Insights

Fairfax Media chief executive Greg Hywood says there has been no rise in business sentiment since the federal election, underscoring comments by Australia's top retailers that hopes of a post-election rise in confidence have been disappointed.

BHP Billiton chief Andrew Mackenzie has defended the company's environmental credentials in the face of criticism from a former chairman of the Australian Coal Association.

The country's biggest insurers are counting the cost of the NSW bushfires, with losses worth an estimated $138 million and climbing.

The challenges of the online world loom large for the new CEO, writes Eli Greenblat.

Joe Hockey's new Commission of Audit will be the most comprehensive in almost two decades. It will examine everything the government does.

As anybody with a cursory knowledge of the sharemarket knows, Western Australia is the well-spring of discovery and invention.

One of Charlie's favourite movies is The Blues Brothers. It's a movie devoted entirely to "putting the band back together again" so that Jake and his brother Elwood can raise $5000 to save the orphanage that saved their life.

The sharemarket closed on a five-year high this week as investors welcomed news of better than expected quarterly earnings from US companies, and as the Reserve Bank said non-mining investment could soon pick up.

Peter Yates headed the buyers this week with his purchase of shares in the low-profile MOKO Social Media.

In this part of our series, SMSFs for Newbies, we're talking about timing. We've done the "what" to buy bit, we're now onto "when".

"We are in a situation where everybody wants to live a long time but not many people want to grow old." (Professor Simon Biggs, Melbourne University, in evidence to State Parliament's Victorian seniors inquiry)

In 1935, my father, aged 14, was the family drover. One of his regular tasks was to drive on horseback herds of cattle from his father's farm through deep forest to a green hill that rose among the trees, an ancient volcanic dome named Mount Deception.

The home in North Melbourne was essentially a fortress for the woman in her 80s. The district nurse would have to knock a certain way before the woman would open the front door, and the windows that once brought the outside world in were now barred for protection.

There was a certain audacity to the way Treasurer Joe Hockey this week went about announcing the government's long-promised audit of government finances.

The urban streets of Jeddah flash by as Tamador Alyami - a Saudi blogger and activist - steers her car through the busy weekday traffic.

In his new book, Flaws in the Ice, historian David Day takes the axe to legendary arctic explorer Douglas Mawson. In 1912, during the Australasian Antartic Expedition of 1911-14 Mawson set out on a 400-mile mapping trek with Belgrave Ninnis and Xavier Mertz. After 300 miles, Ninnis died falling down a crevasse with most of the food. In this extract from the book, we pick up the story after the death of Mertz as Mawson begins the final 100-mile journey back to the hut.