Keywords: Pacific Islands
-
INTERNATIONAL
- Jemma Williams
- 16 August 2013
2 Comments
Many Pacific Island nations question what they will gain from PACER-Plus, the free trade agreement that is being negotiated this week between these nations, Australia and New Zealand. If Australian and New Zealand really want to achieve development in the Pacific, why are they pushing these islands to reduce their barriers to trade in a manner which could restrict their achievement of human development goals?
READ MORE 
-
INTERNATIONAL
- Walter Hamilton
- 26 July 2013
11 Comments
A constitutional challenge in PNG to the resettlement agreement could quickly destroy any disincentive value as far as people smugglers are concerned. Under the country's constitution, foreigners may not be detained unless they have broken the law in entering the country. Since the asylum seekers are being sent there against their will they cannot be held to have entered illegally.
READ MORE
-
ENVIRONMENT
- Paul Collins
- 14 December 2012
15 Comments
Kiribati, situated in the central Pacific Ocean and home to 101,998 people — more than half of them Catholic — will be the first country to be drowned by global warming. While we wring our hands and climate sceptics pretend there is no problem, on Kiribati people are already in the midst of a climate change disaster.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Binoy Kampmark
- 14 November 2012
1 Comment
Australia's unimaginative perspective on China's growing power accords with Washington's. In Obama's terms, China can be an adversary or a partner. China is a complex leviathan, and the great challenge is how to integrate it into the global system without conflict.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Binoy Kampmark
- 31 October 2012
12 Comments
In politics, hypocrisy is a natural condition. On Tuesday, it became evident that refugee policy is the last thing that should be made by the Australian government. Gillard has now achieved something Howard could only dream of, and shown Labor can play the game of hypocrisy as well as any.
READ MORE
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
- Andrew Hamilton
- 04 July 2012
1 Comment
I have always associated Peter with words like chivalrous, knightly, courtly and courteous. He was courteous and elegant in conversation, listening intently to even the most inarticulate of people. But knights’ business is to fight.
READ MORE
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
- Peter Steele
- 03 July 2012
5 Comments
Here's the mint still on my hands. A wreath, so Pliny thought was 'good for students, to exhilarate their minds'. Late in the course, I’ll settle for a sprig or two.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Susan Metcalfe
- 27 June 2012
22 Comments
It should be mandatory for anyone writing on asylum seekers to spend time visiting detention centres. Many commentators ignore the hard work of those who have. Moreover the politicians are too poll driven to even explain the human desperation that leads to boat journeys.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Kerry Murphy
- 08 November 2011
17 Comments
Last week there were three significant events affecting refugees including, tragically, more deaths. The use of language in the debate about asylum seekers is always striking, and has evolved and adapted over the years. It does not always reflect reality.
READ MORE
-
EUREKA STREET/ READER'S FEAST AWARD
- 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.
READ MORE
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
- Michael Sharkey and Barry Gittins
- 19 July 2011
Bought after the wreckage of a shoaled first marriage, the becalmed, calming painting survived a bachelor's anchorage, flotsam and jetsam, to find love. Peace. Safe, prized harbour under muted tiles and a stultifying light orb.
READ MORE
-
RELIGION
- Catherine Marshall
- 21 March 2011
5 Comments
In Japan's relief centres and obliterated streets, there is no news of looting or violence, no shouts of blame, no demands for immediate evacuation and coronial inquests. 'Shinto is a nature religion,' says my guide Yoshiko. 'We give thanks to everything we have.'
READ MORE