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  • 4 hours ago
    • Australia
    • Global Issues
    • Technology

    Australia’s Indian Ocean Territories matter again in the digital age

    Samuel Bashfield
    In a sign that geography is destiny, isolated islands look set to soon be essential nodes for the world’s data.
  • 2 days ago
    • Indonesia
    • Australia
    • Defence & Security

    Agency preservation drives the Indonesia–Australia security treaty

    Emirza Adi Syailendra
    The echoes of history are evident – only this time, trust may not be as important as the context.
  • 14 Nov 2025
    • Australia
    • Climate change

    The world is getting on with tackling climate change. Australia can’t afford to be left behind

    Ryan Neelam
    While ambition at COP30 is still a long way from what’s needed, most countries are maintaining their commitments to act.
  • 14 Nov 2025
    • Indonesia
    • Australia
    • Defence & Security

    The Australia-Indonesia pact won’t shift the regional balance

    Susannah Patton
    But this diplomatic win for Australia does reflect warm neighbourly ties.
  • 14 Nov 2025
    • Australia
    • Defence & Security

    The rise and rise of geopolitical risk

    Matthew Newman
    Volatile geopolitics creates risks for business. A new industry is emerging in Australia to meet the demand for intelligence and advice.
  • 13 Nov 2025
    • Philippines
    • Vietnam
    • Australia
    • Defence & Security
    • Climate change
    • Sustainability

    Preparing for when disaster and conflict converge

    Melissa Jardine , Jarrett Blaustein , Hai Thanh Luong
    What Australia must learn for its defence posture following record flooding and typhoons in Vietnam and the Philippines.
  • 13 Nov 2025
    • Indonesia
    • Australia
    • Defence & Security

    “Anchored in the region” – What the new Australia–Indonesia security treaty really means

    Natalie Sambhi
    The pact strengthens trust between neighbours who don’t always agree, without abandoning Indonesia’s non-alignment.
  • 11 Nov 2025
    • Australia
    • Diplomacy

    London calling, political patronage, and the diplomatic curtain

    Daniel Flitton
    The Foreign minister’s pledge to prioritise diplomats over politicians hasn’t extended to breaking one posting tradition.
  • 10 Nov 2025
    • Australia
    • Australian trade, investment & economy
    • Trade
    • Technology

    Not every critical mineral is equal – and Australia’s policy should reflect this

    Eli Hayes , Darren Lim
    The elements that genuinely matter for security should be treated as defence policy, not economic opportunity.
  • 7 Nov 2025
    • Japan
    • Australia

    Australia-Japan ties are about shaping outcomes, not hedging bets

    David Vallance
    With strong security ties, both countries can influence Washington’s strategy and constrain Beijing’s options.
  • 5 Nov 2025
    • Australia
    • Trade
    • Africa

    Australia’s mineral diplomacy can connect Africa’s resources to Asia’s demand

    Christopher Burke
    Deeper engagement would help ensure Indo-Pacific partners are not hostage to China’s industrial dominance.
  • 5 Nov 2025
    • Australia
    • Diplomacy
    • Multilateral Institutions
    • United Nations

    The art of Australia’s straight-talking diplomacy

    Lachlan Strahan
    A foreign service known for being informal and egalitarian has worked a treat for Canberra’s envoys. But does it reward boldness?
  • 4 Nov 2025
    • Australia
    • Defence & Security
    • AUKUS
    • Maritime Security

    Beyond AUKUS: The maritime strategy Australia needs

    Jennifer Parker
    Consolidating maritime departments, and coordination across defence, civil and industry is where the wins will be made.
  • 3 Nov 2025
    • Australia
    • Diplomacy
    • Pacific Islands

    The Pacific Olympics legacy Australia needs to build for Brisbane 2032

    David Peedom
    From medal moments to tourism corridors, a Pacific-focused sports diplomacy strategy could transform regional ties.
  • 31 Oct 2025
    • Australia
    • Defence & Security
    • Pacific Islands
    • Solomon Islands

    Solomon Islands can have a military, but it shouldn’t need one

    Blake Johnson
    If Pacific security initiatives are done right, the region’s non-conventional threats can be better addressed.
  • 30 Oct 2025
    • Australia
    • Climate change
    • Türkiye

    Crunch time for Australia and COP31

    David Dutton
    Hosting the 2026 summit demands enormous effort and commitment from the top that only the PM can provide.
  • 30 Oct 2025
    • Australia
    • United Nations

    Confronting the danger of a “zombie” United Nations

    Penny Wong
    Middle powers can act now to reform the UN – before financial crisis turns it into an empty shell.
  • 28 Oct 2025
    • Australia
    • Australian trade, investment & economy
    • Diplomacy

