Arena Online

The Regression and the Valkyries

Three years after COVID gave the world a first reminder as to just how many, and how blithe, assumptions our current global arrangements were based on, the eruption of an old-fashioned land war appears almost unseemly in a high-tech era.

Australia’s Sub-Sovereignty: AUKUS, ANZUS and our Subservience

Australia’s history is replete with missed opportunities for asserting sovereign independence, for peacefully relating to our region, for sustainable development and for conciliation between settlers and Indigenous peoples.

Rupert Murdoch: Permanent Overlord

Murdoch’s open letter to employees is a fabulous reminder that totalitarian empires are not merely to be found in the public sphere.

PODCAST: Setting the World on Fire: the new nuclear push

An audio recording of the public discussion at IPCS.

Automating the all-about-me: On Apple’s new Mental Health App

AI that seeks recognise, interpret and simulate human emotions may or may not be a pseudo-science, but it certainly is a jostling field that should be critiqued as a commercial rhizome.

‘Opening Up’ UniMelb: A Striking Master-plan

With demolition, the University of Melbourne has declared itself incapable of inheriting the memories embodied, literally as carbon and figuratively as student and staff experience, in these buildings

Maxed Out Oil vs the Eco Zealots: Sunak’s Anti-Green Campaign

Bike lanes, changes to city planning codes, emissions reduction initiatives, domestic energy policies and international climate commitments are fast becoming some of the fiercest frontlines in the upcoming election

Behind the Commonwealth Bank’s Profit Fest

Asset-based lending, which is essentially predatory, is a key vehicle for these entrapments.

Gentrification Blues: Corruption in Brisbane’s Suburbs

Where once were barbeques and old beer crates are now rarely used swimming pools

Blasted Sea: A fossil fuel cacophony in Bass Strait

Seismic exploration has the central contradiction that has been with us since the first nuclear explosions opened the new epoch: the combination of the highly rational and the entirely mad.

Whose voice counts on Aboriginal heritage?

Nothing has been achieved, even after promises that things would change following the international scandal that was the destruction of Juukan Gorge.

Hypocrisy and shaky premises: New Zealand and the War in Ukraine

The foremost reason for New Zealand’s involvement in the conflict—to demonstrate support for the United States—is the first to be mentioned