Opinion

A part-time cleaner earning $18,000 a year will receive zero tax concessions for their compulsory superannuation contribution; meanwhile, a chief executive of a big bank can get tens of thousands of dollars every year in taxpayer support for their “retirement …

An ugly wound has been opened at the heart of St Kevin’s College this week, after revelations in a Four Corners report about the school’s failures to respond to complaints of a culture of secrecy, toxic masculinity and sexual abuse. …

The decision by the High Court of Australia this week on the “aliens” power cast my mind back to my work in 2011 on the prime minister’s expert panel on the recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Australian …

There’s an old saying in politics, “Never waste a good crisis.” And it’s crystal clear Scott Morrison isn’t wasting any moment where he can be seen responding to the threat coronavirus – or COVID-19, as it’s now …

When a prime minister has to appeal for unity in his ranks, not one but two weeks running, you know there isn’t any. And the awful reality for Scott Morrison is that he’s got one hand tied behind his back as he tries to restore the promised …

The old tautology “deja vu all over again” has become a jarring reality for the Coalition. And shattering the promised peace and stability are all the same factors that destroyed the prime ministership of Malcolm Turnbull: climate change, …

It is six years since The Saturday Paper printed its first edition. At the time we said our task was to make sense of Australia. The great joy of this task is that it is never done. That is also its occasional frustration.

Journalism has precious few tools to express uncertainty, or unknowing. There is little room for nuance in a headline, but the need for brevity doesn’t warrant absolution. Too often we grasp for blunt instruments and hope that readers will fill in the blanks. It’s a failure felt most keenly in the reporting of family violence.

There is something in the Australian psyche that craves punishment. Perhaps it is in the fact that White Australia began as a penal colony. Perhaps there is a deeper thread of inferiority and submission in the British settlement. Whatever it is, the society we have is an orderly one – deeply so. We created the myth of the larrikin so we might feel less bad about our deference to power. He is a sort of court jester who makes the draconian more comfortable.

Richard Ackland When palaeoconservatives get tangled in issues of race inevitably their pants catch on fire. So it was with the High Court decision in Love, Thoms v The Commonwealth – when a majority of the judges stopped Benito Dutton deporting a couple of Aboriginal men who had done time for criminal offences in Australia.

Richard Ackland Gadfly found himself on a V/Line train speeding from Melbourne to Bendigo for an appointment organised by the regional community legal centres to appear at a huge press freedom jamboree at the town hall. And what a turnout – with 300 of the region’s finest packing the gilded room to get insights from your correspondent, Australian Federal Police raid victim Annika Smethurst and journalism academic Matthew Ricketson – all under the baton of the excellent Jon Faine, hitherto a leading voice on ABC wireless.

Richard Ackland Pensioners were excited to get letters last month from Centrelink asking for details of their “account-based income stream/s”. After spending hours of research working out what is meant by “account-based income stream/s”, it turns out, basically, to be payments from superannuation funds. The information had to be given to Centrelink by February 6, otherwise “your payment may be stopped”.

Bravo to Mike Seccombe (“COVID-19: Racism, economics and the aftermath”, February 22-28) for his timely revelation of the race-based abandonment of Chinese–Australian business incited by contagion fears. This prism of anti-China inflammation …

It seems the official sports rort report by the Australian National Audit Office was 10 months in the making and was less than impressed by the politicisation of the sports fund distribution (Karen Middleton, “Granting privileges”, February …

On so many levels, it’s a cautionary tale for the ages (Rick Morton, “The biggest party donor you’ve never heard of”, February 8-14). Childless migrants make good and seek ways to show gratitude to their adopted country. Through …