Search Results: Independents
-
AUSTRALIA
- John Warhurst
- 24 May 2022
5 Comments
Governments lose elections, but Oppositions still must demonstrate that they are a capable alternative. Both the Morrison Coalition government and the Albanese Labor Opposition played their part last Saturday. There were many sub-plots in the pattern of voting, but this election was primarily lost and won in the four biggest mainland cities.
READ MORE 
-
EDUCATION
- Chris Middleton
- 23 May 2022
5 Comments
Perhaps the most dramatic individual result of the Federal election was that Menzies’s seat, Kooyong, has fallen to a Teal independent, Dr Monique Ryan. Xavier College sits in the Kooyong electorate, and Dr Ryan is a parent at the College. Dr Ryan proved to be an impressive candidate who ran as a good a local campaign as I have ever seen. It was marked by a strong engagement by many locals, and especially among professional women, and older residents.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Julian Butler
- 12 May 2022
2 Comments
Election campaigns can be defined by all sorts of things. Gaffes, negative ads, international incidents, public policy. It is trite but no less true to say that this federal election campaign has been much more about the first three rather than the last. The policy discussion has been edged into the election mix most seriously by various interest groups and by some of the macro party and independent candidates seeking election.
READ MORE
-
RELIGION
- John Warhurst
- 26 April 2022
10 Comments
The Church must speak up to be relevant, but those who seek to ‘speak for the church’ must be brave. They risk exposing themselves to claims of bias unless they stick to a very narrow agenda and speak in extremely measured terms. Yet if they are too bland they risk being irrelevant to the sharp end of political debate and their intervention becomes little more than a symbolic ritual.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Binoy Kampmark
- 21 April 2022
3 Comments
Few sights are more desperate than old political parties on the run. In this Australian federal election, the challenge from independents and smaller parties has sparked a nervous reaction, much of it negative and most of it misplaced.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
Most of us accept that over the last twenty-odd years, something has shifted in the way politics in Australia is conducted, and not for the better. Notably, our government (and media) are seen by most voters as a dividing force within society rather than a uniting one.
READ MORE
-
RELIGION
- John Warhurst
- 02 December 2021
27 Comments
Church and state are confronting one another right now over the federal freedom of religion bill and the Victorian anti-discrimination bill. Whenever such confrontation occurs it reveals our priorities. We define our identity by what we choose to fight for hardest.
READ MORE
-
ENVIRONMENT
- Michele Madigan
- 26 July 2021
15 Comments
For several decades, successive federal governments have tried but failed to establish a national nuclear waste repository, primarily to take waste from the nuclear research reactor site operated by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) at Lucas Heights, 30 km south of Sydney. Currently a site near Kimba on South Australia's Eyre Peninsula is being targeted.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Cristy Clark
- 27 August 2020
13 Comments
If you are feeling disengaged and cynical about our political system, it turns out that you are in the majority. And that is concerning.
READ MORE
-
ENVIRONMENT
- Michele Madigan
- 28 July 2020
9 Comments
There’s a long way to go for the Coalition to change from ‘its business as usual’ performance in this as in many other matters. We can all play our part, however, in encouraging Senators to stop another sizable wind back in the nation’s democratic processes. If the Senate defeats this Radioactive Waste Management Bill then the Barngarla and others can, as in any democratic country, take to court the minister’s processes.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- John Warhurst
- 25 June 2019
14 Comments
We are expected to believe that all those perceived Labor failures, plus the massive anti-Labor Clive Palmer campaign and the attraction of some positive Coalition policies, only shifted a little over one Australian in every hundred, though more in some states like Queensland and some individual seats. That analysis can't be right.
READ MORE
-
ENVIRONMENT
There's a lot to say about the election, and much nonsense doing the rounds. Here's a summary of what went wrong and some ideas for communicating climate change over the next three years. The first thing to note is that the election probably wasn't won or lost on climate.
READ MORE