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Even as countries are faced with increasing diversity, governments are not holding up their end of the deal, corroding support for democracy. Research consistently shows that when people feel they have a genuine voice, they are less likely to be drawn toward violence or extremism. Photo: Matt Hrkac, Geelong / Melbourne, Australia/ CC BY 2.0/Wikimedia Commons Even as countries are faced with increasing diversity, governments are not holding up their end of the deal, corroding support for democracy.

Australians were less engaged in their communities, lonelier, unhappier and less satisfied with life, even before the present turmoil. But there is cause for hope. Look around the world and you would think the world is burning and Australian society is burning with it.

The prevalence of nationalism, authoritarianism and populism explains the prevalence of far-right politics in Australia. The reasons for the rise of far-right politics in Australia are often cited as financial stress, housing shortages and frustration with the government. Yet this doesn’t explain why disillusioned voters are drifting toward the far right instead of the left.

Migration can transform lives and enrich societies. It can also generate genuine pressures and vulnerabilities. The question is not whether migration is “good” or “bad", but how it can be managed well. Managing migration requires safe, orderly and regular movement, governed by institutions capable of balancing individual freedom with economic needs and social cohesion. Photo by Humberto Chávez/Unsplash Migration can transform lives and enrich societies.

The promise of deeper economic cooperation is undermined by punitive measures that could torpedo the India-US pact even before it is signed. US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor recently claimed that the US-India trade agreement is on the verge of finalisation and that “almost everything” about the agreement was done “in principle”.

Devastating flash floods in Nepal highlight the growing risks from melting glaciers and climate change, underscoring the urgent need to strengthen early-warning systems and greater accountability for climate-related disasters. On 26 August 2026, the rapid outburst of a avalanche that led to a supraglacial lake collapse in Tibet caused widespread devastation along the Trishuli River in Nepal.

Models absorb human creativity without consent, then label human-directed work as machine-made, creating a troubling double erasure of authorship. Every time someone asks an AI tool to draft an email, polish an essay or write a report, an invisible marker gets attached to the result, classifying it as “AI-generated.” It discounts the human who wrote the prompt, steered the revisions and approved the final version.

COVID, global warming, conspiracy theorists, natural disasters, financial collapses — and a sham social media ban. It’s no wonder young Australians are glum. Why are we so angry? The easy, lazy and entirely wrong explanation is that our technologies are to blame: the Internet, smartphones, social media, artificial intelligence, and so on.

Fights over multiculturalism and gender are hiding the core of the Australian people’s despair — rising economic inequality. Flat wages growth, stagnant productivity and dwindling purchasing power at the supermarket. Is it any wonder that the only things consistently growing are anger, distrust, and a sense that the economy is either broken, or worse — being run for someone else?

As AI and crowdsourced systems take on the job of fact checking, they promise speed but struggle to deliver trust and explainability. Until they can do all three, human verification still has a vital role to play. For society and democracy to function we used to depend on shared facts and a system of informed discussion and decision making. People are angry because they believe this system is failing them.