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Keywords: Asian Century

  • AUSTRALIA

    China's cupcakes and Australia's Asia fear

    • Michael Kelly
    • 31 October 2012
    8 Comments

    Looking at Australia from Asia, you quickly conclude that Australian approaches to the region are fickle and opportunistic. It's hardly news that the fastest growing economies and greatest opportunities for Australia are at our doorstep. But like kids at parties, we seem to focus more on the cup cakes than the host and guest of honour.

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  • EDUCATION

    No easy cure for 'cost disease' in Australian schools

    • Dean Ashenden
    • 07 May 2012
    13 Comments

    The Productivity Commission Schools Workforce report released on Friday does contain evidence of the dire state of productivity in Australian schools, but it is largely neutered. It's as if the Commission was anxious to avoid stating too plainly a disease for which it can suggest only palliatives.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Memories of two kings of Tonga

    • Alan Gill
    • 23 March 2012
    2 Comments

    There is a story that the king, having learned surfing at Bondi, introduced the sport to Tonga. I asked if he was ever fearful of sharks. 'There is nothing to fear,' he said. 'Look them straight in the eye like this!' At which he squared his shoulders in a demonstration of regal might which I shall never forget.

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  • RELIGION

    Conversations with Rowan Williams

    • Andrew McGowan
    • 22 March 2012
    9 Comments

    When he became Archbishop of Canterbury, he brought with him the hopes of liberal Anglicans and the scrutiny of conservatives, as he appeared likely to lead the Anglican Church further towards acceptance of progressive views. His success or failure would have to be about conversation, not about decree.

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  • EDUCATION

    Better results from a classless education system

    • Michael Furtado
    • 16 March 2012
    15 Comments

    Given that Catholic and independent schools tend to produce better results than government schools, one would expect to be able to demonstrate that the non-government sector adds more value to a student's education. The evidence does not bear this out.

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  • EUREKA STREET/ READER'S FEAST AWARD

    Migrant myths and memories

    • Julie McNeill
    • 24 August 2011
    4 Comments

    Sociologist Eva Cox heard all the vitriol about boat people when, as a five-year-old Jewish girl, she fled Nazi Germany and headed to Australia. My nine-year-old mother was a different kind of boat arrival: one of 135,000 'child migrants' imported under the 'Populate or Perish' policy.

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  • MARGARET DOOLEY AWARD

    Gillard, work and welfare

    • Sarah Burnside
    • 17 August 2011
    8 Comments

    Opponents of workplace regulation are well-resourced and powerful. In order to meet them head-on, the Government must do more than invoke the value of hard work. After all, if work automatically confers great dignity, what does it matter that conditions are unsatisfactory?

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Vinnies' revolutionary president

    • John Falzon
    • 17 December 2010
    4 Comments

    Syd Tutton, national president of the St Vincent de Paul Society in Australia, died on Sunday. He was a fighter for social justice, uninterested in personal recognition, making light, for example, of the Papal Knighthood he received in 2009, threatening to ask the Vatican for a horse to go with the title.

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  • RELIGION

    21st century exorcism

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 14 December 2010
    5 Comments

    I respect the work of exorcists who offer appropriate pastoral care to those acutely troubled. I also believe it is not generally helpful to give prominence in the churches to demonic possession and exorcism.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Precarious lives: Involuntary displacement of people in Asia Pacific today

    • Mark Raper
    • 18 January 2010

    Significant agreement was achieved in Copenhagen on the present and future forcible displacement of people because of climate change and environmental degradation. Can global cooperation for the protection of vulnerable displaced persons be renewed to meet new circumstances?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Renewed acquaintances: Australia and Russia

    • Luke Fraser
    • 09 September 2009

    The relationship between Australia and Russia is over 200 years old. It began with great promise, but relations cooled following the Russian Revolution. The financial crisis presents an opportunity for both countries to look to each other with optimism once again.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Swine flu will hit poor countries hardest

    • Margaret Rice
    • 29 April 2009
    1 Comment

    The outbreak of swine flu has crossed the species barrier and spread quickly from human to human. Amid the general gloom, medical companies' stocks have risen since Monday, particularly those which produce ant-virals.

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