Keywords: Rudd Government
There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.
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AUSTRALIA
- Frank Brennan
- 01 October 2013
35 Comments
Last Tuesday, seven West Papuan asylum seekers reached Boigu Island in the Torres Strait. Without any determination of their refugee claims, they were removed to PNG. They were not engaged in secondary movement, they were in direct flight from persecution. The Abbott Government should recommit to our obligation under the Refugees Convention to grant asylum to refugees who have entered Australia in direct flight from persecution.
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EDUCATION
- Frank Brennan
- 30 September 2013
Full text from Frank Brennan's lecture 'Law teachers as gatekeepers of law, public morality and human rights: Equipping our students for moral argument in a pluralistic legal environment' at the Australian Law Teachers Association Annual Conference 2013.
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AUSTRALIA
- Tony Kevin
- 20 September 2013
6 Comments
Under the US revolving door model, top public service jobs are held by staff who are openly politically affiliated. When government changes, they go back to their jobs as special interest Washington lobbyists. Australians have made clear we don't like that system. It is open to corruption, and when our governments flirt with it, they usually come to regret it.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Cecily McNeill
- 18 September 2013
2 Comments
As the Australian Labor Party embarked on its month-long process towards a grassroots election of a leader to replace Kevin Rudd, the New Zealand Labour Party was ending its long and sometimes brutal election of a new leader. The lesson from across the Tasman is that a grassroots election of a leader can broaden the base of those with a say in the party's destiny, and steer it back towards a more traditional social democratic stance.
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AUSTRALIA
- Ray Cassin
- 18 September 2013
18 Comments
The Abbott Government that will be sworn in this week is democratically legitimate in an obvious and fundamental sense: the Coalition won the election, and will have a comfortable majority in the new house. But if governments want to claim that they are broadly representative of the nation, then it is surely a problem that the cabinet of 20 includes only one woman.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 12 September 2013
40 Comments
On the asylum seeker issue there is little to be gained in indulging resentment against the Prime Minister and the Coalition except the sour consolations of self-righteousness. The real challenge is to persuade our fellow Australians that each person matters, not because of the choices they make or the qualities they possess, but because they are human, and that a society is measured by the quality of its relationships.
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AUSTRALIA
- Tony Kevin
- 11 September 2013
13 Comments
Labor's humanitarian achievements included routinely distributing media releases announcing every boat interception and every incident of assistance to boats in difficulty at sea. It would be tragic if under Operation Sovereign Borders the Coalition abandoned the present degree of public transparency and accountability for deaths in border protection operations on the spurious pretext that these are matters of national security.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Anthony
- 10 September 2013
17 Comments
The United States, a country of cricket illiteracy, spent more than $1 million constructing the Kabul Cricket Stadium, recognising the major impact cricket is having in the country. Australia, one of cricket's 'first nations', has done nothing. It is tragic that, for ordinary Afghans, the vast majority of whom have never considered seeking asylum, Australia's most visible contribution to their country is the message to 'keep away'.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 09 September 2013
17 Comments
There was cause for celebration on Saturday night for both the Coalition and Labor. The Coalition was able to claim a decisive victory in the Federal Election, and Labor defied expectations and remains viable. But not so for vulnerable people overseas who will lose their Australian foreign aid lifeline so that the Coalition can fund its election promises.
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AUSTRALIA
- Ray Cassin
- 09 September 2013
20 Comments
The Economist's leader writer and other international international observers including Joseph Stiglitz judged that, by most objective measures, Labor's achievements should be preferred to the Coalition's offerings. The big picture went unacknowledged in Australia's dismal, dispiriting election campaign.
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AUSTRALIA
- Frank Brennan
- 07 September 2013
12 Comments
How clever of you to choose the day of the federal election for me to offer these reflections. I come amongst you, not as a publisher or journalist but as an advocate in the public square animated by my own religious tradition as a Jesuit and Catholic priest engaged on human rights issues in a robustly pluralistic democratic society.
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AUSTRALIA
- Ray Cassin
- 28 August 2013
7 Comments
You are excited at voting but dismayed at the choices you're going to find on the ballot papers. You are not alone in this - nearly one in five eligible voters aged between 18 and 24 have not bothered to enrol to vote. Why don't people trust democratic process to change the things they think should be changed? One reason is that the kind of politics we have is devoid of any great moral clash of ideas.
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