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Section: Australia

  • AUSTRALIA

    Stuck in the immigration sieve

    • Susan Biggar
    • 26 September 2008
    12 Comments

    Maybe we shouldn't have been surprised when the rejection letter arrived in the mail. After all, the Immigration Department is entrusted with separating the sheep from the goats, and our family, apparently, has some black sheep.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Euthanasia drug bill's dignified demise

    • John Chesterman
    • 22 September 2008
    6 Comments

    As Victoria's Legislative Council made its wise choice to reject the Medical Treatment (Physician Assisted Dying) Bill, we witnessed the indomitability of the human spirit in the Paralympics.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Turnbull's opportunity to back battlers

    • Michael Mullins
    • 22 September 2008
    2 Comments

    Malcolm Turnbull laughed off the Government's half-baked attack on his wealth last week. With Australians more interested in who a politician represents, he has the opportunity to protect the poor by imposing increased regulation on the finance sector.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Lipstick on America's politcal (dog) collar

    • Moira Rayner
    • 18 September 2008
    9 Comments

    There are lessons to be learned from Sarah Palin's quip that the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull terrier is 'lipstick'. In Western politics, women are acceptable if they look 'youthful' and are attached to powerful men to whose authority they defer.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Vote 1 Michael Palin

    • Brian Doyle
    • 18 September 2008
    3 Comments

    When I heard John McCain had chosen 'Palin' as his running mate, I thought, wow, Michael Palin! Palin understands women (he's worn his share of dresses), animal rights (especially dead parrots), and commerce (particularly the cheese industry).

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  • AUSTRALIA

    US military strikes blunt Pakistan honour

    • Mustafa Qadri
    • 17 September 2008
    3 Comments

    The tribal peoples of northern Pakistan distrust foreigners due to centuries of interference that have left them marginalised. The casual nature with which US forces excuse civilian casualties suggests an abject ignorance of this history.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    SIEV-X questions sink leadership credentials

    • Michael Mullins
    • 15 September 2008
    10 Comments

    Discussion prompted by the publication of Peter Costello's memoirs defines leadership narrowly as the ability to win elections. If the criteria were expanded to include moral fortitude, judgments about leadership would be very different.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Voters value Independents

    • John Warhurst
    • 15 September 2008
    6 Comments

    Independents were once seen as utterly unsuited to parliaments dominated by big parties. The apparent weakness of Independents in being outside the mainstream is their strength: they represent an alternative way of thinking about politics.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    When life begins in an ICU

    • Jen Vuk
    • 15 September 2008
    12 Comments

    Photos of my son taken just after birth show an unconscious newborn fighting for his life. Last week, as the Victorian Abortion Law Reform Bill was passed in the lower house, I caught myself siding with Peter Costello.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Modern parents' toy story

    • Daniel Donahoo and Tania Andrusiak
    • 12 September 2008
    4 Comments

    Our children are not our children. They live in a world saturated in brands, commercialism and all manner of hyped-up toys. So when, over a pre-dawn hot chocolate, our son told us he wanted to buy a Ninja Turtle, we just smiled.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The new Indigenous affairs orthodoxy

    • Myrna Tonkinson
    • 11 September 2008
    11 Comments

    An emerging school of thought claims that substance abuse is the cause, not the symptom, of the present-day Indigenous crisis. Such myths give an inadequate account for the situation, and fail to provide prescriptions for change.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Mem Fox and the parable of the green sheep

    • Sarah Kanowski
    • 10 September 2008
    15 Comments

    Working mums were 'offended' and 'disgusted' by Mem Fox's childcare slam. Other critics berated 'selfish mothers' and a society sick with affluenza. There was one word missing word from all the brouhaha: 'fathers'.

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