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Section: Australia

  • AUSTRALIA

    Turnbull's unfinished business for 2018

    • John Warhurst
    • 02 February 2018
    7 Comments

    There are opportunities for both sides of politics, government and opposition, in the leftovers from 2017. The balance looked to have shifted somewhat back towards the government in the final weeks of last year. The task of Malcolm Turnbull will be to begin the new year as he ended the last.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Cabinet Files comedy is Wes Anderson-worthy

    • Fatima Measham
    • 01 February 2018
    14 Comments

    Too few inversions of this power dynamic come along. So we are allowed to laugh a) that some careless handling of furniture can go a long way toward embarrassing people, and b) that those same people have expanded surveillance mechanisms and presided over lapses in data security. It schadens our freude, for sure.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Gerroa Jack's irreplaceable gift

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 31 January 2018
    12 Comments

    It is tempting to say that Jack and his mates should cease from their work and press the local council or state government to take responsibility for cleaning the beach, so obviating the need for volunteers. The council does indeed provide and empty rubbish bins at various entry points to the beach. But imagine what might be lost.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Don't undersell surging women's football

    • Polly Fletcher
    • 29 January 2018
    6 Comments

    I have always been footy mad. I played in high school, and joined a women's league when I was 16. For me and the record numbers of women who have taken up Aussie Rules over the past year, seeing women playing at the elite level in the AFLW is a dream come true. But it has a way to go until it is revered the way men's football is.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Attacks on 'lenient' judges harm society

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 23 January 2018
    12 Comments

    Alarm at supposed youth gangs in Australia is not new. But the current response to claimed Sudanese gangs has a fresh and disturbing aspect: the attack by politicians and their media allies on judges and magistrates for lenient sentences and the granting of bail. Such attacks have harmful consequences.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Australia Day has never been unifying

    • Fatima Measham
    • 18 January 2018
    32 Comments

    Other states, having been founded on various dates, regarded 26 January as a Sydney thing until 1935. In 1938 it was declared an Aboriginal Day of Mourning. To press the point, the current momentum against Australia Day is not some newfound 'political correctness', not least because it predates the term.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Airing abuse allegations serves public interest

    • Kate Galloway
    • 16 January 2018
    15 Comments

    Many claim it is inappropriate for media to report these stories. The concept of justice at law depends upon systems designed to weigh evidence, affording the parties the opportunity to tell their stories. But what if these systems are inadequate to expose the abuses of power evident in the recent disclosures?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Bursting Australia's monolingual bubble

    • Ann Deslandes
    • 15 January 2018
    6 Comments

    Over 250 languages were spoken across Australia at the time that English arrived with British colonisation. Since then, English has been a strict marker of the contours of Australianness. Were it reframed as a lingua franca rather than the mandatory language, the linguistic diversity in this nation would have more room to breathe.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    African gangs myth shows fear is winning

    • Troy Pittaway
    • 12 January 2018
    20 Comments

    I have been working with Sudanese youth for over eight years and never encountered anything like the gangs of youths that are being talked about. To try and distill an entire culture, with various sub-cultures and values, into a media soundbite about hordes of African gangs, insults not only the Sudanese community, but every Australian.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Best of 2017: Why 'white' isn't a racist slur

    • Sonia Nair
    • 10 January 2018
    5 Comments

    I hung out with a group of Indian-Australians while I was a university student who called themselves 'curries', but the unspoken camaraderie that ensued from this self-identification stood in stark contrast to that time I was called a 'f***ing curry' by a passing car full of white people.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Best of 2017: Postal survey ends don't justify means

    • Neve Mahoney
    • 10 January 2018
    3 Comments

    In the ensuing debate, we shouldn't let ourselves forget that this postal vote never should have happened in the first place, and nothing like this should happen again to any minority group. The public voting yes or no on human rights is not what democracy looks like.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Best of 2017: Left ignores S.44's racist legacy

    • Celeste Liddle
    • 09 January 2018
    4 Comments

    It seemed enough for many 'progressives' that the majority of the people who had fallen by the dual citizenship wayside were Coalition members, with the added bonus of Malcolm Roberts. I began to wonder why what is essentially an issue of racism and discrimination was not considered a priority for those who state they believe in social justice.

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