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Keywords: Malcolm Fraser

  • AUSTRALIA

    Politicians and their words

    • Gillian Bouras
    • 25 October 2023
    11 Comments

    In a world where every politician has something to say, only a select few wield their words well. As we grapple with the failure of the recent Voice referendum, it's worth drawing from these leaders and questioning what truly guides political decisions - morality or self-interest?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    A cogent argument for voting Yes

    • John Honner
    • 24 August 2023
    13 Comments

    You might think that, if anyone could pull off the establishment of a treaty, a great poet and a great policy maker, working in harmony, would surely have the best chance. But this was not the case: when Judith Wright and H.C. Coombes advocated for a treaty throughout their lifetimes, they were unsuccessful. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    National security elections: Reds under the bed

    • John Warhurst
    • 09 March 2022
    13 Comments

    Domestic policies are often regarded as more important than foreign affairs and defence policies in influencing Australian election campaigns. But national security campaigns by the government of the day, known as either khaki elections or reds under the beds, have such a long history in Australian federal elections that they challenge the conventional wisdom.  

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Going big picture with Malcolm Turnbull

    • Barry Gittins
    • 22 May 2020
    17 Comments

    As the small-l Liberal who attempted unsuccessfully to stare down the right-wing of the Liberal Party, known to his enemies as ‘Mr Harbourside Mansion’ or as the best Labour Prime Minister to ever lead the Liberal Party (2015-2018), Malcolm Bligh Turnbull was a man who dreamed, spoke and spent big.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Election year hope and hijinks

    • Eliza Berlage
    • 18 January 2019
    10 Comments

    Entering an election year is like coming home for the holiday season. It's full of hope and hijinks but also promises and pain. And like every family, each party has its quirks. Hopefully a post-election Parliament will green light some meaningful reform to improve people's lives rather than always culture warring. But don't hold your breath.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Tear down Australia's racist wallpaper

    • Fatima Measham
    • 15 August 2018
    20 Comments

    Fraser Anning's speech was heavily criticised, though few who did so bear credibility. Turnbull, Dutton and Tudge can hardly be taken seriously when they invoke multiculturalism. This is how racism works: it displaces focus from material problems to imagined threats.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Independents and micro party success stories

    • John Warhurst
    • 18 June 2018
    6 Comments

    The contrast between success and failure shows that successful independents and minor parties cannot just be based on major party disillusionment, creative election campaigns, or attractive candidates, but also on deep listening to and engaging with their communities which enable a positive and grounded alternative to be offered to voters.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    China, aid and the gift of interdependence

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 19 April 2018
    2 Comments

    In recent months comment on international politics has been about taking sides and falling into line. Against such strident calls, two apparently unrelated pieces of speculation passed with little response: the prediction of a further cut to aid, and the assertion that China wanted to establish a military base in Vanuatu.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Where have all the arts ministers gone?

    • Eliza Berlage
    • 02 March 2018
    1 Comment

    Is it any wonder that when I came to work in the press gallery I was cynical about arts policy? In those lockup hours scouring budget papers it was clear yet again the arts would not see any wins. It wasn't always this way. Prime ministers and arts ministers of yesteryear produced arts policy informed by their personal and political interest.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Anti-communism in the Liberal Party from Menzies to Turnbull

    • Evan Smith
    • 01 September 2017
    12 Comments

    Earlier this year, Turnbull made a speech in London where he called for the Liberal Party to return to its ideological base as laid out by Sir Robert Menzies. Turnbull suggested that the Liberal Party under Menzies was the socially conservative party that many on the LNP's right wish it to be, but it seems that what the Liberals have taken from the Menzies era is a revival of anti-communist rhetoric.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Waiting for the trickle down effect

    • Frank Brennan
    • 10 April 2017
    16 Comments

    In an age of 'budget repair', social policy risks becoming just a sidebar to economic policy which is a contest of ideas about how best to grow the size of the pie thereby providing a slice for 'the deserving poor' without having to redistribute too much of the pie, while 'the undeserving poor' drop off the edge as they would have anyway. For those of us schooled in Catholic social teaching, the so-called 'undeserving poor' are the litmus test of our commitment to the human dignity of all persons.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The year our leaders doubled down on doubling down

    • Mark Hearn
    • 31 January 2017
    6 Comments

    2016 was a bumper year for the political double down. Journalist Mark Kenny witnessed a dramatic manifestation: 'Mr Abbott was seen to double down on his recent indirect messaging to Mr Turnbull about a possible return to the frontbench.' A combined 'double down with indirect messaging': perhaps a uniquely Abbott adaptation. Doubling down - otherwise known as repeating yourself - is the public language of aggressive redundancy, drowning out alternative voices and ideas.

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