Keywords: Public Interest
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Peter Craven
- 05 July 2024
For a long time now, John Grisham has been part of the air we breathe. He's one of those writers who’s all things to all people. His latest Camino books are books about books; a form of meta crime writing and you have to admire the move on the chessboard they represent. Can John Grisham be self-reflexive?
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AUSTRALIA
- David Halliday
- 28 June 2024
It's been eight months since the Voice referendum, and people are starting to grapple with what its defeat means for Australia. There are few voices in Australia as qualified to conduct a postmortem of the outcome of the Voice referendum campaign as Frank Brennan. We examine what lessons can be learned and crucually, whether there’s reason for hope for Indigenous constitutional recognition.
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EDUCATION
- Chris Curtis
- 27 June 2024
In the new schools funding model, schools at the upper and middle parts of the parental income spectrum will find budgets getting tighter each year, and fees will likely increase. The worst affected schools will be those whose parents earn higher incomes but which have kept their fees low so that poorer families may also enrol their children.
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AUSTRALIA
For decades, unchecked corporate power and policy failures have driven up Australia's cost of living, leaving many Australians struggling. As corporate interests dominate, CEO pay increases dramatically while wages stagnate, and inflation rises. This influence of corporate Australia has eroded economic safeguards, dismantling the guardrails that once protected the common good.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Geraldine Doogue
- 18 June 2024
I wonder how many Australians were captivated, as was I, by the 80th anniversary D-Day celebrations? They seemed epochal to me: a reminder of something remarkable and a pointer to something possible, namely new resolve to maintain peace in Europe. Not too many Australians, as it turned out, were similarly mesmerised.
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AUSTRALIA
- Binoy Kampmark
- 11 June 2024
Former Australian military lawyer David McBride was convicted for leaking documents to the ABC which exposed war crimes in Afghanistan. He is the sole individual to be convicted in exposing alleged atrocities in the Afghanistan campaign by Australian special forces.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 30 May 2024
This Reconciliation Week and Sorry Day, we consider the defeat of the Referendum and the substantial failure to close the gap between the living conditions of Indigenous Australians and other Australians. It means that for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, this week will be less about days of celebration than of grief and of grim resolve to continue to seek justice.
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AUSTRALIA
- Binoy Kampmark
- 30 November 2023
3 Comments
Charged with breaching national security for exposing alleged war crimes by Australian forces in Afghanistan, former Australian military lawyer David McBride's trial in Canberra rekindles a debate that tests the boundaries of military obedience and public interest. At the heart of this legal battle lies the question: when does the duty to expose wrongdoing outweigh the duty to follow orders?
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AUSTRALIA
- Julian Butler
- 12 May 2022
3 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.
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MEDIA
- Monika Lancucki
- 22 February 2021
Last Thursday, Facebook blocked news content in Australia. Many of us had been expecting this in response to the News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code. But the breadth and severity of what occurred was brutal. The content blocked was not only that of large media companies. Public interest, not-for-profit, and religious media — many of whom rely heavily on Facebook to share messages with their readers — were blocked as well.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Andrew Hamilton
- 12 November 2020
8 Comments
One of the minor annoyances of the United States election was how unreliable the polls turned out to be, particularly in some key swing states. Unsurprising, but still annoying for those hoping for a massive repudiation of the Trump presidency. In the large scheme of affairs the failure of the polls to predict is insignificant, but it does raise interesting questions about its implications for public life in the United States and in Australia.
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MEDIA
- Isabelle Oderberg
- 13 March 2020
6 Comments
Most restaurants don’t grow all their own food. Of course, they can and may grow some produce, but their expertise is on the preparation, cooking and plating of the dish. They look to farmers to supply the raw ingredients. This is a pretty good analogy for the role of the national newswire, Australian Associated Press (AAP), which will be closing mid 2020.
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