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Keywords: Bill Leak

  • AUSTRALIA

    The plight of the Australian whistleblower

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 09 November 2023
    1 Comment

    Next week, former army lawyer David McBride will face trial, accused of leaking classified defence information. Meanwhile, the prospect of meaningful whistleblower reforms that would shield Australian public servants who contemplate exposing wrongdoing through the media seems remote.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    The UK decision to extradite Assange

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 19 July 2022
    3 Comments

    The only shock about the UK Home Secretary’s decision regarding the extradition of Julian Assange was that it did not come sooner. In April, Chief Magistrate Senior District Judge Paul Goldspring expressed the solemn view that he was ‘duty-bound’ to send the case to Priti Patel to decide on whether to extradite the WikiLeaks founder to the United States to face 18 charges, 17 grafted from the US Espionage Act of 1917, and one based on computer intrusion.

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  • ECONOMICS

    Why inflation isn't higher

    • David James
    • 12 August 2021
    4 Comments

    The biggest mystery of the financial markets is why, when the monetary authorities have been printing money with their ears pinned back, is inflation for the most part not a problem? What happens with inflation is crucial to the short-term survival of the whole system. Global debt, which is running at well over 300 per cent of global GDP, is only sustainable because interest rates are exceptionally low (the base rate in Australia is only 0.1 per cent). And interest rates are low because inflation is not a problem.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Human rights for the climate 'apocalypse'

    • Cristy Clark
    • 19 December 2019
    10 Comments

    Toxic air, dwindling water supplies, extreme heat: it's bleak stuff. And yet, on Sunday, COP25 finished with very little progress. Our planet will warm to +3C or higher, unless we also do something about the vested interests that continue to profit from our demise. And they aren't going to give up their power (or profits) just because we ask nicely.

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  • MEDIA

    AFP raids coverage missed key points

    • Jules O'Donnell
    • 13 June 2019
    10 Comments

    Demands for the protection of fundamental rights are, of course, a good thing. But the media coverage of the AFP raids took a scattergun approach and, in some cases, contained oversight and inaccuracy. Here are some important details that were lost in the furore.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Undermining NZ: Dutton's refugee ploy

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 20 November 2017
    9 Comments

    These sprinklings of poison through the press, with occasional mentions in New Zealand, serve two purposes: to show Australian refugee policy as sound, and offshore detention and resettlement in an unsuitable third country as appropriate; and to deflect attention from the discharge of obligations under the UN Refugee Convention.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Data, distrust, and the disastrous My Health Record

    • Amy Coopes
    • 06 July 2017
    7 Comments

    Plagued by sluggish uptake, clinician reticence and a substantial privacy backlash, the $1.2 billion My Health Record has proven, thus far, something of a lemon. The putative benefits of an electronic health record have been expounded at length by the government. But for success there must be buy-in, and for buy-in, there must be trust, according to the Productivity Commission. Both are lacking, and it is important to consider why.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Cry if you want to as mandatory detention turns 25

    • Kerry Murphy
    • 03 May 2017
    10 Comments

    Friday 5 May is the 25th birthday of the introduction of mandatory detention in Australia by the Keating government. It is by no means a 'happy birthday'. Rather it is a sombre reminder of how control, power and political vilification can be used for political ends. There are now more sections in the Migration Act dealing with statutory bars, mainly directed at asylum seekers, than the total number of sections in the whole of the Immigration Restriction Act of 1901.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Poems for John Clarke

    • Peter Gebhardt
    • 18 April 2017
    4 Comments

    It's a bleak sad day, That special voice has been taken away That voice that saw so much, Waged war against the witless and their wrongs, That smothered our lives and hopes And that voice will still sing his songs. Which we are free to hear for ages on.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Racism and renewables in the developing world

    • Ketan Joshi
    • 06 April 2017
    1 Comment

    A 2015 cartoon by Bill Leak depicts an Indian family squatting, smashing solar panels to pieces. A woman chews on a shattered piece of glass, and a man attempts to smear mango chutney onto glistening shards. The initial reaction centred around the racist depictions of Indians. But it also represents a broader and worrisome attitude towards global energy politics, that assumes idiocy in developing countries, combined with a push to burden them with the dangerous wares of a dying industry.

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  • RELIGION

    Let's amend 18C to say what it means

    • Frank Brennan
    • 14 March 2017
    24 Comments

    The debate over section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act (18C) has gone on for far too long. It's time to bring it to a close. To date, I have been silent in the present debate, in part because I was a critic of such legal provisions when they were first proposed in 1992 and again in 1994. I have since been convinced that a provision like 18C could be designed to target racial vilification, leaving offensive insults beyond the reach of the law in a robust democracy committed to freedom of speech.

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  • MEDIA

    Pub test is a kangaroo court for victims of racial hate

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 14 March 2017
    10 Comments

    Arguments for repealing 18C ignore the symbolic force of law in an imperfect society in which we live. In public life the One Nation Party, which is able to exert some influence on legislation in a fragmented parliament, regularly criticises Muslims. These views are also retailed by commentators in some mainstream media. They increase the anxiety of immigrants from Muslim nations. In such a context any weakening of 18C will be seen as the declaration of open season against such groups.

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