Early in September, Queensland video game developers Halfbrick fired their last remaining game designers. No, they’re not about to focus on more traditional smart phone apps, nor are they about to go out of business. They still plan on making video games, and they still remain a ‘design-focused studio’. Just, you know, without designers. The move was met with derision among many fellow developers, critics, and players, who saw it as the latest misstep of a fixture in the turbulent Australian video game development scene.

40-odd years ago Australia was considered a workers' paradise. After hard-won battles, unions had seen legislation gradually introduced for paid sick leave, paid annual leave and paid public holidays, as well an eight hour day and penalty rates for those called on to give up time with their families to work on Sundays and public holidays. It's hard to believe that we have given up so much without a fight.

The mantra of self-esteem is everywhere these days. So Helen Razer’s recent diagnosis of a widespread tendency to write ‘as though the “right” to “feel beautiful” were something endorsed by John Locke and on a par with reproductive autonomy’ has real force. Consider Target’s current marketing slogan, ‘Every Australian has the right to look good and feel good about the way they dress and live’, which debases the language of human rights by commoditising it.

David Shearer, the leader of the New Zealand Labour Party didn’t lose his job after an electoral defeat, but a mere twenty months into his term as Leader of the Opposition.

Within a single week in China, a man in a wheelchair at Beijing International Airport ignited a small explosion and a street vendor died at the hands of urban management agents. The two events were completely independent of each other yet they are deeply related: illustrations of the social reality for those living on the margin of Chinese society.

On the centre-Left, a new election meme has been incubating, one that attributes Gillard’s persistent unpopularity to the hostility of the media, which has been either too shallow (the Monthly) or too sexist (Anne Summers) to appreciate her achievements.

When the CPSU took 12 government agencies to Fair Work Australia (FWA) a couple of weeks ago in a dispute over negotiating enterprise agreement, it barely rated a mention in the press. And, if the comments in the Sydney Morning Herald’s online edition are anything to go by (‘The Australian Public Service might go on […]

In ‘The rhythm of engagement’ in Overland 201 (which can be yours to own), former Overland editor Katherine Wilson probes the world of craft labour: Forty-three-year-old Gilda Civitico and I are sipping tea and talking about craft in the open-plan rear extension of the modest brick home she shares with her partner, electrical engineer Andrew […]

I applaud Matthew Spencer, I do. Here’s a kid who has enough nounce to rally 1500 signatures in his home town in aid of a cause he believes in. The 17-year-old from Terang is out of a job because of the new retail award that now operates in his industry. He and six others used […]

I’m in the market for a new job. I’m not sure if you’ve ever noticed, but there really isn’t that much information out there to help me narrow my search. Employers generally don’t advertise what the salary is, and if you phone them they’re often coy. So I’m going to have to wait until I […]

The National Retail Association (NRA) is having another cry. This time, it’s in response to the Fair Work Ombudsman’s announcement that it will be writing to 50 000 retailers across Australia to make sure they are complying with new workplace laws. It will then look at the employment records of 1500 staff, selected at random, […]