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Section: Australia

  • AUSTRALIA

    Political opposition need not be nasty

    • John Warhurst
    • 03 November 2010
    16 Comments

    Adversarial politics can be seen as a necessary and positive aspect of Westminster style parliamentary politics. This does not include needless aggression that is expressed in a nasty tone and apparent anger.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Indigenous jobs another forsaken moral challenge

    • Michael Mullins
    • 01 November 2010
    2 Comments

    At the time of the Apology to the Stolen Generations in February 2008, former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd committed Labor to halving the gap in employment incomes within a decade. It is now looking like another great moral challenge that Labor has given up on.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    John Howard shoe-thrower's moral miss-hit

    • Farid Farid
    • 29 October 2010
    9 Comments

    If smelly shoes are the last objects of resistance then the occupation of Iraq will never end. The culturally co-optive nature of benevolent groups to take on causes and speak on behalf of those who allegedly cannot speak for themselves is disturbing.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The hard life and death of Tyler the Sorrowful

    • Moira Rayner
    • 27 October 2010
    11 Comments

    Tyler Cassidy was a very upset, masked child on the day he was shot dead by police. They saw a boy who sounded like a man, playing 'dare' with a deadly weapon. Any parent will know that confronting an enraged teenage boy and advancing on him with threats is not likely to result in submission.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    France shows Australia how to protest

    • Bronwyn Lay
    • 26 October 2010
    6 Comments

    In Australia a mass strike is unimaginable. The bureaucratic hoops required before a strike can be considered a legal 'protected action' are Kafkaesque. Therefore strikes have become small, localised and limited to issues of contractual entitlements.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Brian's story

    • Tony Vinson
    • 25 October 2010
    4 Comments

    My mother never really coped while I was growing up. My dad died when I was seven and she had a nervous breakdown. My sister got murdered when I was about 15. She had just turned 18. That's when my life rolled out of control. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Packer's brave new world of media self-interest

    • Michael Mullins
    • 25 October 2010
    2 Comments

    There is credible speculation new part-owner James Packer will use his influence to kill innovation at Network Ten. The authority should respond by enforcing broadcast licence conditions, to ensure Packer's return to significant media ownership is in the public interest and not his self-interest. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Labor, unleash your rock star

    • Paul Mitchell
    • 20 October 2010
    5 Comments

    Labor has used its rock star politician to push paper around. Peter Garrett was a hero to a lot of us. Get him out of that godawful suit and let him speak — sing, if he has to! — his mind on every issue that made him the most outspoken rock singer this country has seen.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Mary MacKillop's lesson for Murray-Darling irrigators

    • Michael Mullins
    • 18 October 2010
    7 Comments

    Tony Windsor is proving himself to be a politician of integrity and tact, but has his work cut out for him in the case of the Murray-Darling Basin irrigators. Mary MacKillop was a champion of rural and regional Australians. It is worth considering her strategy in the context of the irrigators' struggle for survival.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Kristina Keneally's rational Catholic conscience

    • Tony Smith
    • 15 October 2010
    39 Comments

    Traditionally, Catholic-Labor links have been so strong that wits described the Church as 'the Labor Party at prayer'. NSW Labor Premier Kristina Keneally represents a growingly assertive Catholicism which might be described as progressive, rational and independent.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Police email scandal can't dampen Indian hospitality

    • Vinay Verma
    • 12 October 2010
    11 Comments

    The Victoria Police 'electrocution email' scandal has again displayed Australian inhospitality to the world.  Despite this, Indian hospitality remains steadfast. The guest is God in an Indian household. Australia's athletes would know this hospitality well.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Australia's feminist saint

    • Michael Mullins
    • 11 October 2010
    5 Comments

    Sexual abuse was part of the mix of challenges facing Mary MacKillop and her sisters, but it was only one of many elements of disfunction within the Church and society of the time. Historian Father Ed Campion has described MacKillop as 'a heroine to modern Australian feminists'.

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