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Section: Australia

  • AUSTRALIA

    Assange tests British diplomatic principle

    • Tony Kevin
    • 20 August 2012
    21 Comments

    Julian Assange sits securely in the Embassy of Ecuador in London, as Cardinal József Mindszenty did for years inside the US Embassy in Communist-ruled Hungary. This is a benefit of the Vienna Convention. If Britain violated this principle by storming or cutting off utilities to the Embassy, the diplomatic protection of its officials and their families around the world would be weakened immediately.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Houston report's significance for deaths at sea

    • Tony Kevin
    • 16 August 2012
    8 Comments

    A boat disappeared on 28 June, the 67 people on board presumed dead. The usual dysfunctional patterns of official behaviour followed: tardy response to families, insensitive language, political exploitation. Hopefully the Houston report's quiet hints that all is not well might lead to a more compassionate and timely response in future.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Regulation as solidarity not censorship

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 13 August 2012
    10 Comments

    The Prime Minister has demanded states regulate the price of electricity. News Ltd continues its campaign against further regulation of newspapers. Regulation brings into play two values that stand in tension: individual freedom and solidarity. The trick is to regulate so that personal freedom is enhanced in a way that serves the good of all. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Bashing Queensland's revolting gay panic laws

    • Moira Rayner
    • 09 August 2012
    16 Comments

    My dad had just picked me up from the law library when we heard the screams. A chunky boy raced past, shirt tail flying, crying. Then I heard shouting, yelping and laughing, and three young men flew past in pursuit. This was to be my first experience of gay-bashing, and of the unofficial law-enforcement view of it.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Why Fair Work works well

    • Luke Williams
    • 08 August 2012
    4 Comments

    A major review into the Fair Work Act says the nation's workplace laws are 'working well'. Industry response has been predictable, uncompromising and even dishonest. The question we should ask is: do the majority of Australians (not just bosses) think we have a fair system which rewards hard work and productivity?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Perils of the Greens' moral vanity

    • John Warhurst
    • 07 August 2012
    13 Comments

    The Greens have been accused of self-righteousness leading to an unwillingness to compromise. Yet the most inflexible party in the current parliament has been the Coalition, led by Tony 'Mr No' Abbott. Getting the balance right between flexibility and maintaining what you stand for is an important lesson for all political parties in parliament.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Australia and other arms rogues

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 06 August 2012
    4 Comments

    A long-standing principle of arms control is that some regimes deserve lethal weapons, and others do not. But who is or is not a desirable dealer is often an open question. Australia adds to the confusion: one Brisbane weapon-maker's claim to fame is the creation of an electronic gun capable of firing a million bullets a minute.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The Olympics and business world need to grow up

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 06 August 2012
    9 Comments

    The Olympic Games see many thousands of mainly young athletes from all around the world competing for a hundred or so medals. So the point of the exercise can't be to win. It is to lose. Or rather the Games are a school for learning how to lose and so grow in humanity.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Hope beyond disability support flip-flopping

    • Moira Byrne Garton
    • 03 August 2012
    2 Comments

    Disability policy is no longer a short-term issue for political point-scoring, it is in the middle of the public policy sphere. While it is heartening that there is general consensus between political parties on the National Disability Insurance Scheme, some state premiers' bickering over funding has fuelled the distress of affected people.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    What's the point of the Olympics?

    • Fatima Measham
    • 01 August 2012
    16 Comments

    The games are an escapist spectacle, where the flags of Iran, Palestine and Syria flutter without irony alongside those of the US, Israel and Turkey, and delegates from Spain and Greece wave as if their nation's economies have not fractured the Eurozone. The dissonance between the games and reality has become hard to ignore.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The opposite of Australian swimming hubris

    • John Honner
    • 01 August 2012
    10 Comments

    The Spit Baths consist of two swimming areas bounded by boardwalks built on piles sunk into Middle Harbour. At low tide there is barely enough water to swim in. Olympic medallist John Devitt does time trials in just a few feet of water. There is no black line on a sterile tiled floor, just sand and seaweed.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Hope for haemorrhaging Zimbabwe

    • Chris Chatteris
    • 31 July 2012
    3 Comments

    For the international community, including Australia, it is devilishly difficult to find the most helpful stance to take with the present regime in Zimbabwe. It is naive, however, to simply assume that things will come right once Mugabe has died. The fact is that things could get worse once he is off the scene.

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