Desperate housewives have led a $500 million outer suburban poker machine splurge.

Anglican clergy in Ballarat are trying to depose their bishop — a first in the church's Australian history — accusing him of bullying and harassment that have damaged relations beyond repair.

The cost of a private school education will soar this year, with some of the nation's top schools increasing their tuition fees at a time when household budgets are tightening.

Attorney-General Rob Hulls was refused communion in a Catholic church over the State Government's Bill to legalise abortion.

The fact that a religion is identified with one or more ethnic minorities should surely have no bearing on other people's freedom to probe, question and indeed lampoon that religion, in the same way that Christianity is regularly subjected to criticism and comedy spoofs.

A Jewish Israeli and a Christian Palestinian, now living in Australia, reflect on the conflict tearing apart their former suburbs.

A proposed Internet filter dubbed the "Great Aussie Firewall" is promising to make Australia one of the strictest Internet regulators among democratic countries.

A PLAN to halve the number of homeless in Australia and accommodate all people sleeping rough by 2020 has received widespread support. Welfare agencies have called it bold and revolutionary.

A RISE in frail nursing home patients going hungry and thirsty has forced tougher surveillance of the industry.

Government plans to introduce mandatory internet filtering have enraged - and mobilised - the blogosphere, and no one knows where it will end, reports Nigel Bowen.

A lack of financial security is forcing some single mums to rush into serial live-in relationships which can be harmful to children, according to research.

The Anglican Church says a severely brain-damaged boy caused or contributed to his own disability after he was swept into a drain at one of its elite schools.

A surge of Hollywood interest in Australia as a filming location could lead to another coup: the next Chronicles Of Narnia film.

Controversial euthanasia advocate Dr Philip Nitschke will today launch a new death device which is undetectable during autopsy.

Boxer Anthony Mundine and league star Hazem El Masri have been fined for illegally beginning work to convert a Christian church into a mosque.

Gympie Anglican Parish's new rector, Canon Allen Neil and his wife, the Reverend Lynette Neil, have just arrived in Gympie and are amazed by how friendly everyone is.

The Anglican Church says a severely brain-damaged boy caused or contributed to his own disability after he was swept into a drain at one of its elite schools.

The Pacific Conference of Churches has criticised the Australian government as being gross under-achievers amongst the developed countries setting targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.

Tony Kevin fretted whether the Prime Minister was another Tony Blair on May 27, 2007, at the New Pentecost Forum.

Police arrested two more men this morning in relation to sexual assaults of students at Bathurst schools more than two decades ago.

Victorian state primary school students will soon be able to take religious education classes which teach there is no evidence God exists.

Some obstetricians are calling for more extensive prenatal screening for Down syndrome, but those who call for screening can't have it both ways.

Stephen O'Doherty, the chief executive of Christian Schools Australia, readily agrees there is bullying in schools - he copped it himself at school and long afterwards - but he believes Australia has made progress in the past 15 years.

Prominent historian Geoffrey Blainey has warned Kevin Rudd not to run the looming debate about an Australian charter of rights in the same narrow way Paul Keating presided over the republic issue, urging mainstream views be represented.

The Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia has urged public support for an international appeal seeking to raise more than $4 million to help the people of Zimbabwe.