More than 80% of Australians and over half of the world’s population now live in cities: cities that are responsible, directly or indirectly, for nearly 75% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. As a result, the design and operation of our cities is a critical challenge facing humanity in the 21st century. Our success or failure to transform our cities over the next 20 years will be a key legacy to future generations
Words are powerful. They can forge bonds of mutual respect and understanding, as they did when a nation apologised to all Indigenous Australians for the profound grief, suffering and loss exacted by the mistaken policies of past governments.They can rouse a nation to action, as they did when, in our darkest hour, a defiant John Curtin called on all Australians to fight for our imperishable traditions
You are being followed. Not by a person — by the 800-odd cookies dropped by websites on your own machine, by GPS and the apps that use it from your own phone even when you are not using them, by your own purchases on cards and on devices, and by the algorithms used to parse all that data for behavioural patterns — patterns that are then used to personalise your media content
I was born into a culture that has a tradition of storytelling. Indigenous cultures across Australia have cultural on “Dreamtime” stories that explain our relationship to each other and to our land and also teach us about the standard of behaviour that are expected of us. These stories are like “law stories” or morality tales
We live in a world forever changed by the terrorist attacks in New York City on 11 September 2001 that made people feel vulnerable in a way that they hadn’t imagined that they were. Rather than providing us with a vision of hope and an alternative future, we have seen parties from both sides of the political divide seek to utilise the increased fear amongst the population
Terry Wallace was a tough footballer. During his time playing for the Hawthorn Football Club he was called ‘the Plough’ for his ability to burrow into packs of players and emerge with the ball. Later, as a coach, he presented a terrifying spectacle when excoriating his players after a losing game
A thirty-seat plane sat on the runway, its propellers spinning hypnotically in the darkness. The engine roared, a deafening thunder that threatened to blow my six-year-old body away. As my grandfather and I sat in the tiny gate lounge, fluorescent lights flickering above, I held his hand tighter, excited yet intimidated by the adventure we were about to embark on
My interest in older people began quite early in my own life for three reasons. The first because my mother became seriously ill in her late fifties and I already had to learn to start to understand the role of being a carer — especially the role of carer of a parent
Leadership capabilities for digital and non-digital businesses are converging. As a result, there is considerable commonality around the core capabilities that organisations are seeking in their executives and managers. In COVID times, the criticality of these attributes is further reinforced due to the demands of leading in uncertain times and ongoing shifts in expectations.
In its earliest imaginings by politicians and bureaucrats, Canberra was imagined as a city — and a national capital — in a landscape. It was pictured using the graphic conventions of the time, as a place of remarkable formal harmony, and as a place to unify the perceived dichotomies in Australia between ‘the bush’ and the city, the uninhabitable and the habitable