Imagine you own a business and need someone to look after the garden at your workplace. You get three quotes, compare price and availability, and choose the business that best fits your needs. It is an ordinary business decision. But what if one of those businesses employed people who had struggled to find work? What […]

Chongqing is a city most Australians probably know very little about, yet it provides a fascinating window into modern China. The September visit was with our SAS China CEO, Victoria Q, who is originally from Chongqing. Having someone who grew up there gave a valuable insight into the city, its people and the extraordinary changes […]

On the flight to Melbourne, I did some reading on the city’s history. Standing at the Australian debut of Data Center World Summit, the parallel was hard to shake. The room felt like Victoria in 1851: the new gold rush. I had plenty of discussions with people across various industries, all drawn to the capability […]

The spectacle of the 2025 election needs little retelling. Labor came out leagues ahead, the Coalition fell miles behind, and Australians were poised to believe relief was a-coming. While their victory gave them the security to govern, the Albanese government is now in danger of mistaking that security for good governance and falling into a […]

Political parties are a bit like ocean liners. They are magnificent to behold, built to last, and they take roughly three nautical miles to change direction. Communities, on the other hand, can turn more like jet skis. When the two find themselves in the same stretch of water, it is worth watching closely. One of […]

There’s a common saying that goes something like this: there are only three ways to leave parliament. In a box (death), at the ballot box (death by getting voted out) and through the ballot box (death by redistribution). It’s not an exact science, but ask any MP how seriously they take all three. If you’ve […]

Ben Carroll inherited a government built on megaprojects. Eight weeks out, voters are asking if Victoria’s two big parties are still too big to fail. Four months out, with its vote sliding, Labor swapped Jacinta Allan for Ben Carroll. On day one he called a Royal Commission into construction corruption linked to the CFMEU and […]

It’s half-time in the 2028 Queensland politics grand final. The latest polling indicates the Crisafulli-led blue team is on track to go back-to-back. But they know the game is far from over. Many were there when they blew a commanding lead to lose to Annastacia Palaszczuk in the 2015 decider. They’re taking it one game […]

Eleven days before the Treasurer released the Intergenerational Report (IGR), Kevin Rudd told the National Press Club that Australia had become “the Complacent Country”. His target, he stressed, was not the Federal Government, the Opposition or the press, but Australian leadership more broadly. The forces bearing down on the nation, he argued, are without post-war […]