Perspective

  • Sadist in sheriff's clothing

    There are limits to the ability of director Michael Winterbottom and screenwriter John Curran to capture the 1950s crime novel

  • Recommended

    The Cold War espionage thriller is back and it's called Salt.

  • Tony Windsor

    Tony Windsor is a canny politician who listens to his constituents. His conservative electorate of New England was once Nationals heartland but now gives Windsor the sort of loyalty most politicians only dream of.

  • More substance please

    Ian McAllister,

  • He's back, with that superior feeling

    How fast things change. Just three years after its disastrous acquisition of Alcan, Rio Tinto has rebounded just as rival BHP Billiton finds itself under pressure.

  • Cycling's true believer peddles his case

    Professional cycling is the missing link in the Australian sporting landscape and Chris White is determined to change that.

  • They've broken the drought

    Back when the Easter Show was a big deal, it was fun watching the country cousins arrive in town. Along with their over-sized cows, fuzzy sheep and impossibly big pumpkins, the country visitors were clearly a different breed.

  • NSW

    Three years ago Sydney racing identity Frank Tagg rejected a $10.25 million offer for his house-sized penthouse crowning the five-star Swissotel in Sydney's CBD.

  • Election no brake on Canberra buyers

    The federal election may still be weighing on the minds of many but the capital's property market seems to be ticking over regardless.

  • Spring in the air in Hobart

    It's been a mild winter in Hobart and agents are hoping that augurs well for spring.

  • Buyer's market in Perth

    It's a buyer's market in Perth this spring, after the expected resources-fuelled boom that emerged early in the year failed to ignite.

  • Victoria property: spring of reckoning

    Spring is shaping up as a time of reckoning for Melbourne's property market as uncertainty over the country's political and economic future weighs on the minds of vendors.

  • Queensland not a seller's place

    Analysts are predicting a slow spring for Queensland properties, which have shown less price growth than all other capitals except Hobart for the past year.

  • Buyer's market as stimulus hangover sets in

    Those watching inner city auctions earlier this year likened listing a house to throwing chips to seagulls. Record numbers of home owners wanted a piece of the action and threw their properties into the frenzy.

  • Real food, with real taste, back on our menus

    A few months ago, Woolworths decided it would no longer accept so-called scheme debit cards - Visa and MasterCard products that draw money directly from a customer's savings, like eftpos.

  • Consumers want home-grown produce - at Chinese prices

    Many Australian shoppers complain about a lack of local goods on supermarket shelves, but it's usually the cheap imports that end up in their trolleys.

  • Cuban fiesta

    Rafael Bonachela has a theory about why Cuban dancers are so good. There's the Russian technique, the long, Latin limbs, and the intensity of focus that comes from isolation.

  • Compelling portrait of a dysfunctional family

    Jonathan Franzen's

  • Monet, or the art of observation

    It was a homecoming in middle age that turned Impressionism's master into one of the world's best-loved painters.

  • Adam Bandt

    Melbourne's new Greens MP has flagged he will support Labor but still has clear points of difference.

  • Rob Oakeshott

    Rob Oakeshott, 40, is the youngest and most left-leaning of the three independents. He has argued for an emissions trading scheme and a more compassionate refugee policy.

  • State of play in federation family

    In the family of federation, the siblings are getting fractious. Queensland has declared itself above all that southern baloney; Western Australia is pulling on its boots and walking out the door; NSW is lashing out like an adolescent; Victoria is wringing its hands over the fracas and South Australia is finally getting its act together only to find the family falling apart.

  • The new Australia

    Voters were unable to make a clear choice. Now it's up to the fringe players in Parliament.

  • Tony Crook

    West Australian voters clearly prefer their MPs to have an independent streak - and the Nationals live up to expectations.

  • Andrew Wilkie

    Tasmanian independent and Iraq war whistleblower Andrew Wilkie may prove to be the key to which party forms government.

  • Meet the men in the middle

    When Bob Katter senior died in 1990, the common theme of tributes was that federal Parliament had lost its last "real character". The political class, even in north Queensland, would never again throw up a frontier member like "old Bob".

  • Australia's in the midst of feeding frenzy

    The burst of activity in Australia's rural sector is all about locking in the supply of key commodities, rather than punting on a super-cycle.

  • Don't panic: food will not run out

    It was the image of burning crops outside Moscow that first got the world's attention. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin then abruptly banned wheat exports, pushing prices up 30 per cent almost overnight.

  • Price of success

    The two Davids relished taking on cartels, be they petrol or shopping. And rapidly rolling out discounted offerings helped them build huge personal fortunes.

  • With a little help from his friends

    Sometimes you have no choice. You have to rely on someone else. So it was when

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