Tracing the path of teenage baby killer Harley Hicks
A mother wakes to find her baby beaten to death in his cot, murdered by an ice-addicted stranger. Here, part one in a two-part series.
News
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“Australia needs to stop setting a bad model for the region by shirking its own obligations.”
As the PM sets off to meet world leaders, his government is withdrawing the nation from international affairs.
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The buried treasures of corporate tax avoidance
Tony Abbott has paid lip service to tax reform, but his government’s latest measures only serve to make corporate avoidance easier.
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The underground economy of fracking
The US experience provides a glimpse of our potentially prosperous but unsettling future, if we let loose a gas and oil fracking boom.
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Rudd’s irregular ad spend on people smugglers
FOI documents reveal the Rudd government flouted its own advertising guidelines to spend millions on the controversial ‘By boat, no visa’ campaign.
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Unwelcome comic timing for Abbott trip
Modi gets tough; gas price pressure; Jokowi team casts shadowy figures; more than a few blips in search for MH370.
Opinion
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Margaret Simons
Can SBS and the ABC be combined?
“One-fifth of the money taxpayers fork out for public broadcasting goes to a company owned by a Canadian superannuation fund.”
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Daniel Andrews
Daniel Andrews on a family violence royal commission
“If a crisis as profound and inexplicable as family violence doesn’t deserve the rigour and the review of a royal commission, then what on earth does?”
Letters & Editorial
Culture
Blue Wiggle Anthony Field’s balancing act
As a finger-waving, money-spinning Wiggle, Anthony Field seemed to have it all. But success came at a price.
ACO and the Presets offer a brief mash-up of time
Richard Tognetti’s ACO joins forces with the Presets to survey music from the dawn of time to Daft Punk.
Food
Life
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The fashion industry embraces "grey chic"
While fashion brands seem obsessed with youth, the smartest among them are tapped into a surer market.
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Google’s searches narrowing our experience
If Google is telling us what we want to know rather than surveying what is known, are its online search algorithms expanding our minds or reinforcing our biases?
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Brothers in arms: Tommy Berry, 23, jockey
Each time jockey Tommy Berry climbs aboard his mount, he's hoping to make his late identical twin brother proud.
Books
The Quiz
1. How many Melbourne Cups has jockey Damien Oliver won? (Bonus points for naming the horses he rode.)
2. Who was the first Australian to win an Academy Award for best actress?
3. Netscape, Firefox, Chrome and Safari are all types of what?
4. What name was given to the symbolic divider between the northern and southern states during America’s Civil War?
5. What property do you come to first after passing Go in a traditional (British) game of Monopoly.
6. Hester Prynne is the protagonist of which novel set in 17th-century Puritan Boston?
7. A Nobel prize-winning Australian immunologist was (Frank) Macfarlane …?
8. Name the world’s first man-made satellite.
9. Which former NSW police detective was arrested at his Sydney home last month for questioning over the death of student Jamie Gao?
10. Emily Blunt stars with Tom Cruise in the newly released action/sci-fi film …?
Quotes
MEDIA
“The ABC is sorry for the distress this incident has caused Mr Kenny and his family.”
After first seeking the opinion of a court, the ABC settles with conservative columnist Chris Kenny, deciding he does not have sex with dogs as earlier suggested.
FRIENDS
“Well, with friends like Bolt, we don’t need any enemies.”
Continuing the fallout from last week’s Palmer Sundae, the Parliamentary Friend of the ABC calls Andrew Bolt “unhinged” and “bordering on demented” for suggesting the meeting was untoward.
MUSIC
“He has battled with a brain tumour for the last 17 months and sadly lost his fight this morning.”
The death of Angels frontman Doc Neeson is announced by his family. Fans everywhere swear back in response.
PROSPERITY
“Most countries in the world will give their eye teeth to have the situation we have.”
The silver tooth fairy parses the state of Australia, in conversation with John Howard.
CORRUPTION
“The way ICAC runs its inquiries, I do not take them with a grain of salt ... It is all media spectacle. It is all Hollywood-style.”
The former powerbroker on the razzle-dazzle of being found, alongside Joe Tripodi, to have acted corruptly over the gaining of harbour-front leases.
POLITICS
“We need to deal with Mr Shaw once and for all.”
The Victorian opposition leader takes a dim view of rogue MP Geoff Shaw after the premier dared him to take Shaw’s vote in a no-confidence motion. In fairness to Andrews, Shaw’s estranged wife wouldn’t either, despite the signs he continues to erect in Frankston: “Please forgive me, I love you Sally: Psalm 42:1.”
