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Section: Australia

  • AUSTRALIA

    Sympathy for the dodgy salesmen of Australian politics

    • Zac Alstin
    • 12 June 2012
    34 Comments

    Duplicity in politics is not new. Every utterance is tainted by the subtext of scoring points. If it is painful for us to listen, how much worse must it be for the politicians? It is dispiriting to constantly undermine one's own integrity, and the 'dodgy salesman' is no one's ideal of human flourishing.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Lingerie football's naked sexism

    • Catherine Marshall
    • 08 June 2012
    18 Comments

    The largely positive response in Australia to the American Lingerie Football League reveals we are not the progressively egalitarian people we imagine ourselves to be. We give lip service to female equality, but women will still be exploited whenever the opportunity arises, and feminists vilified like it's 1972.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Mystery of the pro-Rudd Coalition voters

    • John Warhurst
    • 06 June 2012
    18 Comments

    A Herald/Neilsen poll this week showed that Rudd leads Gillard by 62 per cent to 32 per cent. But that figure is distorted by the overwhelming pro-Rudd preference of Coalition voters, who prefer Rudd to Gillard by 71 per cent to 19 per cent. The motivation behind this preference is not immediately clear.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    A helicopter view of the Gillard Government

    • Jill Sutton
    • 04 June 2012
    26 Comments

    It is foolish to focus on the detail of one scandalous union funds abuse, the misbehaviour of another high profile government official and the impact of some new progressive taxes on our personal lives, while ignoring the government's significant achievements under the most trying political circumstances.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Coalition of the willing targets messenger Assange

    • Michael Mullins
    • 04 June 2012
    14 Comments

    The US pursuit of Assange is being played out with the cooperation of other western democracies. Last week a British court rejected his appeal against extradition to Sweden. The UK government could overrule this, as it did for Chilean dictator Pinochet in 1998. But it looks as if they won't repeat the favour for Assange.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Mythologising the Queen

    • Philip Harvey
    • 01 June 2012
    16 Comments

    One curate in our parish claimed to dream about the royal family and believed everyone did. Any easy familiarity I had with an idealised royal family collapsed with the dismissal of the Whitlam government. Malcolm Turnbull is persuasive when he says in Australia there are now more Elizabethans than monarchists. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Aboriginal Australians inherit racial fear

    • Brian McCoy
    • 29 May 2012
    12 Comments

    The shooting death of 17-year-old African-American Trayvon Martin brought to public attention The Talk, an oral tradition where people who have experienced racial discrimination and violence teach their young to be cautious when they are out in public. Aboriginal Australians have their own version of The Talk.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Mob rule on Craig Thomson

    • Michael Mullins
    • 28 May 2012
    22 Comments

    Migrants and refugees find Australia attractive because the rule of law generally functions well. If mob rule prevails, as is threatening to occur in the case of Craig Thomson, Australia will lose its lure and the politicians could finally have their wish because the boats will stop.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Refugees in the dark over security checks

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 25 May 2012
    5 Comments

    Hayder and Mariam were found to be refugees in mid 2009. This year they had their second child. They have patiently awaited their security clearance, but when they make inquiries they are merely told that Immigration is awaiting the security checks from 'outside agencies'. The long process is affecting them mentally.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Accidental white heroes of Aboriginal culture

    • Dean Ashenden
    • 25 May 2012
    5 Comments

    A Yankunytjajara elder has damned a current 'songlines' anthropological  study, declaring that 'white do-gooders need their boundaries defined'. Anthropologists, like missionaries, have a mixed record, but are credited by many Aboriginal people for doing more good than they intended or anticipated.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    If Clive Palmer was a High Court judge

    • Patrick McCabe
    • 21 May 2012
    20 Comments

    Imagine Attorney-General Nicola Roxon appoints Palmer as the newest High Court judge. Justice Palmer sets about rewriting the law in radical ways, freeing mining companies from regulation and approving disbanding the Australian Greens. Surely such an appointment could be challenged? Actually, no.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Give circumcision inequality the snip

    • Michael Mullins
    • 21 May 2012
    64 Comments

    Everyone is entitled to bodily integrity, but they also have a right to the best possible health outcomes. When it comes to circumcision, the experts can't agree and infants can't decide, so it's up to parents to make a responsible choice on behalf of their infant sons. But only if they can afford it.

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