New research from The Australia Institute finds that Australia is the most expensive developed country for families to send a child to high school.
It costs Australian families $4,967 per year - almost four times the OECD average.
Read more: theaus.in/4anjEAp
Why do we only operate a buyback scheme after an unspeakable tragedy? Why not before? Why not regularly, so that we might get more guns off the streets and prevent a thousand tragedies as women are murdered by their partners? Surely that would be a good use of government money.
This is the sort of thing that defines fascism more than most other aspects. The installation of secret police to monitor everyone for suspicion not of doing anything wrong, but of being the wrong kind of person.
SUVs and big Utes "are 44 per cent more likely to kill an adult pedestrian or cyclist in a crash compared with a sedan, and 82 per cent more likely to kill a child" www.theage.com.au/national/vic...
Great to have the chance to talk about our research in this article for The Point! In it we emphasise the risks GenAI raises for Indigenous Education and what came from our recent study testing LLMs on Indigenous topics. 🦘🎓 #edusky #academicsky
thepoint.com.au/opinions/251...
Former #ANU Vice-Chancellor, Genevieve Bell, will receive remuneration of more than half a million a year for the next five years - despite taking 12 months off.
For context, that's more than ANU hoped to 'save' annually by disestablishing the School of Music. 🫠 @nteunion.bsky.social
Anti-abortion campaigner Joanna Howe spent close to $100,000 in one month on anti-abortion advertising on Meta, in the lead up to the anti-abortion bill debate in the SA Parliament. She outspent BHP!
www.indailysa.com.au/news/just-in...
Thank goodness for advocates like @gemkillen.bsky.social speaking truth to those in positions of power www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
This would have been very funny if it wasn't also a terrifying part of the complete eradication of democracy in the states.
www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10...
At a time when some use the language of feminism to attack trans rights, it’s vital to see feminist activists and scholars counteract such attacks. Feminist Legal Studies is inviting papers for a special issue that will explore how feminist goals and trans liberation are connected. Check it out.
✊🏾🏳️⚧️
I don't know how anyone is getting anything done while the world is the way it is. How to focus on writing my silly little policy briefs or my budget submission when SO MANY things are SO TERRIBLE.
“If the most prestigious university in Australia will not fund our most prestigious literary journal, then it makes you question whether or not universities actually care about Australian culture.”
johnmenadue.com/post/2025/09...
Here's fun.
The Business Council of Australia put out a press release and new report about how to make healthcare more efficient. One of the big claims in the press release:
"AI has the potential to free up 30 per cent of a clinician’s time, allowing them to spend more time with Australians"
Extremely cool
To be clear, I feel strongly about safety in childcare, but it is understaffing and high turnover that creates signficant risk in ECEC, and CCTV - with no assurance for workers' or children's right to privacy - will make it worse.
Let's surveil the predominantly female workforce that is already underpaid and over-stretched and see what that does for staffing levels.
Even where they mention privacy it's in relation to children, not the workers - who are ignored in the whole conversation.
www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08...
Didn't you know it was ok to starve sick and disabled people?
When I tell you I screamed in my kitchen this morning Elinor...
Dedicated recruitment rounds are becoming more commonplace! For example, this story is from last week:
www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
That definitely happens here too. Only 1 in 5 workers is in a gender-balanced occupation, and more than half of occupations are male dominated. Almost all (98%) of occupations in Australia have a pay gap in favour of men, even the ones that are predominately done by women.
The median income of a female pathologist is $71k. For a male pathologist, it is $275k. This is why I want to scream everytime someone tells me the pay gap is the result of individual career choices.
Of course, women work less hours than men in many jobs - but in most jobs, that doesn't explain the pay gap. @theguardian.com have made this helpful graph to show the difference btween the pay gap and the hours worked gap. Pathologists have a pay gap of 74% but an hours gap of only 12%.
Female dental assistants work 15% more hours and get paid almost 24% less. Female law clerks work 7% more hours and get paid 16% less. Female miners work 3% more hours and get paid 20% less! I could go on and on.
I am nerding out over the data in Jobs and Skills Australia's Gender Equality Study. Did you know that female truck drivers work 10% more hours and get paid 5% less than male truck drivers? Female family day care workers work 28% more hours and get paid 22% less than male family day care workers!
Well done to Josh Taylor for sinking the boot into the Productivity Commission's risible report on AI. Rubbish like this suggests it's well past time to abolish the Productivity Commission altogether. Put the funding into actual research, not this nonsense www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
The Productivity Commission has floated an idea to expand the fair use provision, which would make the kind of scraping AI companies do to train ChatGPT et al legal.
Authors and other creatives are rightly outraged.
NB: this isn't the first time the PC has come for book publishing.
