Arena Online

Universities Charge Towards Black Holes of Change

What all of these slogans offer is a black hole of content-flexible hope. Our university—insert name here—exists in the world, and therefore the world will be a better place. We are the place where ‘great minds collide’. We are the space of hope, of abstract empty hope that can be filled with whatever you desire.

Strike Camps: Aboriginal Mining Camps of the 1950s and 1960s

The photographs of the strike camps illuminate a little-known part of Australian and Aboriginal history, in which Aboriginal people ran their own companies and communities long before the government began to support Land Rights and legislate for Native Title.

EVENT: Artificial Intelligence and Work in a Remade World

Arena Online

7 Aug 2026

Wednesday, 12th August; 6pm for a 6:30pm start; Trades Hall; Tickets are $10*

The High Cost of the Gaslight Industry

The fossil fuel industry has spent decades teaching us where to look. It fixes our gaze on their profits, dressed up as our cost of living, and on a panic at the petrol bowser, while the real cost is paid somewhere much quieter: in our children’s lungs, one kitchen at a time.

Turbo-charged Turmoil: An Interview with Clinton Fernandes

A 'rupture' means richer countries – Canada, Western Europe, Japan – being treated like the poorer ones.

The end of Australia’s last free river?

The Martuwarra is still alive: culturally, ecologically and politically, as a site of resistance to the idea that every river must submit to extraction. In an age of climate instability, protecting a free-flowing river is a test of whether we can act with restraint, learn from past damage and share power with those who know a river is more than water moving downhill

Viva Palestino: Israel’s Genocidal War Denounced on the Football Pitch

Despite Palestine and Chile being over 13,000 kilometres apart, Palestino FC remains vital to the identity of those behind Israel’s extensive walls, thus embodying a unique and peaceful form of resistance.

Predatory politics: From open markets to global chaos

Predators reject compromise and undermine diplomatic ties, often claiming baseless victories. The unilateral prioritisation of national interest over collective security appears increasingly inadequate in an era defined by global systemic risk.

4ZZZ interview with Paul James: ‘The Human Condition, Darkly’

A radio interview with Paul James discussing his new book.

West Gate: The bridge and the play.

West Gate has been a surprise hit for the very bourgeois Melbourne Theatre Company, which is not really known for presenting working-class voices in its repertoire.

Glimpses of Light beneath the Ruins

Whether we like it or not, we are plants that bloom from the soil in which they root, emerging to flourish in the ether and bearing fruit. Johann Peter Hebel Whenever the South of Lebanon is mentioned, I remember my grandmother. Just like the fig trees and olive trees with which the south is rich, […]

From Warsaw to Gaza

Genocide and the Warning of Sacrifice Zones to Come “Gaza is a sacrifice zone. It is where the logic of settler colonialism is laid bare — a populationrendered superfluous, contained, and punished” Chris Hedges. For some, drawing any sort of parallel between Gaza (especially since 7 October 2023) and the Warsaw Ghetto (1942) is antisemitic, […]