Imagine, if you would, a company in a pre-budget submission demanding diplomatic assistance from their government to help them sell product overseas. Fair enough, you might say. If you don’t ask you won’t get.

Now imagine that company was one that sold products in an industry so notoriously shonky that when the Australian National...

We live in a world of plastic. Shopping bags, drink bottles, your toothbrush and even your clothes are among the everyday items made from plastic. But plastic isn’t fantastic, and neither is the current state of our environment.

Humans have been mass-producing plastic...

Australian rules football is generally considered the dominant code in our sporting-obsessed nation. It is a hybrid game with contested origins: some elements are drawn from rugby and football, and some from marn grook, the Indigenous game.

Whatever its origins, footy is played on suburban grounds, in country fields, on city streets and in...