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Vale Pie Face, gone to join Australia's other fallen fast food chainsPie Face is going the way of Sizzler and Pizza Hut dine-in restaurants. What does this country do to its fast food chains? -
Black Digger: a challenge to Australia's reverence for a white Anzac legendRedfern’s controversial mural poses questions to the next generation of Australian leaders – and to the War Memorial, where it could easily belong
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First Dog on the Moon presents: the Guardian Australia advent calendar‘Twas the month before Christmas, and all through the house, everyone was eagerly awaiting the latest gifts from Guardian Australia -
David Murray’s interim report into the financial system shows he’s not simply a mouthpiece for big money. Even modest reforms could do a lot of goodCould the Murray financial inquiry actually deliver for battlers? The interim report gives me hope
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Senate gives Scott Morrison unchecked control over asylum seekers’ livesThe Senate crossbench has supported the passing of broad new migration and maritime powers – but what exactly do they mean for the minister, asylum seekers and Australia’s obligations under international law?
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What’s the point of Abbott's medical research future fund if we have no medical researchers?There’s no doubt Australia needs to invest more in medical research, but it’s more important to train enough doctors to become medical researchers
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Larissa Waters' gendered toys stance made her daughter fair game? No – that's just scorn and ridiculeThe new political correctness demands that we live according to the most ungenerous interpretation of our opinions – including, apparently, about how we raise our children
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Orion: a last-ditch effort by a fading empire that will never strike backJoe Pappalardo: When a space startup has twice the force for a fraction of the cost, you know the US government has a problem
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Martin Rowson on government spending cuts – cartoon
Chancellor George Osborne has credibility – but the spectre of 1930s-style cuts may be too much for voters to accept
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Jonathan Freedland: The chancellor has credibility. But the spectre of 1930s-style cuts may be too much for voters to acceptGeorge Osborne may live to regret his rush towards Wigan pier
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The Guardian view on policing in America: colour sharpens the conflictEditorial: The collective emancipation Martin Luther King envisaged for African Americans never came about. The result has been chronic confrontation on the streets
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The Guardian view on Manchester’s new cultural space: from one kind of factory to anotherEditorial: There’s no way of bringing back the old manufacturing jobs, but shrewd investment in arts and culture can create a different kind of industry
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Jeremy Thorpe survived to see a better BritainDominic Carman: When my father defended him in court, the great Liberal seemed to be on trial for his sexuality. Today it wouldn’t matter
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Only a cyber ‘arms control’ treaty can keep online criminals and terrorists at bayMichael Clarke: Regin malware and the Sony Pictures hacking show how vulnerable the west feels about its cyber dominance
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Deborah Orr: The allegations against Cosby seemed more disturbing because he is black. Clearly I see black celebrities as under a greater obligation to be exemplars – and that’s wrong, because it suggests black failings are more serious than white onesBill Cosby has made me confront my own do-gooder racism – but it's people like Eric Garner who pay the price
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The whole point of Christianity is to create a deeper form of humanismGiles Fraser: It seems that making the human stand out as morally particular requires some sort of leap of faith
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Marseille’s homeless ID cards have gone, but people are still on the streetsAlex Andreou: Good riddance to these nasty symbols, but the stigma towards homeless people by city officials and care workers are harder to shift
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Marina Hyde: Giving birth in hospital these days is a hallucinatorily exhausting experience – and the cuts mean it’s about to get even worseChildbirth is as awful as it is magical, thanks to our postnatal ‘care’
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Ian Jack: The story of low-income tenants facing 400% rent hikes thanks to a profit-hungry consortium seemed just the kind of cause Londoners would rally behind. But even with Russell Brand in the vanguard, the barricades remain unstormedI had thought the New Era estate might spark a London revolution. I was wrong
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Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett: So Nigel Farage thinks breastfeeding mothers should go and sit in the corner. But why stop there if you don’t want women to offend?Women! Stop being so ostentatious
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If I were queen for a day I would enforce old-age selfies for childrenHilary Devey: Under my brief reign, our youth-obsessed culture would pass its sell-by date – and education policy would wise up
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Bombed by bass: how the neighbours’ music turned my flat into a hellholeLaura Kay: You told us: The neighbours responded to our polite requests by making as much noise as humanly possible, shredding my nerves
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Hugh Muir: The absurd ban on sending books to prisoners has been overturned thanks to the chief executive of the Howard League for Penal ReformIn praise of … Frances Crook
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What President Obama told me about Ferguson's movement: think big, but go gradualPhillip Agnew: When my fellow young leaders and I walked into the Oval Office this week, we felt empowered and powerless at the same time. The president said we shouldn’t demand too much, too soon
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Jessica Valenti: Of all the people’s experiences we should be listening to right now, white people are at the bottom of the totem pole#CrimingWhileWhite is exactly what's wrong with white privilege
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Who do you trust more: George Osborne or the BBC?
