Australian shipping has an emerging crisis. Ninety-eight per cent of tangible Australian imports and exports arrive and depart by sea, yet the nation’s marine workforce is both ageing and dwindling in numbers to an alarming extent, experts say.

An innovative Western Australian biosecurity warning system based on DNA “soup” has piqued the interest of ports in NSW, Victoria and particularly Queensland, where a trial is planned for later this year.

Brisbane’s new cruise terminal is scheduled to begin operations with a flourish in 2020, changing the shape of Australian cruising and setting the scene for further expansion in the lucrative market. The cruise industry contributes an estimated $5 billion to the Australian economy annually. And, according to advocates, cruising has brought an economic lifeline to …read more

Sustainability is the new watchword for the ports sector in Australia with an array of new sustainability initiatives under way across the nation. Projects range from shorebird habitat rehabilitation at the Port of Newcastle to refurbishment of historic wharves in Cairns to the Port Lincoln wharf recycling project (using redundant wharf timbers to construct public …read more

From a working-class family living in the hard-scrabble, tiny coastal town of Umina in NSW, Phil Honeywood soared through study abroad and university. He wound up becoming one of the youngest Liberal government ministers in Victoria and deputy leader of the party in opposition before retiring from politics and taking the helm of the large …read more

The University of Sydney has launched a wholesale revamp of arts and social sciences research that may presage a change in the focus of humanities studies across Australia, focusing humanities research on the important questions of the modern world.

Brimming over with enthusiasm, the vice-chancellor of the University of Technology Sydney lets fly with a rapid-fire paean on the ­institution’s modernity, achievements and sheer potential. Attila Brungs has been in charge of the uber-modern university for four years and he’s “loving it, absolutely loving it”.

Disputed elections for staff and student representatives for Mon­ash University’s council have spawned contested results, a successful appeal to the Victorian Ombudsman, hastily rewritten regulations and a call for the state’s Higher Education Minister to consider changing the relevant laws to ensure impartiality.

Elanor Huntington is readying herself for the imminent arrival of the next world-changing engineering discipline, one she believes will overlap the realms of the built and digital worlds.“Engineering is not a static thing,” she says. “There have been new disciplines emerging over time for centuries, and I think there’s a new one coming.”