Category: Opinions & Research
The Evolution of Luxury: From Gold Leaf to Inner Peace
Luxury isn’t about wealth—it’s about what’s missing. From postwar security to digital-era silence, what we call “luxury” keeps evolving. This essay explores how rarity shapes desire, how the luxury industry sells emotional scarcity, and why the most coveted experiences today are often the quietest.
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What Happens When the Last Bank Leaves Town?
As more banks close their doors across rural Australia, communities are turning to post offices for basic services—but can they really replace what’s been lost?
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Airport Retail and the Psychology of Stress: What Makes Travellers Spend?
That overpriced chocolate bar at Gate 14 wasn’t about hunger—it was about control. In this in-depth essay, we explore how Mood Repair Theory explains airport retail behaviour, especially in high-stress domestic terminals, and what airports can learn from global best practice to meet travellers’ emotional needs.
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The Future of Banking in Yarram: Local, Accountable, Ours
With Bendigo Bank closing its Yarram branch, locals have a unique opportunity: start a Community Bank, backed by state grants through the Future of Yarram program. This article explores the model, the costs, and the step-by-step process to bring essential banking back under community control.
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What Is Narrative Transportation Theory—and Why Should Regional Tourism Care?
Inside every old town lives a new story—emerging not instead of, but because of what came before.
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Why People Misunderstand Regional Towns – and How to Reframe the Story
Regional towns struggle not with invisibility—but with oversimplified mental maps. Drawing on schema theory, this article explores how Gippsland, Daylesford, and New Zealand have reshaped public perception—and what councils can learn from them.
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The Ancient Enemy: How a 3,000-Year-Old Story Shapes Today’s Middle East
There’s a moment that keeps coming back to me from October 2023. Netanyahu, standing before Israeli troops, invoking a three-thousand-year-old biblical commandment: “Remember what Amalek has done to you.” Most heard heated rhetoric. But for those listening carefully—it was something far more specific.
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When Faith Becomes a Cage: The Hidden World of Spiritual Coercion
How spiritual manipulation hides within respectable Christian communities—from campus ministries to prosperity churches. An exploration of psychological entrapment and the true cost of leaving.
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The Pope in the Mirror: Outrage, AI, and the Performance of Power
Trump’s AI images and media theatrics aren’t signs of dementia—they’re a deliberate strategy. What happens when outrage becomes the operating system of politics?
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The Gamified Journey: How Behavioral Design is Transforming the Psychology of Travel
Travel isn’t just about going somewhere anymore—it’s about becoming someone. The quiet revolution of gamification is reshaping how we experience destinations, and smart marketers are already playing several moves ahead.
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The Inheritance We Carry: How Trauma Echoes Through Generations
A vivid, three-generation story of trauma, resilience, and mental illness reveals how genes, immune systems, emotional suppression, and experience weave together — and why understanding invisible legacies could be one of the most radical acts of healing.
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Nothing’s Ever Good Enough Anymore
The coldest thing in Australia isn’t our beer, but how we’ve learned to respond to hope.
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