Smoking rates are declining in Australia, but not in one community — our prison system. As well as being used for their mood-altering effects, tobacco and other drugs are also widely used as currency in our prisons.
As well as prisoners, other disadvantaged groups are overrepresented among smokers, in particular indigenous people, the mentally ill, and alcohol and drug-dependent people.
While most prisoners already have serious physical and mental health problems, in Australia 85 per cent of prisoners also smoke, even though at least half would like to stop, especially when released …

For the first time in 15 years, tonight Collingwood will head to the SCG to take on the Sydney Swans.
ANZ Stadium has run its course as an AFL venue for ­Sydney.
The fans don’t like it. The Swans — fresh from signing a 30-year deal with SCG Trust — have fallen out of love with a stadium at which Collingwood has regularly beaten the Swans.
That’s not to say ANZ Stadium hasn’t been a good thing for the promotion of Australian football.
The Swans’ use of the stadium has been an important part …

At the beginning of this year, if you stood up in the local pub and suggested the Abbott government would have a chance of winning the next election, you might well have been met with some raised eyebrows by punters before they went back to their game of pool or downed another beer.
Now, only months later, if you did that, many more people might say, “You’re probably right and possibly even engage you in conversation. If the punter were a tradie, the talk might well turn to how they were …

It looks like the Central Queensland University , the official name of the university as constituted by the Queensland Parliament Central Queensland University Act 1998 , is up to its old tricks again.
Back in 2006, CQU students complained about being treated as “cash cows” and former Victorian premier John Cain agreed. He said the university’s Melbourne city campus did not have appropriate facilities for a tertiary institution. “The university is detached physically by some thousands of kilometres from its base, giving its name and blessing to the courses but the …