the lowdown
Marie Low's fortnightly column, The Lowdown. Marie has more than 30 years experience as a journalist and communicator.
Australia, we can’t keep on building forever
Watching the mice multiply in regional New South Wales makes you think they are not the brightest creatures. They are expanding at such a rate that, at times, they turn on each other. Discovering that I had been carrying a live one around in the toe of my boot for
Mice plague makes for a smelly, unending tidal wave of vermin
Once upon a time in Cairns, I got out of bed and went to put my foot in a slipper. I was just in time to stop myself making contact with the back end of a giant, white-tailed rat the cat had lovingly tucked inside. He had dined on the
Mate, the news is out – we’re a pack of flaming galahs
Let’s face it, Australia is known as the land of big things and weird animals. You can’t even go to Bunnings at Ballina without being confronted by a giant prawn, and a parfait at the Big Pineapple was the pinnacle of perfection when we were kids. There are people who
Andrew Laming: Find people who care, not who need empathy training
Can empathy training really help Liberal MP Andrew Laming? Of all the weird and wonderful potions that have come out of government, this one has the shine and shimmer of snake oil. I’m not saying there’s nothing in it. What I am saying is that my admittedly basic research shows
Why is legislation needed to deliver respect?
This week I was added to a chat group of journalists I worked with 20 years ago. This was prompted by some strong public words from a former colleague who spoke at a Senate hearing into media diversity. These were women I had spent hundreds of hours with, but in
IVF will never be quite as simple as ABC
As I write this, there will be Australians at every stage of IVF. There will be couples – and singles – making decisions. There will be women taking folic acid to prepare themselves for pregnancy. There will be people getting injections, having eggs harvested, embryos implanted and most of all,
