Lessons from Robodebt

Whatever specific findings the Robodebt Royal Commission makes, the main outlines of the story are now clear. Between 2015 and 2019, the Coalition government, keen to make savings, undertook a data matching exercise with the Tax Office and Centrelink, designed to flush out welfare fraud. The government was convinced many …

The population trap: why we need a new demographic transition

As humans, we are prisoners of the frames we use for bounding and understanding reality. Despite abundant evidence that we need to reconsider, the world’s...
Read More "The population trap: why we need a new demographic transition"

Two years on

I wish I could write more about grieving, but as others have found, by the time you are conscious of having moved through a stage, another has come upon you – or memories you thought had passed, re-invent themselves, over and over again.
Read More "Two years on"

In memory of the poet

The end days came so quickly. For months, the doctors kept saying there was something wrong with his heart. But it was the cancer, so laboriously excised, that had come back. Or perhaps it never left.
Read More "In memory of the poet"