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Keywords: Un Referendum

  • AUSTRALIA

    Labor lost in democracy's gaps

    • Fatima Measham
    • 21 May 2013
    10 Comments

    How do we make sense of the perception that the economy is being mishandled when Australia is performing far better than other western countries? Or the fact that Labor faces a grim fate despite massive support for its major policies? The incongruence between public and political interest reveals democracy as an unfinished project. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The best and worst of local government

    • Moira Rayner
    • 10 May 2013
    5 Comments

    At its best local government lifts the vision of its people from NIMBY-ism and road maintenance to a sense of community and attachment. But Australians are now so disengaged from politicians state and federal that the timing of Gillard's announcement of a referendum on local government could do more harm than good.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Australia in a sorry state as Gonski faces failure

    • Ray Cassin
    • 17 April 2013
    6 Comments

    If the states give Gillard's Gonski education proposals the thumbs-down, as is expected to happen at Friday's COAG meeting, it will not be the first time since Labor's return to office in 2007 that Australia's creaking constitutional arrangements have made fundamental reform impossible.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Margaret Thatcher versus the Scots

    • Duncan MacLaren
    • 10 April 2013
    72 Comments

    While any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind', I must admit to pouring a glass of good malt at the news of Thatcher's passing. The Southern English may laud her as the greatest prime minister after Churchill but for us Scots she was a hate figure who in the last days of her premiership scarcely dared to cross the border for fear of being assassinated.

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  • RELIGION

    How can the Catholic Church contribute to a better culture for life?

    • Frank Brennan
    • 18 March 2013
    3 Comments

    Change is upon the Church. Just recall the scene when the new pope emerged on the Vatican balcony. He appeared with none of the papal trimmings of office, and did not once did he refer to the papacy. Could something of this new papal style help Catholics engage more creatively with their fellow citizens? Text from Frank Brennan's lecture 'How Can the Catholic Church Contribute to a Better Culture for Life?'

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  • RELIGION

    Inspirational Abbott's Indigenous aspiration

    • Frank Brennan
    • 27 February 2013
    15 Comments

    Let's not underestimate the significance of John Howard's successor giving credit to Paul Keating for his Redfern speech, before invoking New Zealand's Treaty of Waitangi and calling for atonement. Still there is plenty of work to be done to attain proper constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Same sex marriage and the republic

    • John Warhurst
    • 04 October 2012
    20 Comments

    If same sex marriage continues to gain momentum around the Western world then the Australian debate will not go away. But should international interest fade then it probably will in Australia too. Whatever the future of the republic debate in Australia it is not of the same international character and therefore harder to sustain.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Hope for haemorrhaging Zimbabwe

    • Chris Chatteris
    • 31 July 2012
    3 Comments

    For the international community, including Australia, it is devilishly difficult to find the most helpful stance to take with the present regime in Zimbabwe. It is naive, however, to simply assume that things will come right once Mugabe has died. The fact is that things could get worse once he is off the scene.

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  • RELIGION

    Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in Australia's Constitution

    • Frank Brennan
    • 06 July 2012
    8 Comments

    Most Australians would agree that it’s time to free the Constitution from all vestiges of racial discrimination. For this, it needs an amendment affirming the status as Indigenous Australians as equal citizens. But in the current political climate, a referendum is unlikely to produce the necessary super majority of electors in four of the six states voting in favour.

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  • RELIGION

    Working out what white Australia wants

    • Frank Brennan
    • 30 January 2012
    10 Comments

    I have been feeling sad and confused about the happenings in Canberra since Australia Day. On Saturday I got on my bike and went down to the lawn of Old Parliament House. I passed a sign: 'You are now entering or leaving the Australian Aboriginal Tent Embassy ... Abusive behaviour will not be tolerated.'

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Long road to the Indigenous referendum

    • John Warhurst
    • 27 January 2012
    11 Comments

    The proposed referendum follows the 2008 Apology to the Stolen Generations and provides an opportunity for this Labor era to be remembered whenever the Indigenous story is told. Passing a referendum is exceptionally difficult and there is no fool-proof recipe for success.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Myths and truths of Australian bigotry

    • Larry Schwartz
    • 23 January 2012
    12 Comments

    Too often I've opened my front door and found myself tempted by some sales pitch. So today I'd answered warily, spoke through the screen door and tried to keep the encounter brief. 'I'm sorry, but we're not interested.' The salesman knew better: 'It's because of the colour of my skin,' he replied.

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