Champagne corks were conspicuous by their absence as Amazon recently announced plans to expand their operation in Australia by opening a new warehouse in Perth. Australia’s ‘boom to bust’ capital is experiencing its weakest economy in over two decades, and retailers have borne the brunt as the commodity miracle has come spectacularly to an end. At the mineral boom’s zenith, more than a 747-full of people were arriving to live in WA each week, but the one dimensional nature of […]

Thinking he would lose and in order to save money, Donald Trump hired a small hotel ballroom for the Republican reception on the night of the 2016 election, so when he and his family emerged at 2.50am even the stage looked crowded. Trump’s entourage seemed genuinely shocked by the result. There were tears backstage. Right to the last moment, no-one had expected him to win. For the next few weeks there were calls for electoral college officers to change their […]

In April 2017, less than three months after taking office, Donald Trump repealed legislation outlawing the hunting and killing of hibernating bears in Alaska. The news, which conservationists said would ‘shock the conscience’ of animal lovers, was greeted with incredulity by a world more used to Obama-era morality. At around the same time, the Trump administration also passed a law specifically aimed at allowing easier purchase of weapons by people with severe mental illness. This wasn’t one clause within a […]

What would you say about the health of a democracy if a rural party got ten representative seats for 4.5% of the vote, while the Greens got more than double as many votes but just one seat? How representative of the national mood would it be if a coalition of parties retained power by a tiny margin, then started implementing a hard-right agenda despite a flat-lining economy and unprecedented environmental threat? What would it mean if a billionaire spent $60 […]

Alabama’s decision to make abortion illegal from the moment of conception, including in the instance of incest or rape, is just the latest in a sweep of southern states pushing through draconian legislation in the most profound challenge to American abortion rights since Roe v Wade. Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio, Georgia, Alabama and now Missouri have been swept up by a new wave of reproductive health extremism under President Donald J. Trump. In 2019, Alabamians face much tougher sentences for helping […]