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New Opposition Leader Angus Taylor says the Coalition’s immigration policy will have "Australian values" at its centre. Taylor is not the first politician to invoke "Australian values" – but what exactly does that mean?
To find out how Australians understood the term, Pandanus Petter and colleagues did some research. Is it just nostalgia for an Australian ideal that never existed? Or does it have some actual collective meaning?
They found that Australians tend to fall into two camps when it comes to the idea of a "fair go" – with implications for their political views.
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Amanda Dunn
Politics + Society Editor
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Pandanus Petter, Australian National University; Cosmo Howard, Griffith University; Juliet Pietsch, Griffith University
The assumption that Australian values are coherent is flawed, and the same flawed assumption is often projected onto other countries.
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Josh Roose, Deakin University
The attacks in Sydney are not merely an abhorrent anomaly. Incidents like these are foreshadowing future, more severe violence, unless something is done to curb it.
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Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra
The ISIS brides story is the latest instance of how the Labor caucus, and particularly the left, has mostly taken a vow of public silence.
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Misha Ketchell, The Conversation
The Conversation’s digital storytelling team has been recognised twice in the Innovation in Journalism category.
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Alexander Gofton, CSIRO
If you’re bitten by a tick and eat meat, you may not get any symptoms for hours. Here’s what to look out for.
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Song Shi, University of Technology Sydney
In the first study of its kind, researchers matched more than 1,500 Sydney house sales with data on nearly 50,000 public trees. They found location is crucial.
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Sara Fazeli, UNSW Sydney; Milad Haghani, The University of Melbourne; Moe Mohammad Mojtahedi, UNSW Sydney; Taha Hossein Rashidi, UNSW Sydney
Survivor accounts reveal how quickly evacuation routes become fatal, and why the danger of getting behind the wheel is often underestimated.
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Jason M. Lodge, The University of Queensland
Opposition education spokesperson Julian Leeser says universities should get rid of group assignments, branding them ‘unfair’.
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Nicholas Morieson, Deakin University
Low-cost Chinese-made AI could outcompete premium US models – and it won’t be an accident.
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Hazel Dalton, Charles Sturt University; Karen Hayes, Charles Sturt University
One Nation is proposing to force doctors to do a regional stint before they can work in the city. Would that work in practice?
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Politics + Society
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Simon Theobald, University of Oxford; University of Notre Dame Australia
The son of the former shah believes he can bring democracy to Iran. Iranians have heard similar promises before.
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Adrian Beaumont, The University of Melbourne
While Morgan and YouGov polls put Labor well ahead of the Coalition after preferences, Essential puts the Coalition ahead for the first time since the election.
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Environment + Energy
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James J Bell, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington; Manon Broadribb, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
A new study challenges a common assumption that deeper marine ecosystems act as refuges which could reseed damaged shallower reef systems.
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Laura Revell, University of Canterbury; Michele Bannister, University of Canterbury; Samantha Lawler, University of Regina
Planned ‘megaconstellations’ of satellites could cause unforeseen harm to the ozone layer and climate systems. Global regulation is needed before it’s too late.
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Science + Technology
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Ashna Gulati, University of Sydney; Tara Murphy, University of Sydney
Astronomers captured the clearest example yet of one of these hidden explosions.
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Anais Möller, Swinburne University of Technology
The Rubin Observatory in Chile has the largest camera ever built – and is set to find objects never before seen by human eyes.
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Arts + Culture
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Amy Hume, The University of Melbourne
Michael Caine has licensed his distinctive voice to the AI company ElevenLabs. Here’s what people actually hear when he speaks.
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Bridgette Glover, University of New England
Violet’s storyline reminds us how women over 40 deserve representation as sexually empowered agents – worthy of being seen and valued.
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Lorinda Cramer, Deakin University
The ‘frugal chic’ fashion trend revives our wartime-era mindset. But will it help fix our waste crisis?
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Books + Ideas
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Rachael Mead, Adelaide University
Rachael Mead’s body once carried her across Antarctic ice sheets. At 55, she set out to reclaim her resilience – and what she discovered was surprising.
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Our citizens, our duty
“The plight of the 'ISIS brides' and their children stuck in Syria has generated hysteria in our political masters in Australia. These are Australian citizens, they are our national responsibility, no matter where they are or what they have been up to. Syria's new government cannot be expected to keep them in their country. By all means, these people must have the legal book thrown at them when they are finally brought back to our shores. To abandon them to the uncertainty of events in the chaos of Syria is cynical politics for domestic approval. Syria should not be expected to have the responsibility of caring for them indefinitely when they have far more
pressing problems to handle.”
Kevin Odea
Slippery slope
“Martin Kear's article on 'contested phrases' speaks only to the conflict between Israel and Palestine. While Martin shows these phrases are but divisive slogans for ideological positions, such sloganised phrases are age old. To legislate against the use of two such phrases in public is merely taking sides. The alternative is to (somehow) legislate against all sloganised phrases. All embrasive legislation would ban sloganised phrases such as 'Always was, always will be', for example.”
Dr Bruce Moon, West Tweed
The middle ear myth
“In my working life I spent 25+ years testing children’s hearing, I talked to a lot of parents about middle ear infections, and I found one trend very worrying. Many parents pulled young children from swimming lessons in the mistaken belief that it was causing recurrent middle ear infection. Middle ear infections are very common in young children and occur behind the eardrum, which is watertight. Water from the pool cannot get into the middle ear if the eardrum is intact. There are some specific circumstances where swimming should be avoided temporarily but there is not a connection between swimming and middle ear infection. 'Swimmer's ear', an outer ear
infection, is not the same thing and is much less common in kids. I understand wanting to avoid painful recurrent ear infection, but avoiding swimming is very unlikely to make any difference and potentially put children’s lives at risk.”
Kim Ter-horst
We'd love to hear from you. You can email us with your thoughts on our stories and each day we'll publish an edited selection.
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