Labor and its all-too-blind apologists are forever instructing Australians to respect lived experience. There is one striking exception these days: economic hardship.

When Australians say they can't afford their mortgage, rent, groceries or electricity bills, the PM and Treasurer reach for the talking points. Unemployment is low. GDP is growing. National wealth is high. Australia retains its triple-A credit rating.

Therefore, apparently, the distress is imagined, exaggerated or incompatible with the official story. It sometimes feels like the Morrison years are ongoing.

The old line about 'lies, damned lies and statistics' has endured because data points can mislead without being false. The most effective statistical misdirection doesn't require fabricating data, it merely requires selecting the figure that answers the question you wish you'd been asked.

Australians aren't angry because they have failed to understand the statistics. They're angry because mainstream politicians keep using statistics to misunderstand them. To excuse failures.

Labor ministers have made this sort of macroeconomic roll call a standard feature of their spin. To be fair, both sides of politics do it. The Coalition for years while in government relied on positive-sounding data points rather than enacting necessary economic reforms.

The reforming legacy of

Dear Vanessa,

My mum has always been the one who held our family together - but two years ago she was diagnosed with cancer. 

Since then, I've been the one taking her to specialist appointments, managing her medications, buying her groceries, paying her bills and helping her stay in her own home. 

As her health declined, she asked me to help with her banking and day-to-day finances because it all became too overwhelming for her.

I never thought twice about it. She's my mum.

My two brothers, however, have been largely absent. One lives interstate and says work makes it difficult to visit. The other lives just half an hour away but somehow always has an excuse.

Three weeks ago, Mum was admitted to palliative care.

Money educator Vanessa Stoykov (pictured) helps a woman who is in conflict with her brothers about her mum's finances 

Almost overnight, both of

A Scottish Greens politician has sparked outrage after saying that rape exists 'on a spectrum' and rapists should not be 'demonised'.

MSP Q Manivannan, who also described the idea of 'monster rapists' as a 'myth', made the comments during a podcast recording with Dr Sindhu Rajasekaran for The Subjective Space in February 2025.

Manivannan, who is trans non-binary and currently in Scotland on a student visa, was elected as an MSP for the Edinburgh and Lothian East region in this year's local elections.

They are currently in the process of applying for a graduate visa and 'global talent visa' – one of which they must secure if they are to serve a full-term in Holyrood.

The global talent visa would enable Manivannan to live and work in the UK for the entire five-year parliamentary term and beyond.

A student visa includes a series of restrictions such as only being able to work part-time during term time for a maximum of 20 hours a week, and not being able to fill a permanent vacancy. 

Asked by Dr Rajasekaran about compassion in forgiving acts of violence such as rape, Manivannan said:

A Melbourne party boy and 'addiction recovery coach' was caught in an alleged Amazon-style drug distribution racket. 

Heavily-tattooed Adam Avignone-Green, also known as 'Adam Antony', fronted the Melbourne County Court on Thursday charged with trafficking simpliciter - a legal term for the standard offence of trafficking in a drug of dependence.

Avignone-Green, a well-known supplement promoter within the city's fitness and party scene, appeared in court after allegations he was caught trafficking drugs in St Kilda in March 2023.

The accused, who once bragged online about completing the gruelling 75 Hard challenge, a 75-day fitness and self-discipline program, was set to be arraigned on the trafficking charge but it was adjourned so that he could make an application to have his matter heard in the drug court rather than the regular criminal division. 

The court heard that Avignone-Green was the 'principal' in the alleged racket where drugs were advertised from a website and then distributed from a St Kilda warehouse.

'We have him as a principal, he is integrally involved in the operation,' prosecutor Peter Pickering said. 

'Whether that is sitting in front of the computer and putting stuff on the

A multilingual Double Bay doctor facing domestic violence charges has been asked to translate his alleged victim's French medical certificate excusing her from flying home from Europe to get in the witness box.

Lotus-driving Walid Kesserwani is the founder and CEO of Medisport Clinic in Sydney's eastern suburbs and boasts of treating professional sportspeople including NRL and AFL players.

In June last year the 44-year-old chiropractor was charged with choking and assaulting his former girlfriend Ludivine 'Ludi' Elisabeth, who runs a boutique luxury travel consultancy.

Kesserwani was due to face a hearing on Thursday at Downing Centre Local Court but it emerged Ms Elisabeth had called in sick and could not make the journey back from France.

The prosecution sought an adjournment but Kesserwani's barrister Greg Stanton objected, noting an earlier hearing date had already been vacated.

Mr Stanton questioned the reliability of Ms Elisabeth's medical certificate, which was written in French, and raised concerns about her communications with the officer-in-charge of the case.

The medical certificate stated that Ms

This is the shocking moment a car ploughs into a cyclist before speeding away from the alleged hit-and-run.

Parvez Ahmed Rahman, 33, has been charged with attempted murder and failing to stop while a man in his 50s fights for his life in hospital. 

CCTV footage allegedly shows the moment the suspect smashes into the cyclist on a residential street in east London at 11.15pm on Thursday.

The driver appears to plough into the victim at speed before several witnesses rush over on Aylward Street in Stepney Green.

The cyclist was raced to hospital with life-threatening injuries after paramedics treated him as a 'priority' before racing the man to a major trauma centre.  

Rahman was initially arrested on suspicion of causing serious injury by dangerous driving, failing to stop after a road incident and being unfit to drive through drink or drugs.

He has since been charged with attempted murder and failing to stop but not with being unfit to drive through drink or drugs.

Rahman appeared at Thames Magistrates' Court on Saturday where he was remanded into custody. He is due to appear at the Old Bailey on September 4. 

