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Section: Australia

  • AUSTRALIA

    Gerry Harvey shares the love online

    • Michael Mullins
    • 03 April 2011
    2 Comments

    High profile furniture and electronics retailer Gerry Harvey has announced that Harvey Norman would reluctantly open an online store. Most businesses are not yet confident about how to replicate online the interpersonal relationship that lies behind every economic transaction.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Ricky Ponting's dignity

    • Tony Smith
    • 01 April 2011

    As some recent Australian elections have shown, leaders do not always let go in time to avoid embarrassment. Retiring Australian cricket captian Ricky Ponting usually behaved with dignity. But there are moments he'd no doubt prefer to expunge from the record.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Obama's Libya dilemma

    • Tony Kevin
    • 01 April 2011
    2 Comments

    Obama knows the mood could sour quickly in the Middle East and Arab world if the US goes into Libya with ground forces. Yet if the war drags on, Obama will face increasing domestic criticism. Americans are anxious to see stability restored to their oil supplies.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Responsibility to Protect is not a license to intervene

    • Ben Coleridge
    • 29 March 2011
    2 Comments

    Many regard the 'Responsibility to Protect' as a doctrine which licences military intervention when civilians' lives are threatened by murderous governments. In fact, R2P emphasises the 'responsibility to prevent' as much as it does the responsibility to intervene.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Small parties, big ideas

    • John Warhurst
    • 29 March 2011
    6 Comments

    More Labor and Coalition MPs than Green MPs are pro gay marriage and pro euthanasia. It is these major party social progressives who should be most feared by opponents of gay marriage and euthanasia. The Greens will only ever play a ginger-group role.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Demonising the Greens

    • Michael Mullins
    • 28 March 2011
    21 Comments

    Currently the churches and the Greens have a mostly dysfunctional relationship. More than a few Greens owe their passion for social justice to a strong Christian upbringing. But while they both want values to triumph over pragmatism in government, they regard each other as the enemy.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Cheap milk and supermarket ethics

    • Michael Walker
    • 28 March 2011
    8 Comments

    Many people have been concerned about the effect of Coles' $1 milk on 'little' producers. They should look closer. Those producers are actually large companies, quite capable of fending for themselves, who have been putting the squeeze on farmers for decades.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Multiculturalism just works

    • John Stuyfbergen
    • 24 March 2011
    10 Comments

    In a park for a Sunday barbecue, suddenly a few men from our group separated from the rest of us. I asked the woman next to me what they were doing. They were Muslims, and they were praying. Suddenly the men were back. They switched on the radio, and we all listened to and argued about the cricket scores.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Earthquakes, poets and God

    • Michael Mullins
    • 21 March 2011
    13 Comments

    Most of us vehemently reject claims such as that made by FoxNews' Glen Beck, that the Japan earthquake was the work of a vengeful God. In his Quarterly Essay last week, David Malouf gives a nuanced reading of the position that Beck has bastardised.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Embracing Good Friday football

    • Luke Walladge
    • 17 March 2011
    20 Comments

    The NRL and national soccer competition already play matches on Good Friday, a move which they made without input from church groups. Now is the time for churches to collaborate with the AFL on a Good Friday match, or else it will be left behind again.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Julia Gillard learns to lead

    • Lachlan Harris
    • 15 March 2011
    10 Comments

    Risk reduction sat at the heart of the first Gillard campaign and, until recently, it seemed it would also sit at the heart of the second. By announcing a carbon tax Gillard proved that her thinking about her role as prime minister has come a long way.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Invisible Indonesia

    • Ruby J. Murray
    • 15 March 2011
    34 Comments

    You'd never know it, but just above Darwin and sort of to the left, there are 17,000 islands with roughly 240 million people living on them. There's more to this 'Indonesia' place than Bali, Balibo, Bintangs, and bombings. We forget Indonesia at our peril.

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