With a stubborn Delta outbreak in Sydney, Australia, spreading in areas outside the city and in vulnerable Aboriginal communities, New South Wales officials announced a lockdown for the entire state on Saturday along with tightened restrictions for residents of Sydney. The statewide stay-at-home orders, in effect for at least a week, reflect growing concern about […]

The Australia Letter is a weekly newsletter from our Australia bureau. Sign up to get it by email. This week’s issue is written by Amaali Lokuge, an emergency room doctor in Melbourne. Almost half of Australia is in lockdown again as New South Wales loses control of the Delta variant and the virus leaks across […]

The Australia Letter is a weekly newsletter from our Australia bureau. Sign up to get it by email. As a Melbourne transplant from Sydney, I never used to care much about state-based identities beyond occasionally reveling in the chaos of the potato cake versus potato scallop debate. It’s only since the pandemic that I started […]

The prime minister has finally acknowledged that Australia will eventually have to learn to live with Covid. By Damien Cave The Australia Letter is a weekly newsletter from our Australia bureau. Sign up to get it by email. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has finally outlined a Covid exit plan, which will include the end of […]

MELBOURNE, Australia — Pink, hairless, deaf and blind, the roughly month-old joeys were but the size of a shelled peanut. Yet they were a momentous discovery for the conservationists who had set off across a dense eucalyptus forest in the dawn mist in hopes of finding them. About 3,000 years after Tasmanian devils were wiped […]

Children and staff members at the Mount Cotton State School, an elementary school near a rainforest in Queensland, Australia, have spotted wallabies, koalas and snakes over the years. But recently, builders who were adding new classrooms to the school made a discovery that stood out even among the famously diverse fauna of Australia, a continent […]

BYRON BAY, Australia — The moral quandaries of life as an Instagram influencer in the famously idyllic town of Byron Bay are not lost on Ruby Tuesday Matthews. Ms. Matthews, 27, peddles more than vegan moisturizers, probiotic powders and conflict-free diamonds to her 228,000 followers. She is also selling an enviable lifestyle set against the […]

The Australia Letter is a weekly newsletter from our Australia bureau. Sign up to get it by email. For most of the past week, I’ve been interviewing current and former members of Parliament about the mistreatment of women in Australian politics. I’ve spoken mainly to those with direct experience inside the system, and I found […]

The Australia Letter is a weekly newsletter from our Australia bureau. Sign up to get it by email. He was accused of sexual assault decades after it allegedly occurred, in a way that makes police investigation all but impossible. Backed by his party and the most powerful man in the country, he maintained his innocence […]

MELBOURNE, Australia — In the photo posted to Instagram, the actors Chris Hemsworth, Idris Elba and Matt Damon, all wearing 1980s-style sweats, embrace. They are maskless. Touching. Happy, even. The caption reads: “A little 80s themed party never did any harm!” Their fans, indignant, peppered the post with comments. What of the pandemic? Social distancing? […]