Mike Seccombe Leading economist Bruce Chapman says the government’s plan to raise fees for certain courses won’t drive students into more ‘job-relevant’ degrees.

Karen Middleton Amid increasing concerns about foreign interference, particularly through online disinformation, the Home Affairs Department’s role in security matters is growing significantly.

Gina Rushton While experts acknowledge that bad luck has played a role in the spread of Covid-19 in Victoria, they also point to the state government’s management and communication failures.

Steve Dow The coronavirus crisis has left many in the arts struggling. But Belvoir artistic director Eamon Flack is determined to use the shutdown as a catalyst for positive change and to push ahead with bringing new Australian works to the stage. “Really early on in this – when we didn’t know how bad it was going to get – we decided that this was going to be a good time to rethink a whole lot of things. We wanted to come out of this crisis, however long it went on for, having fixed some things, and having made some deep, permanent changes.”

Bri Lee When news broke this week that an independent inquiry at the High Court of Australia found former justice Dyson Heydon had sexually harassed six associates during his decade on the bench, my non-law friends and colleagues were incredulous. To them, the allegations of a judge repeatedly breaking the law read as hypocritical. Within legal circles though, friends and colleagues are exchanging theories about who will be exposed next. And we are all wondering whether anything will change this time.

Paul Bongiorno The shorthand title was the trade union royal commission – and the highest-profile targets were a former Labor prime minister, Julia Gillard, and the then Labor leader, Bill Shorten. And everybody knew it. Undaunted by the howls of foul play from the opposition and the criticism of commentators, then Liberal prime minister Tony Abbott had high praise for the man he hand-picked for the job six years ago, former High Court judge Dyson Heydon.

Richard Ackland It’s as though the entire conservative cause in our weird nation has been deracinated. The allegations against Dyson Heydon leave much havoc in their wake. His political sponsors, Little Winston Howard and the Mad Monk, look gormless, while he has blotted the escutcheons of luminous institutions from the High Court to the University of Sydney, where he is an emeritus professor.

“This is a genuine offer,” Anthony Albanese said of his plea to Scott Morrison to join him in ending Australia’s energy wars once and for all. But it’s hard to call it a truce when one side concedes nothing. There’s another word for that kind of deal.

Rick Morton Last week’s shock departure of the editor of The Age was sparked by discontent among staff over editorial direction and leadership. But it seems the warning shots claimed an unintended victim.

Jonathan Pearlman Young pro-democracy activist to run for seat in September poll. Himalayan border tensions on hold between China and India. Kiribati president re-elected. Former national security adviser John Bolton spills on Donald Trump in new book.

Christos Tsiolkas In his latest film, It Must Be Heaven, Elia Suleiman continues to explore the absurdity and tragedy of being Palestinian, and weaves in a moving contemplation of the ageing body.

Eliza Bell I was born at home. My mother was a hippie back then. Growing barrels of pot on the roof, and part of the Community of the Whole Person – an amateur psychotherapy thing. She told a story once about how I’d been a grounding force as a baby, while she was doing a therapy session with a high, damaged person, and she’d been glad I was there. My sister watched the birth, sitting beside the Great Dane. There’s a picture of me a few moments after I was born – dark hair, angel’s thumb on my forehead – lying on a bloodied sheet on my parents’ bed.

David Moyle

Jo Hartley GPs are today better educated about mental health management but many Australians are being put on antidepressants and don’t know how to get off them.

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