    The shock of the normal: Australia’s progressive patriotism

    Elliot Stein
    The Albanese playbook on quiet engagement bolsters the country’s reputation for reliability. And that’s good for business.
  • 27 Oct 2025
    • Australia
    • Diplomacy

    Star power as soft power: Australia’s celebrity diplomacy

    Adil Cader
    With a global roll call of stars, Australia could build disaster resilience and environmental credibility.
  • 23 Oct 2025
    • Australia
    • Sex and Gender

    Australia treats gender equality as a foreign policy tool, not a principle

    Jennifer Wittwer , Katrina Lee-Koo
    WPS commitments serve diplomatic ambitions, yet implementation remains inconsistent and under-resourced.
  • 23 Oct 2025
    • India
    • Australia
    • Migration
    • Technology
    • United States

    US foreign worker visas: Where there’s crisis, there’s opportunity

    Aarti Betigeri
    Highly skilled Indian workers will be looking elsewhere after Trump’s visa decision. This could be Australia’s moment.
  • 22 Oct 2025
    • Timor-Leste
    • Australia

    The apology Australia owes Timor-Leste – but won’t deliver

    Gordon Peake
    Both moral and pragmatic cases exist to directly confront stains on the diplomatic record, yet Australia continues to duck, weave and obfuscate.
  • 22 Oct 2025
    • Asia
    • Australia
    • Europe
    • Global Economy
    • Diplomacy
    • The Americas

    Geopolitics and making sense of the NEWS: North, East, West, South

    Abhinandan Kumar
    More than geography, the coordinates of a state are borne of ideology, history and power perceptions.
  • 22 Oct 2025
    • Australia
    • Australian trade, investment & economy
    • Trade
    • Sustainability
    • Technology

    Can rare earths be Australia’s next mining boom?

    Jenny Bloomfield
    Traditional approaches won’t secure Australia’s critical minerals future – or the geopolitical heft on offer.
  • 21 Oct 2025
    • China
    • Taiwan
    • Australia
    • Defence & Security
    • United States

    What Trump told Albanese about Taiwan matters more than AUKUS

    Sam Roggeveen
    False confidence can breed dangerous assumptions in any US stand-off with China.
  • 20 Oct 2025
    • Australia
    • United States

    Time to fill the empty office in Yarralumla

    Hugh Piper
    After 10 months without a US envoy, the Trump-Albanese meeting offers a chance to end the ambassadorial absence.
  • 20 Oct 2025
    • Australia
    • Defence & Security
    • Pacific Islands
    • Papua New Guinea

    The Pukpuk Treaty is a defence deal PNG’s youth can prosper from

    Serena Sasingian
    Structured opportunity for PNG’s population matters more than geopolitical debates about this partnership.
  • 17 Oct 2025
    • China
    • Australia
    • Energy
    • United States

    Trump wants our rare earths minerals, but we should keep selling to China too

    Stephen Grenville
    With almost “the whole periodic table” on offer, Australia should avoid choosing sides in the US–China minerals tussle.
  • 16 Oct 2025
    • Aid & Development
    • Australia
    • United Kingdom

    Australia should heed Britain’s tough choices – and its mistakes

    Hugh Piper
    Development spending prevents conflicts and builds resilience – dismissing it as secondary betrays decades of effective practice.
  • 16 Oct 2025
    • Aid & Development
    • Australia
    • International law
    • United Nations

    The legal reform needed to match Australia’s global humanitarian promises

    Tom Barber , Naomi Brooks
    Humanitarian workers face danger abroad – and legal uncertainty at home under Australia’s current laws.
  • 15 Oct 2025
    • Asia
    • Australia
    • Review

    Is this the Asian Century?

    Sam Roggeveen
    A new book that cuts through hype, ignores moods and intellectual trends, and focuses on the epochal forces shaping the region.
  • 15 Oct 2025
    • India
    • Australia
    • Defence & Security

    Building trust: the real work in Australia-India defence ties

    Teesta Prakash , Grace Corcoran
    Measurable outcomes, not strategic rhetoric, will determine whether bilateral relations prosper.
  • 15 Oct 2025
    • China
    • Malaysia
    • Australia
    • Trade
    • Sustainability
    • Technology
    • United States

    Rare earth showdown: Why the West must learn to pick winners – and partners

    Jersey Lee , Andrew Goledzinowski
    Albanese must convince Trump that only allied cooperation can break China's rare earth chokehold.
  • 14 Oct 2025
    • Australia
    • Defence & Security
    • AUKUS

    AUKUS doesn’t need protection from politics

    Daniel Flitton
    Democracy works best when defence debates are transparent.
  • 13 Oct 2025
    • Australia
    • Defence & Security
    • Intelligence and security
    • Asylum seekers and refugees
    • Human rights
    • International law
    • United Nations

