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Keywords: Tony Blair

  • INTERNATIONAL

    Abbott's mixed messages for Indonesia

    • Pat Walsh
    • 03 October 2013
    15 Comments

    I suspect that Abbott's visit has left Indonesians with a poor impression of Australia. Dewi Fortuna Anwar, political adviser to Indonesia's Vice President Boediono, described the Abbott asylum seeker policy as 'callous'. Abbott's heavy handedness also contrasts sharply with the sensitive way Jakarta's popular governor, Jokowi, is managing complex change, for which Indonesians feel genuine enthusiasm.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Abbott's night of the short knives

    • 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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  • AUSTRALIA

    Gillard and Obama's mutual exploitation

    • Tony Kevin
    • 18 November 2011
    9 Comments

    Australia is now indelibly associated with Obama's strong messages to China in Canberra. We were used. But our government wanted this, because it will all be popular with the middle ground former Labor voters Gillard is trying to win back from Abbott and the Greens.

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  • RELIGION

    Making friends not foes of rights and religion

    • Frank Brennan
    • 13 September 2011
    5 Comments

    The Church of the 21st century should be the exemplar of due process, natural justice and transparency. While there can be little useful critique of the final decision of Pope Benedict to force the early retirement of Bishop Bill Morris, there is plenty of scope to review the processes leading up to it.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Mourning Kevin Rudd

    • Lyn Bender
    • 24 June 2011
    27 Comments

    Since even the best leaders are not infallible, we must decide who is good enough. Abbott is not, and the jury is still out on Gillard. The anniversary of Rudd's fall provides an opportunity to reflect upon, and perhaps regret, what we have lost.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Shame under Howard and Rudd

    • Tony Kevin
    • 27 May 2010
    29 Comments

    The Howard years made me feel ashamed to be Australian, and I felt about his electoral defeat the way East Germans felt about the Berlin Wall coming down: as a kind of cleansing. Rudd disappoints for a different reason.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    'Bigot' gaffe jars with British presidential politics

    • Peter Scally
    • 30 April 2010
    8 Comments

    Gordon Brown's campaign has hit rock-bottom thanks to an inadvertent remark being whipped into a huge story by mischief-making reporters. He is to Tony Blair what Pope Benedict is to John Paul II — shy, serious, and a little too 'heavy' for our sound-bite culture.

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  • RELIGION

    Australians aspire to lift their climate game

    • Frank Brennan
    • 25 January 2010
    10 Comments

    For a while we were leading the world on climate change. But once Copenhagen collapsed Rudd assured us 'Australia will do no more and no less than the rest of the world'. The lowest common denominator is not usually the solution to the great moral challenges.

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  • RELIGION

    Human rights without God

    • Frank Brennan
    • 27 February 2009
    3 Comments

    Professor Martha Nussbaum's recent book Liberty of Conscience provides a rich textured treatment of the place of religion in the public square. If God is taken out of the picture, it may be difficult to maintain a human rights commitment to the weakest and most despised in society.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Rudd's great greenwash

    • Tony Kevin
    • 08 January 2009
    11 Comments

    Kevin Rudd's announcement of a 5 per cent 2020 emissions reduction target is a betrayal. He has put short-term political survival ahead of his responsibilities to the next generation. Where is Bonhoeffer when we need him? (December 2008)

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Rudd's great greenwash

    • Tony Kevin
    • 15 December 2008
    7 Comments

    Kevin Rudd's announcement of a 5 per cent 2020 emissions reduction target is a betrayal. It appears he has put short-term political survival ahead of his responsibilities to the next generation. Where is Bonhoeffer when we need him?

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  • RELIGION

    Maintaining the UN's moral gold standard

    • Frank Brennan
    • 10 December 2008
    5 Comments

    Sixty years on, it is fashionable to describe the Declaration of Human Rights as a peculiarly western, individualistic conception. It was not. Now is the time for Australia to discuss how best to make the State attentive to the still, small voice of conscience.

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