Karen Middleton Following the auditor-general’s damning report on the sports grants scheme, questions are being raised about other programs.

Debra Jopson Experts warn that the government’s tree-planting projects may have limited effectiveness as a climate strategy – particularly in the wake of this summer’s bushfires.

Santilla Chingaipe As the aged-care royal commission rolls on, community groups fear that the welfare of elderly migrants who do not speak English is being forgotten.

Jessica Zhan Mei Yu More than a decade after her best-selling debut, Unpolished Gem, Alice Pung remains one of Australia’s most beloved authors for her gentle yet forthright prose. She speaks about racism, role models and motherhood. “As a writer, I don’t know if you can really see from another person’s perspective … It is important to try and put yourself in someone else’s shoes, but I’ve realised in the last five years you can never really do it.”

Nick Feik In recent months the federal government’s position on climate change has shifted. Not in policy terms: the change has been restricted to its rhetoric. It has a new strategy to avoid responsibility. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has become adept at evading questions on climate change and its links to bushfires and judging by his satisfied expression as he fronted up for ABC’s 7.30 recently, he remains confident he has a form of words that, like armour, journalists will be unable to penetrate.

Sean Kelly Not once, before this latest foray, as far as I can tell, had Morrison been pulled into line by an interviewer on his claims about hazard reduction. This comes after an election campaign in which he managed to make the cost of Labor’s climate change policies an issue. The cost of not doing anything – which has now, tragically, been the focus of two months of wall-to-wall coverage – was largely ignored.

Richard Ackland It’s not been an easy time for Scotty from Marketing. He is supposed to be a PR genius, yet the art of public relations suddenly got too complicated for him. PR is the place people end up when all other professional options fail, and now Schmo has failed at the failures’ last resort.

What Scott Morrison lacks most is not intelligence or good advice: it’s empathy. He cannot feel what the country is feeling, and so he plays cricket and takes his kids to Hawaii. This is what happens when politics divorces itself from policy, when you campaign to win rather than to govern. Without a real agenda, you are left with personality, and it is not enough. The country’s anxieties seem alien to Morrison, because they are not his own. He knows he will be okay. He cannot grasp the scale of the calamity we face, because he does not feel it or feel for the people it will most affect.

Mike Seccombe In Australia’s quest to become one of the world’s leading weapons exporters, the line between government and industry is becoming increasingly blurred.

Jonathan Pearlman Donald Trump’s impeachment trial begins. UN rules on Kiribati climate refugee. Vladimir Putin’s plan to ‘rule forever’. China acts to stop spread of coronavirus.

Steve Dow The power of Vernon Ah Kee’s latest show, The Island, lies in its ability to spotlight the experiences of First Nations people and refugees as the antithesis of privileged white Australian culture.

Shaad D’Souza No sense of impending tragedy emanates from Mac Miller’s posthumous album, Circles. But it does offer some degree of satisfying closure for fans of the American rapper.

Ellen van Neerven

David Moyle

Chris Ray It may seem like an unlikely holiday destination, but as peace returns to Syria, the struggling nation hopes tourists will too.

Joe Gorman Where once Australia’s soccer success rode on the shoulders of European migrants, a new generation of African Australians has started to kick serious goals.

Cindy MacDonald Test your general knowledge with our weekly quiz.