An early intervention program targeted at children struggling to read may not be delivering the results its advocates promise. Reading Recovery has been around since the 1970s, but its effectiveness is increasingly being called into doubt. If you have a child who develops reading difficulties within their first year of school, the chances are pretty...

The blockchain technology that began life via virtual currency bitcoin could yet prove as transformative as the internet. The structure of blockchain ensures that any transaction between two entities only proceeds on the basis of transparency and consensus. So could fraud be a thing of the past? Will blockchain revolutionise business and society as developers...

Overview In 2013, then opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull pledged to ditch Labor's fibre-to-the-premises national broadband network and replace it with a mix of technologies including upgraded copper wires and pay TV cables. Now, despite a blowout in the cost of his version of the NBN from $29.5 billion to $56 billion, he insists it...

Thousands of single parent families have been pushed into poverty after having their payments reduced under the welfare-to-work policies of successive governments. After 10 years the workforce participation rate for sole parents has barely improved and a former senior minister admits the policy is too harsh. A new analysis of the government's 'welfare-to-work' reforms has...

Police in Darwin have jailed nearly 1,000 Aboriginal people under new public order laws that allow detention without an arrest warrant. Following a black death in custody, the coroner said the laws should be repealed because they perpetuate and entrench Indigenous disadvantage. But the NT government is refusing to budge. So have 'paperless arrests' reduced...