.
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Justin Eastwood, Monash University; Anne Peters, Monash University
Exposure to hot and dry conditions can damage the DNA of nestling birds in their first few days of life – meaning they age earlier and produce less offspring.
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Education
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Christopher Charles Deneen, University of South Australia
When COVID forced exams online, reports of cheating were rife and proctoring software was problematic. But in-person exams are also flawed, so now’s the time to rethink how assessment works.
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Arts + Culture
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Sarah Balkin, The University of Melbourne
Nat Randall and Anna Breckon’s Set Piece explores female intimacy through the relationship between screen and stage.
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Esmé Louise James, The University of Melbourne
Pompeii is remembered as a place of surprising liberality – but the ‘masturbating man’ is probably a far less lurid tale than assumed.
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Books + Ideas
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Richard Shaw, Massey University
While tracing his own family’s journey from Ireland to Aotearoa New Zealand, Richard Shaw encountered how much ‘selective amnesia’ about the colonial past still shapes our lives today.
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Kate Flaherty, Australian National University
The tragedy of Macbeth issues a warning for our times about the harm that is done when the desire for power drowns out the inner voice of conscience.
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Business + Economy
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Mark Bray, University of Newcastle; Andrew Stewart, University of Adelaide; Johanna Macneil, RMIT University
We’ve researched co-operation at work for many years – and its much easier to talk about than to achieve, especially in a political system as adversarial as Australia’s.
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