It was meant to be a new dream life in an idyllic French village. 

In their quiet cottage at the bottom of a leafy road, Anthony Rickard and Heather Comins were looking forward to spending the rest of their years together in the quaint rural town of Ménéac in Brittany. Or so it appeared.

In 2001, Anthony – or Tony, as he preferred – vanished without a trace. 

His disappearance sparked a 25-year mystery until earlier this year, when his remains were finally discovered at the bottom of a well in his garden, and his partner was arrested on suspicion of murder. 

But in an unexpected twist, she has found support from an unusual source: Tony's stepdaughter, who has revealed shocking allegations which cast a whole new light on the mystery.

When Jenny Devine, 51, saw her stepfather's face splashed across newspapers, she couldn't help but feel rage. 

She says the last time she had seen Tony, she was just a teenager, and he had just been sent to prison for molesting her.

'It was a shock, and it's brought back so many buried memories,' she tells the Daily Mail as she recalls the moment she heard that his

These are the first pictures showing the moment a Russian warship opens fire off the coast of Plymouth. 

Just one day after Andy Burnham became Prime Minister, the Russian frigate Neustrashimy conducted a live-fire exercise 40 miles south of the city on July 20. 

Royal Navy ships were mobilised to monitor the vessel in the English Channel after it has 'repeatedly transited' UK waters to escort Moscow's shadow fleet oil tankers. 

Now, images released by the Royal Navy show the moment Neustrashimy opens fire off the coast in what was thought to have been a 'warning' to Mr Burnham just 24 hours after he became PM. 

Neustrashimy was shadowed by HMS Tyne, an offshore patrol vessel, while a French military aircraft also monitored the warship and made radio contact to request clarification of its intentions. 

Before opening fire, the frigate informed HMS Tyne that it intended to conduct gunnery exercises and asked the Royal Navy patrol vessel to move to a safer distance, which it did.

The live-fire drill lasted around 30 minutes and took place in international waters at around

A dope-smoking pastor has been accused of sexually assaulting and potentially infecting a 14-year-old with HIV in Florida. 

Timothy Chaneyfield, 42, was arrested in Orlando after the Polk County Sheriff's Office received a tip from Instagram about a potentially inappropriate activity between him and a minor.  

'Instagram was principal in stopping a child pedophile from sexually battering children while being HIV positive. If all other social media online did exactly what Instagram did, we could stop this,' Sheriff Grady Judd said at a press conference. 

After being taken into custody, the pastor, who preaches at St James United American Free Will Baptist Church, allegedly admitted to the crime. 

'He confessed,' Judd said. 'He confessed that he picked up this 14-year-old child on at least three different occasions, took him to Timothy's home in Eagle Lake, where he engaged this child in sex.

'That wasn't it. That wasn't all. Timothy is HIV positive. He failed to tell this 14-year-old child that "I'm HIV positive," and he had unprotected sex,' Judd fumed. 

Police made sure the teenager received medical care,

A father of five has been killed after a 13-year-old boy driving a stolen car with six other teenagers inside slammed into his vehicle, according to police. 

The crash occurred shortly after 5am on Tuesday at an intersection in Germantown, Maryland, a community just north of Washington, DC. 

William Vance Payne II, 58, had been driving to work at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), where he worked as a mechanical engineer and was close to retiring, his family said. 

With just 10 minutes left in his drive, Payne's Toyota Matrix was struck by a stolen white Kia Optima with seven teenagers inside, including four girls aged 14, 14, 13 and 12, and three boys aged 15, 13 and 12, according to the Montgomery County Police Department.

By the time emergency personnel responded to the scene of the crash at 5.25am, Payne was already dead. The vehicles had suffered 'extensive damage,' police said.  

The juveniles, whose identities were not disclosed, were transported to several trauma centers in the area. The 13-year-old driver of the Kia was in critical but stable condition, police said. 

Footage of

More than 100 social media posts have been flagged to an elite police unit set up by Labour which has been described as a 'sinister' erosion of civil liberties.

The unit – known as the National Internet Intelligence Investigations team - was set up by the Government earlier this year in the wake of the 2024 Southport riots.

Disturbances in the north west town following the brutal murders of three little girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class by Axel Rudakubana led to national unrest apparently fanned by social media.

In the absence of official information about the killer, who was later found to be born here after his parents fled Rwanda, word spread on social media that he was potentially a Muslim asylum seeker, stoking immigration concerns across the UK.

Since the new squad started work in February, it has been revealed that its widespread monitoring of social media for what it calls 'protest related activity online' has already led to 106 reports of suspicious online posts being brought to the attention of local police forces.

The figures were obtained under freedom of information laws and

Amanda Knox's ex-boyfriend has condemned her decision to do a one-woman comedy Edinburgh fringe show, saying: 'It is not an approach I agree with'. 

Raffaele Sollecito, who was wrongly accused of the murder of Meredith Kercher alongside his then-girlfriend in 2007, is the latest critic of Knox's show, which began last night and is sold out. 

Mr Sollecito, now 42 and a computer engineer, criticised the gig and said he found it 'puzzling' that the tragedy was being used as a 'draw for a comedy show'. 

He said: 'I haven't seen it, so I cannot pass judgment on its content. However, based on how it has been presented and promoted, I find it puzzling that a tragedy is being used as a draw for a comedy show. 

'Personally, it is not an approach I agree with. I am trying to process and move past what happened in a different way.' 

But Knox's ex-boyfriend added: 'I don't believe there is a right or wrong recipe for dealing with trauma; everyone finds their own path.' 

A petition to stop the controversial show, which is set to run for 11 nights