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Keywords: Commonwealth

There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.

  • AUSTRALIA

    History repeating in lacklustre NDIS regime

    • El Gibbs
    • 01 October 2019
    4 Comments

    The latest underspend of the NDIS budget has reached the eye-popping amount of $4.6 billion. Every single one of these dollars is a dollar not getting to disabled people. Every single dollar represents change not being delivered. It's a door being closed, a phone call not being answered. This is getting worse, not better.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    My brush with robodebt

    • Bree Alexander
    • 26 September 2019
    2 Comments

    I was heartened by the announcement Gordon Legal is pursuing a class action for robodebt victims. I am one of hundreds of thousands of people who has gone through the robodebt process. I too felt the exercise of a reverse burden of proof; guilty until proven innocent.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Messiness unleashed by the attack on Saudi oil

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 16 September 2019
    9 Comments

    All of this has the hallmarks of danger. Previous US administrations have been cavalier with using stretched evidence, to justify military action. The region still labours with the fantasies that drove the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The dangers of misreading also extend to the cognitive failings of US foreign policy in the Middle East.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    A common good frame for economic stimulus

    • Joe Zabar
    • 26 August 2019
    3 Comments

    While the current economic climate is cause for concern, it is not the time to panic. A more sensible alternative to austerity is for governments, business, unions and charities to look for ways we can together soften the impact of any global downturn. This will require bipartisan agreement to sacrifice some or all of the budget surplus.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The tweet smell of APS authoritarianism

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 12 August 2019
    5 Comments

    Should a public service have people with political, disagreeable opinions? No, according to the guidelines of employment in the Australian Public Service. The decision of the Australian High Court in the case of Comcare v Banerji is a salient warning to employees in the APS. Obedience, it seems, must be unquestionable and total.

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  • MEDIA

    The thief, the party and WikiLeaks

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 02 August 2019
    4 Comments

    The running themes of the Department of Justice charges against Assange are that he is a hacker, an agent of espionage and a danger to necessary secrecy. In so slanting their case, the DOJ hopes to avoid the application of the First Amendment covering press freedoms. The reasoning of District Judge Koeltl suggests this might well fail.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    The politics and ethics of the moon landing

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 23 July 2019
    5 Comments

    In 1964, sociologist Amitai Etzioni noted the misgivings of the scientific fraternity to the space program. The effort risked losing perspective. An 'extrovert activism' had taken old, obsessed with gadgets, 'rocket-powered jumps' and escapism. In terms of budgetary expenditure, this showed, with NASA spending $28 billion between 1960-73.

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  • MEDIA

    Dark days for Australian journalism

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 07 June 2019
    9 Comments

    The gradual additions to Australia's national security framework, in the absence of an entrenched constitutional right protecting the press, has made the conditions ripe for such raids. As Andrew Wilkie warns, such matters begin incrementally: a law here, a raid there, then 'one day you wake up and we look like East Germany'.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Boris, Brexit and taking it up to political bull

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 03 June 2019
    2 Comments

    An enduring memory of the 2016 Brexit campaign was the claim by pro-leavers that the EU was extracting some £350 million a week. The claim, ignoring EU subsidies, returns and contributions to Britain, was so outrageously proud and inaccurate, it stuck. Which leads us to a novel citizen's experiment on the issue of lying in politics.

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  • MEDIA

    Christchurch Call vs cybernaut sovereignty

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 20 May 2019

    The troubling feature of this move is that governments are urging online companies to become vigilant gatekeepers and policing agents of internet material. In doing so, an undue degree of importance is placed on the devil of technology rather than the weakness of humanity.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The Republic of Religion

    • B. A. Breen
    • 13 May 2019
    4 Comments

    I moved to the Land of Magic, found it full of mumbo-jumbo. I bounced to the Kingdom of Rhythm, too many ups and downs. I went eagerly to Warm-and-Fuzzy, soon bogged down in treacle. I trekked to the Republic of Religion, it was open only on Sundays.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    The politics of police shootings

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 02 May 2019
    8 Comments

    Found guilty for the slaying of Justine Damond Ruszczyk, Mohamed Noor became the first police officer to be convicted of murder in Minnesota in 'recent memory'. Minneapolis police spokesman John Elder insisted race had no part to play. A closer reading of the entire process presents a more complex, and troubling picture.

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