EDITOR'S PICKS

The Governor and Business Spectator
Alan Kohler
In the five years since Business Spectator challenged the traditional media model, innovation has become increasingly urgent for Australia. As Gary Banks explains, it's the only way to realise a bounty of opportunities.

Lightning risk to the Australian dollar
Robert Gottliebsen
If terms of trade follow historic cycles, an enormous adjustment could see the dollar fall as low as 50 US cents in 2015. Meanwhile, mining investment looks increasingly shaky.

Sharp edge of a resources cliff
Stephen Bartholomeusz
As mining leaders are warning, Australia has thrown away cyclical protection of its mining industry. A plunge from the heights of the boom can only be avoided with urgent action from government, business and workers.

Labor needs to shut up about carbon
Rob Burgess
The government's carbon tax attack on Tony Abbott has been too successful, raising the daunting prospect of a 2013 showdown with Malcolm Turnbull.

Woolworths' new pokies king
James Kirby
Woolworths' Grant O'Brien has nailed his colours to the mast with this week's ‘win' on pokies... so why not reveal just how big the business has become.

Obama spearheads an Asian coup
Robert Gottliebsen
As Washington ramps up involvement in Asia, China's new leaders will find it hard to compete. And Australia risks becoming increasingly sidelined.

America's explosive independence plays
Alan Kohler
As US energy independence moves closer to reality, it will be a destabilising force for Iran and an increasingly disruptive influence on the rest of the world.

How Merkel's fiction is writing Greece's future
Oliver Marc Hartwich
Angela Merkel's need to maintain domestic popularity has necessitated a shifting position on the Greek crisis. It's a scenario that will keep Athens muddling through until at least September 2013.

Gillard's commission for change
Alister Drysdale
After 12 months of fevered leadership speculation, the ground is settling for Julia Gillard. And her Royal Commission into child sex abuse has shown governments can do big things.

Adding cruelty to Labor's greatest failure
Rob Burgess
The government has failed the nation by sending asylum seekers into limbo under the new bridging visa. But the solutions offered by the Coalition and Greens are just as heartless.

Debunking Labor's telework revolution
Leon Gettler
Predictions that Australia will see a spike in telework may look credible on the surface, but neither the nature of the workforce nor technological history support this assumption.

Band aids won't soothe productivity pain
Cliona O'Dowd
Australia's 4 per cent improvement in productivity looks good, but the short-term fixes applied by employers have created a ticking time bomb.

A cut debate that doesn't run deep
Stephen Koukoulas
The possibility of a December rate cut has raised fears Australia is headed back to GFC-style 'emergency' policy settings. But the game is vastly different today than in 2008.