George Osborne has accused the BBC of using hyperbole in its coverage of spending cuts. The BBC said its coverage was fair and balanced, and that it asked the questions its audience wanted answers to. Which of the two would you put your trust in?
australian opinion
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New voices, new opinionsIntroducing five new columnists for the Guardian Australia
cartoons
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Finding a narrative for the Abbott government...
Let's look at a few of the key themes from 2014 and see if we can figure out a story about Tony Abbott and his team.
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Victorian elections: would you vote for a truther possum?
Clarissa the possum sets the stage for hot political issues which need to be debated
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First Dog on the Moon on Ferguson – cartoon
The police officer who shot dead an unarmed black 18-year-old in Ferguson, Missouri, leading to weeks of unrest, will not face state criminal charges, it was announced on Monday
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ABC cuts: this government is looking out for people
First Dog on the Moon: No cuts to education, no cuts to health ... and no cuts to the ABC or SBS.
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Listen up, white people
Aboriginal communities in Western Australia are being closed because they're "unviable". No, it's not all about you, white people
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Do you have windfarm inquiry sickness?
Still wondering if renewables make you sick? This latest inquiry will be the one that sets your symptoms straight.
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Koalas at the G20
First Dog: In which some of Australia's cutest animals are handled inappropriately by the leaders of the free world
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When Cameron met Abbott
The scene: the G20 in Brisbane. The British prime minister shares trade secrets with his Australian counterpart
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Baby Ferouz's first birthday
Tiny Ferouz is one year-old and Scott Morrison wants to celebrate in style
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On the idea of a new cold war
Mikhail Gorbachev has warned that tensions between the US and Russia over Ukraine have put the world on the brink of a new cold war
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Tax avoidance
French, German and Dutch finance ministers have rounded on Luxembourg for allowing multinational companies to create complicated structures to avoid billions of dollars of tax
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If horses could talk
Croquembouche Lad has lost a couple of mates at the Melbourne Cup. He's not too happy about it
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The Melbourne Cup
It's First Dog on the Moon's handy Melbourne Cup sweep animals as entertainment form guide
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First Dog on the Moon on Australian immigration – cartoon
Too many asylum seekers on boats? Try the Australian solution. It works!
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First Dog on the Moon on ... Greg Hunt's leaked messages
First Dog: When Brenda the civil disobedience penguin stumbles across some naughty messages, what she learns could bring down the government
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First Dog on the Moon remembers his early work – video
First Dog on the Moon shares some of his early, unpublished work with the Guardian Australia multimedia team. There are curious teen pizzas and sea cucumbers with appalling habits, and of course, early renditions of the Dog himself
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First Dog on the Moon ... a racist carrot goes to Canberra
First Dog: When a carrot tries to enter parliament in a questionable outfit, he finds out the hard way who's allowed to be racist in the nation's capital
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First Dog on the Moon on Afghanistan – cartoon
International forces touted the Gizab's uprising against the Taliban as a success story of civil courage and a milestone in the decade-long war – but now the district is about to fall back under the control of the insurgents
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First Dog on the Moon on ... mine-fighting rats
The mine-detecting rats of Mozambique will save us all!
what we're reading
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Don’t be brainwashed by extremist preachers, students warnedPart one: How Muslim communities are tyring to prevent radicalisationAt the Al Amanah College in western Sydney students learn how to be good Muslims and good Australian citizens.The school principal says education is the key to preventing radicalisation. They are being warned not to be brain-washed by extremist preachers.
