What makes a human life worth living? Now there’s a question that would, to quote the short poem ‘Days’ by English writer Philip Larkin (1922-1985), bring ”the priest and the doctor / in their long coats / running over the fields”.
In ‘The Good Life’, the prolific social researcher Hugh Mackay usefully focuses our attention on this crucial question. Although in some ways Mackay’s most recent book is familiar territory, he nevertheless creatively explores how incorporating into our lives the Golden Rule (treat others as we would like others to treat …

SEVENTY years on from the Black Friday catastrophe of 1939, 173 Victorians died as the result of rampaging fire on the afternoon of February 7, 2009. Ten of these victims of Black Saturday perished in Steels Creek, a small and intimate community on the outskirts of Melbourne.
It is with the multifaceted effects on this close-knit community that this deeply moving and insightful book primarily deals.

As a military-social historian, Peter Stanley has long been fascinated by the ways in which bushfires resemble battles. As he explains, “both are chaotic, traumatic events; …

MEDICINAL use of cannabis should be permitted in Australia.
In 2013, we should not still be merely discussing this possibility. On Wednesday, a NSW parliamentary committee, chaired by Nationals upper house MP Sarah Mitchell, unanimously recommended that medicinal cannabis be permitted for some people with certain terminal conditions.

At present, 18 states in the US allow medical marijuana and a further 10 are considering it. Apart from providing genuine alternatives to existing medicines, this approach has kick-started a plethora of scientific research on cannabis by an industry that has until recently been …

JULIA Gillard is desperately searching for a legacy to establish her place in history beyond the fact that she is the first woman to hold the prime ministership.
As matters stand, she is destined to be remembered as the Labor leader who knifed a popular but flawed leader in Kevin Rudd, lost Labor’s majority at the 2010 election and then (if current polls are any indication) led Labor to its worst ever loss at the 2013 election.

The deterioration in the nation’s finances under Gillard’s watch and her failure to balance the …

The Way We Approach Higher Education Needs To Change, writes ROSS FITZGERALD
ALTHOUGH I very much enjoy writing political satires such as my co-authored ‘Fools’ Paradise: Life In An Altered State’, set in the fictitious University of Mangoland, sadly neither my recent suggestions to cut the number of universities and vice-chancellors in Australia – particularly in the regions – nor the 2008 Bradley Review recommendation that our university sector requires serious structural change, were satires.
As the now publicly declared cuts of $2.4 billion to higher education funding and John Daley’s recent …

IT is hard to avoid the impression that Julia Gillard is a prime minister in waiting – waiting to be dumped on September 14.
Though many may now regard her government as being in caretaker mode, Labor is still scrambling with whatever it has left to convince Australians it deserves a renewed term in Canberra.
With the voting public seemingly not listening to the Prime Minister any more, and the continuing malaise in opinion polls that has Labor wallowing around a 30 per cent primary vote, it suggests our citizenry gave up …