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Section: Australia

  • AUSTRALIA

    The election Rudd could have won

    • John Warhurst
    • 23 August 2010
    32 Comments

    The result suggests some fascinating questions. Prime among them is whether Labor panicked and threw away this election when it deposed Kevin Rudd and replaced him with Julia Gillard in June. Would Rudd have done better? The answer is probably yes.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    We're to blame for election shocker

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 23 August 2010
    20 Comments

    We are wrong to assume our involvement in the political process ends with the casting of votes. If the experience of a fetid election campaign, of leadership abdicated and of a hung parliament leads us to offer more modest local forms of participation and leadership, all Australians will gain.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Don't wimp out at the ballot box

    • Edwina Byrne
    • 20 August 2010
    22 Comments

    It would be easy to cast a donkey vote or a vote for a minor party and to thus wash your hands of the responsibility for our governance for the next three or so years. In a representative democracy, a vacuous election represents a lazy polity.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Vote for hope

    • John Falzon
    • 20 August 2010
    20 Comments

    Ngunnawal Elder Aunty Janet Phillips says that for Aboriginal Australians there's no 'justice'; 'just us'. How can we turn this election into a building block for a more equal society? The answer involves weighing up the known policies and track-record of both sides to assess their impact on the growth of inequality.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Politics must be more than noise

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 20 August 2010
    2 Comments

    The public sphere is often spoken of as debate, conversation, market place, or theatre. The dominant image this election campaign suggests have been of monologue and static. There is not much point in a public space if you can't hear yourself think there.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Cheap targets this election hunting season

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 19 August 2010
    7 Comments

    This election campaign has been reminiscent of the Italian hunting season, where it becomes dangerous to go out of doors when so many guns are pointed into the air. Elections are like the shooting season. High fliers are safe. Low fliers are not.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Inside Canberra's Catholic lobby

    • Frank Quinlan
    • 18 August 2010
    11 Comments

    This election we consider a PM who is doubted because of her atheism, an Opposition Leader who is doubted for being too 'Catholic', and the Greens who are doubted as being anti-Christian. Church social agencies have been involved in important issues with each of these groups.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Abbott and Santamaria's undemocratic Catholicism

    • Paul Collins
    • 17 August 2010
    26 Comments

    Tony Abbott is wrong to suggest that B. A. Santamaria made Australian Catholicism 'more intellectual'. Santamaria embraced a form of doctrinaire conformism that is the death of thoughtful commitment. It would be worrying if this kind of integralist Catholicism infected contemporary public life.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Technophobe Tony's broadband back-step

    • Michael Mullins
    • 16 August 2010
    20 Comments

    Broadband policy is the only major point of difference between Labor and the Coalition in the lead up to this Saturday's federal election. The minimalist approach mooted by the Coalition fails to appreciate fast broadband's nation-building potential.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Bishops' voting advice needs grounding in dignity

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 12 August 2010
    18 Comments

    In an election campaign characterised by the avoidance of commitment to any principle that might cost votes, the Bishops' advice avoided bagging particular political parties and enunciated broad humane criteria to guide voters. It could have offered more.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Tax pain is our gain

    • Fatima Measham
    • 11 August 2010
    15 Comments

    In Sunday's Liberal campaign launch, Tony Abbott repeated the phrase 'big new tax' five times. Through taxes, we invest in a civilised society that would provide for us in times of need. Taxes are therefore not a necessary evil. They are a necessary good.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Vote 1 bus 'bludger'

    • Sarah Burnside
    • 09 August 2010
    12 Comments

    'This election', says Tony Abbott, 'is about you.' Recently, passengers on a Perth bus found themselves involved in an impromptu social experiment. 'This guy has no money and tried to give me a ticket that's two days old,' the bus driver said, 'What do you reckon? Should I let him on?'

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