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There is no language instinct...
There is no language instinct...
Aeon MagazineFor decades, the idea of a language instinct has dominated linguistics. It is simple, powerful and completely wrong -
How fake brain science has supported gender segregation in schoolsSometimes it’s hard to believe we’re living in the 21st century. Thanks to a tide of distorted “brain-based” education, some 750 public schools around the United States have been segregating boys and girls into single-sex classrooms that sound like the old woodshop and home economics classes of the 1950s. Consider...
columnists
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Gods and faith versus Coal in name of climate changeGraham Readfearn: Religious leaders are taking on coal with polite letters and coal blockades and say they’re in it for the long haul in the name of climate change
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The government’s daily briefings are useful in understanding how this year went so badly wrong so quicklyThe Coalition's own messages are neither coherent nor convincing
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Five things we've learned from the year in politics
Katharine Murphy, deputy political editorTony Abbott’s promise that he was ‘putting the adults back in charge’ has been followed by chaos in the Senate, broken promises and budget bluesFive things we've learned from the year in politics -
David Hicks' lawyer Michael 'Dan' Mori on the PR campaign that saved his client
Mori’s book, In the Company of Cowards, reveals his battle in the court of public opinion to get Hicks out of Guantanamo Bay, and implications for today’s jihadis
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Government's last push to get legislation through – as it happenedMaybe it’s the last sitting day, maybe it’s not. More bad headlines for the Abbott government as the treasurer, Joe Hockey, lays the ground for the mid year economic forecast with a statement to parliament. As it happened.
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Will Australia be the great coal defender at Lima climate talks?Australia heads to major climate negotiations in the wake of high level defence of its coal industry
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Higher education reform defeated in the Senate – politics liveNewspoll confirms Labor remains in an election winning position as the Coalition positions for a Senate vote on its contentious higher education reforms. All the developments from Canberra, live
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In a system that isolates us from one another, it’s easy to call out stupidity. Bernard Keane and Helen Razer fall into this trap in their new bookOn Keane and Razer: why pointing out the stupidity of others is seductive
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In Shia LaBeouf’s case, mainstream suspicion of contemporary art has intersected with the ingrained cultural habit of victim blamingAfter Shia LaBeouf's art gallery trauma we should affirm that all rapes are 'real', and all are breaches of trust
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Senate resumes higher education debate – as it happenedFederal MPs gather in Canberra for the final parliamentary sitting week of 2014 in the wake of Labor’s victory in the Victorian election. A new economic forecast points to a deficit blowout of more than $35bn over the next four years. All the developments from Canberra, live
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The enemies of state-owned media – Rupert Murdoch among them – make the same arguments around the world. Cuts to the ABC, BBC, NPR and PBS are justified the same wayAttacks on public broadcasting have gone global. The ABC is no exception
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Everywhere Tony Abbott turns, there's a barrier he placed there himselfThe prime minister used admissions on ABC cuts and a ragged recent performance to try to reset the debate, but there was little tangible change. There may be a good reason for that
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Three things that a good government would doThe Abbott government has been mired in broken promises and stalled budget measures for so long it is hard to recall what a good administration looks like
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The Unicode Consortium, the equivalent of the Académie Française for emojis, is part of a shameful plot to destroy the institution of marriageThe problem with emojis
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The untold story of Indigenous Australians and disability: five questions to Scott Avery
The untold story of Indigenous Australians and disability: five questions to Scott Avery
IndigenousXFirst Peoples disability network policy director Scott Avery takes charge of the @IndigenousX Twitter account this week -
Coalition's GP co-payment strategy foundering on the rocks of confusion‘Barnacle cleaning’ only works if a difficult issue – like the Abbott government’s $7 Medicare co-payment – is neutered
