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Section: Australia

  • 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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  • AUSTRALIA

    Japan's nuclear distortion

    • Brian Vale
    • 15 March 2011
    7 Comments

    Many Japanese don't trust officials connected to the nuclear power industry because previous radiation leaks were denied or downplayed. It is difficult for those caught in the current disaster to know how to interpret statements from officials using phrases such as 'acceptable levels of radiation' and 'no immediate threat'.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Cheap milk, no guilt

    • Michael Mullins
    • 14 March 2011
    31 Comments

    Independent Senator Nick Xenophon has said the 'unsustainable' $1 per litre milk price will force farmers off the land and ruin Australia's dairy industry. Economists ridicule this sentiment. Low milk prices are the market god's gift to consumers.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    History continues in Egypt and Libya

    • Ben Coleridge
    • 13 March 2011
    6 Comments

    Political and social ideas are a means of conceptualising people's inner urgings and desires. Does the movement towards political change in the Middle East constitute an 'absolute moment' which forecasts the realisation of democratic governments across the Arab world?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The NSW democracy deficit

    • Tony Smith
    • 10 March 2011
    8 Comments

    If voters are disappointed with Labor now, they could be positively angry after the election. Because the Coalition is a shoo-in to win, the public is showing little interest in policy debates and the media have brought little pressure to bear over policy details and likely costs.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Priests, sex and the media

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 07 March 2011
    13 Comments

    Media coverage of the Church usually assumes priests form a homogeneous and disciplined body whose uniformity derives from fear of authority. Priests are more like franchisees than employees, independent and always ready to grumble. This does not amount to disaffection.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Old men behaving badly

    • John Warhurst
    • 01 March 2011
    15 Comments

    Old men are hard to top when it comes to abuse of power: Egypt's Mubarak is 82, Italy's Berlusconi is 74, and Zimbabwe's Mugabe is 88. There are good arguments for removing leaders once they reach 'a certain age', even in relatively benign democracies such as Australia.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Dire Ireland

    • Peter McVerry
    • 01 March 2011
    7 Comments

    Ireland's election was all about how to repay the country's debts. One hundred and fifty predominantly well-educated and skilled young people are expected to emigrate each day over the next two years; not only because they have no jobs, but because they have no hope.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Stealing Libya's revolution

    • Michael Mullins
    • 28 February 2011
    3 Comments

    The revolution in Libya is about the aspirations of the country's youth, not Gaddafi. Yet he has been front and centre of international media coverage. In this way, western media are complicit in keeping him in power and disenfranchising the Libyan people.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Christchurch's reasonable hope

    • Sande Ramage
    • 23 February 2011
    5 Comments

    Unreasonable hope is when we think God will save Christchurch, or that anything is going to be the same again. Reasonable hope means we become realistic, sensible and moderate, directing our attention to what is within reach.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Non Anglo-Saxon Australians deserve an apology

    • Michael Mullins
    • 21 February 2011
    24 Comments

    Immigration Minister Chris Bowen's speech on multiculturalism could be seen as laying the ground for a formal apology for the White Australia Policy. The parallels with the 2008 Apology to the Stolen Generations and the 2009 Apology to the Forgotten Australians are striking.

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