Australia has had a baby boom and a baby bust. Are we likely to have a baby bounce - an increase in the average number of babies women have in their lifetime? This Current Issues Brief examines the available data.

The path towards a resolution of the North Korean nuclear crisis remains difficult given both the lack of politically tenable options and the powerful constraints on these options. This paper explores these options and constraints.

Australia's domestic security agency, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), is responsible for collecting and analysing intelligence of relevance to Australia's national security, and advising Government accordingly. As specified in the ASIO Act 1979, ASIO's investigations are restricted to only those activities involving espionage, sabotage, politically motivated violence, the promotion of communal violence, foreign interference...

The process by which the Australian Constitution is amended is complex and probably little understood by the general community. This paper is an attempt to explain the politics involved in efforts to amend the Constitution. It concludes that more efforts are likely to fail than to succeed.

This brief provides a background to the history of the conflict in Aceh and recent developments.