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Abbott's homogeneous approach to Indigenous affairs will not erase the stain on Australia's soulAbbott’s pronouncements on Aboriginal Australia coincide with his waning political will to amend the constitution so it meaningfully recognises Indigenous Australians
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Watching the events in Ferguson, Indigenous Australians will immediately draw a parallel with Australia’s response to black deaths in custodyIndigenous Australia knows the cynicism exposed by Michael Brown's killing in Ferguson
world view
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Orion: a last-ditch effort by a fading empire that will never strike backJoe Pappalardo: When a space startup has twice the force for a fraction of the cost, you know the US government has a problem
-
Martin Rowson on government spending cuts – cartoon
Chancellor George Osborne has credibility – but the spectre of 1930s-style cuts may be too much for voters to accept
-
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Jonathan Freedland: The chancellor has credibility. But the spectre of 1930s-style cuts may be too much for voters to acceptGeorge Osborne may live to regret his rush towards Wigan pier
-
The Guardian view on policing in America: colour sharpens the conflictEditorial: The collective emancipation Martin Luther King envisaged for African Americans never came about. The result has been chronic confrontation on the streets
-
The Guardian view on Manchester’s new cultural space: from one kind of factory to anotherEditorial: There’s no way of bringing back the old manufacturing jobs, but shrewd investment in arts and culture can create a different kind of industry
-
-
Jeremy Thorpe survived to see a better BritainDominic Carman: When my father defended him in court, the great Liberal seemed to be on trial for his sexuality. Today it wouldn’t matter
-
Only a cyber ‘arms control’ treaty can keep online criminals and terrorists at bayMichael Clarke: Regin malware and the Sony Pictures hacking show how vulnerable the west feels about its cyber dominance
-
Deborah Orr: The allegations against Cosby seemed more disturbing because he is black. Clearly I see black celebrities as under a greater obligation to be exemplars – and that’s wrong, because it suggests black failings are more serious than white onesBill Cosby has made me confront my own do-gooder racism – but it's people like Eric Garner who pay the price
-
The whole point of Christianity is to create a deeper form of humanismGiles Fraser: It seems that making the human stand out as morally particular requires some sort of leap of faith
-
Marseille’s homeless ID cards have gone, but people are still on the streetsAlex Andreou: Good riddance to these nasty symbols, but the stigma towards homeless people by city officials and care workers are harder to shift
-
Marina Hyde: Giving birth in hospital these days is a hallucinatorily exhausting experience – and the cuts mean it’s about to get even worseChildbirth is as awful as it is magical, thanks to our postnatal ‘care’
-
Ian Jack: The story of low-income tenants facing 400% rent hikes thanks to a profit-hungry consortium seemed just the kind of cause Londoners would rally behind. But even with Russell Brand in the vanguard, the barricades remain unstormedI had thought the New Era estate might spark a London revolution. I was wrong
-
Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett: So Nigel Farage thinks breastfeeding mothers should go and sit in the corner. But why stop there if you don’t want women to offend?Women! Stop being so ostentatious
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If I were queen for a day I would enforce old-age selfies for childrenHilary Devey: Under my brief reign, our youth-obsessed culture would pass its sell-by date – and education policy would wise up
-
Bombed by bass: how the neighbours’ music turned my flat into a hellholeLaura Kay: You told us: The neighbours responded to our polite requests by making as much noise as humanly possible, shredding my nerves
-
Hugh Muir: The absurd ban on sending books to prisoners has been overturned thanks to the chief executive of the Howard League for Penal ReformIn praise of … Frances Crook
-
What President Obama told me about Ferguson's movement: think big, but go gradualPhillip Agnew: When my fellow young leaders and I walked into the Oval Office this week, we felt empowered and powerless at the same time. The president said we shouldn’t demand too much, too soon
-
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Jessica Valenti: Of all the people’s experiences we should be listening to right now, white people are at the bottom of the totem pole#CrimingWhileWhite is exactly what's wrong with white privilege
-
Who do you trust more: George Osborne or the BBC?
George Osborne has accused the BBC of using hyperbole in its coverage of spending cuts. The BBC said its coverage was fair and balanced, and that it asked the questions its audience wanted answers to. Which of the two would you put your trust in?
Cartoon Real letters from Manus asylum seekers, illustrated
Asylum seekers on Manus Island keep writing about the horrific conditions in the camp. Is anybody listening?