    Australia’s role in bringing international criminals to justice

    Jennifer Keene-McCann , Aruni Jayakody
    Stepping up efforts to investigate and prosecute perpetrators on Australian soil will build credibility at home and abroad.
  • 10 Oct 2025
    • Australia
    • Intelligence and security
    • Human rights

    Closing the gaps in Australia’s approach to transnational repression

    Grady Vaughan , Andrew Chubb
    Diaspora communities say a security-focused response to foreign intimidation misses their basic rights concerns.
  • 10 Oct 2025
    • Australia
    • Terrorism
    • Asylum seekers and refugees
    • International law
    • Syria

    Australia’s quiet returnees from Syria are in fact a loud warning

    Khalid Koser , Lilla Schumicky-Logan
    Leaving detainees stranded in Syria doesn’t reduce risk – it can export the very insecurity governments hope to prevent.
  • 10 Oct 2025
    • Australia
    • Defence & Security
    • Trade
    • Climate change
    • Migration

    The Liberal Party’s coming foreign policy split

    Hugh Piper
    Immigration, climate, trade and China are fracturing the conservative side of politics into rival camps with competing worldviews.
  • 9 Oct 2025
    • India
    • Australia
    • Defence & Security
    • Maritime Security
    • Quad

    India’s Rajnath Singh in Canberra: Turning warm words into a shared maritime operating model

    Premesha Saha
    Real-time information sharing and coordinated patrols would deliver tangible benefits to the Indo-Pacific, not just rhetoric.
  • 9 Oct 2025
    • Australia
    • Defence & Security
    • Pacific Islands
    • Papua New Guinea

    PNG should ratify the Pukpuk Treaty and move beyond a self-limiting mantra of “friends to all”

    Oliver Nobetau
    “The righteous choose their friends carefully, but the way of the wicked leads them astray.” Proverbs 12:26
  • 7 Oct 2025
    • Australia
    • Defence & Security
    • Pacific Islands
    • Papua New Guinea

    The Pukpuk Treaty is about keeping China at bay, not military strength

    Sam Roggeveen
    The pact with PNG aims to preserve Australia’s regional standing by making Chinese military access harder.
  • 6 Oct 2025
    • Australia
    • Maritime Security
    • Trade
    • Middle East

    How Australia can navigate long-term Red Sea shipping disruptions

    Hamed Zakikhani
    Route volatility is squeezing grain exports and fertiliser imports, and there are no calm waters on the horizon.
  • 3 Oct 2025
    • Australia
    • Human rights
    • International law
    • Migration

    When democracies override their own courts: Australia’s dangerous precedent

    Juan Zahir Naranjo Cáceres
    Parliamentary overrides in migration law offer authoritarian regimes a playbook for eroding judicial independence.
  • 2 Oct 2025
    • Australia
    • Defence & Security
    • Pacific Islands
    • Fiji
    • Papua New Guinea
    • Tonga

    Delays on the Pukpuk treaty with PNG were Australian missteps, not failures

    Blake Johnson
    The Papua New Guinea agreement represents a landmark not just for its signatories but the region as a whole.
  • 2 Oct 2025
    • Australia
    • Climate change
    • International law
    • Pacific Islands

    Applying a national security lens to the International Court’s climate change opinion

    Danielle Ireland-Piper
    When islands sink, do nations disappear? The Court says no.
  • 2 Oct 2025
    • Australia
    • Defence & Security
    • Intelligence and security
    • Technology

    Australia’s AI choice: Standards setter or technology taker?

    Ian Gribble
    If Australia adopts artificial intelligence built to foreign specifications, we tacitly accept an invisible leash.
  • 1 Oct 2025
    • Asia
    • Asean
    • Australia
    • Defence & Security
    • Intelligence and security

    Australian conflict prevention – from statements to strategy?

    William Leben , Martina Zapf
    Australian tunnel vision on potential China–US conflict may blind us to pressing risks closer to home.
  • 23 Sep 2025
    • Australia
    • Defence & Security

    Home on the Range: The Australian Army prepares for the future

    Mick Ryan
    The 2024 National Defence Strategy provided clarity of purpose for an Army in the midst of rapid change.
  • 22 Sep 2025
    • Asia
    • China
    • Indonesia
    • Japan
    • Australia

    Complacent nation: Australia and the Asian Century

    Tim Watts
    Decades of ambition have left us with a nation still unable to speak the language of our neighbours.
  • 19 Sep 2025
    • Australia
    • Defence & Security
    • AUKUS
    • United States

    The Trump–Albanese meeting: Good news – he’s just not that into us

    Michael Shoebridge
    When it comes to Australia, Trump’s focus is elsewhere, and that’s not all bad.
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