Articles & Columns

For those with patience, who are happy to spend long hours around freshwater wetland habitats, a reward in the form of a bittern sighting might be forthcoming.

The Farrer byelection this Saturday is being cast in almost existential terms. Will this mark the far-right party’s foothold in the political mainstream with its first-ever federal lower house MP? 

Dr Richard Gates from Evans Head Residents for Sustainable Development on the problematic bridge at Iron Gates.

Sometimes it’s hard to know what’s real. It’s hard to know who to trust. Weirdos in the thing they call the manosphere who groom men into poisonous misogyny. Billionaires who have no problem getting richer while single mums bring up their kids in the back seat of a car. Political leaders who bomb houses where babies live. News sources that are biased. Algorithms that track you like some creepy digital stalker. Women murdered by their partner or ex-partner. Children hurt by the people who were supposed to love them. One man living in a $35 million beachfront mansion, another living on the beach in a swag.

When it comes to drugs like cannabis and psilocybin, as the USA moves steadily towards decriminalisation, regulation and therapeutic reform, Australia's laws remain largely stuck in the past.

So what is really necessary for Australia’s bottom line? What is ‘unavoidable and urgent’ to ensure our budget bottom line?

To tax or not to tax, that is the question. Whether to allow global corporations to continue plundering our resources for little return, or, by grabbing the corporate bull by the horns, make them pay their way.

In medieval times, for a fee, indulgences were granted by the church to rich men to expiate their sins. Since the link between carbon dioxide emissions and global warming has been understood, there’s been a similar vibe around many carbon capture and storage projects, with the existence of this technology providing an excuse for very large companies to continue polluting our atmosphere, rather than transitioning to renewables.

Richmond River champions Graeme Gibson and Steve Posselt have written an open letter to Kyogle and Richmond Valley Councils, urging action to protect the river.

Not everyone gets the opportunity to have a voice. Especially a woman like me. I can have extreme views. Or at least views that aren’t shared or supported by mainstream media. I can upset people. A lot. I am emotional. I am unpredictable. I don’t write in a regular way. Sometimes I’m journalistic and factual. Other times I’m personal and reflective. I can be ironic or gross. Or offensive. I can be sincere one week and stupid the next. Sometimes it’s a moral rant, other times it’s a political one. Sometimes it’s both. I sometimes get it wrong. Not much. But sometimes. I’m a feminist. I’m irreverent. I swear. I’m overly self reflective. I’m woke. And sometimes I’m not.

Government is fundamentally about priorities, and we've just seen a striking demonstration of where this government's priorities lie. 160,000 participants are set to be removed from the national disability insurance scheme, presumably because we can't afford it, while multinational gas companies are likely to continue being sheltered from paying a fair rate of tax.

The Brunswick Valley was hit hard by WW1, with 69 percent of its young men killed or wounded, according to Census figures. This led...

Byron Shire councillors currently have in their control one of the key pieces of publicly-owned land that is flood-free, within walking distance of the...

It may seem difficult to keep up with the epic battle for Banyam Biagham, the North Lismore Plateau. Surely it's all sorted by now? So you might think, but the fight to protect Aboriginal heritage is often a long hard one.

A CNN investigation revealed an illicit website instructing men how to rape their wives received 62 million visits. On the site men shared tips, images and videos related to the abuse of women including how to drug and incapacitate them. This included Telegram channels with British men engaged in the same. This was visitation in one month. February. The shortest month.

Last week, while Albo flew around the world trying to secure emergency fuel and fertiliser supplies for Australia, as a result of the international crisis caused by the United States, Acting PM and Defence Minister Richard Marles was in Canberra talking about defence.

ASIO (the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation) plays a key role in keeping all Australians safe in a troubled world. But, according to their governments,...

I don’t usually start my columns with a warning, but in this case I will. Not just a trigger caution for those, like me, who are traumatised by descriptions of sexual assault, but also a ‘how long do I have to keep protesting this shit?’ anger, frustration, disgust, and alarm as well.

I am in Melbourne, and as I write this, public transport is free for April. That’s statewide. It’s a small but powerful way to make an impact on the cost-of-living pressures on a community now also facing high fuel prices. The same happened in the Byron Shire over Easter – with free buses running to take the pressure off the roads.

The latest federal leader of the Nationals, Matt Canavan, appeared at the National Press Club last week, but anyone hoping for some substance behind the spin left disappointed.