This year’s Archibald prize has gone to Ben Quilty’s portrait of Australian artist Margaret Olley. It’s an award often criticised for being populist or irrelevant, and there’s no reason to think that this…
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Politics + Society – Articles, Analysis, Comment
Displaying 13376 - 13400 of 13454 articles
In 1998, Professor Muhammad Yunus was the inaugural recipient of Australia’s only international award for peace, the Sydney Peace Prize. Almost nine years later, in December 2006, he received the Nobel…
Twenty years since the handing down of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody there is still no system for genuine independent investigation of prisoner fatalities. Yet one central element…
Australia could be doing more to regulate the activities of Australian companies operating abroad. In the past decade a handful of troubling cases have been reported connecting Australian mining companies…
Recent rumors of looming cuts to the National Health and Medical Research Council budget have jump-started a much-needed national discussion about health and medical research policy in Australia. Unfortunately…
The professional Australian Rules football season is underway and the better part of the nation is now transfixed until early October by its myriad machinations. At this early point in the season, it is…
Something remarkable has happened: 1000 economists have agreed with each other. In Washington, civil society groups will present a letter signed by 1000 economists from 50 countries to the annual G20 finance…
The desire to solve society’s wicked problems is a primary motivator for both government and not-for-profit organisations, and has become an important driver for business as they refine their strategies…
Facebook, with more than 500 million members, has now reached superpower status. If Facebook were a country, its supporters often say, its population would rank behind only China and India. But there is…
Once ‘un-Australian’ appears in any debate don’t expect rational argument or evidence. Look no further for proof than the advertising blitz by Clubs Australia and the Australian Hotels Association against…
Tony Abbott’s recently unveiled welfare reform package advocating a range of tough policies to push people into work has been described by Prime Minister Julia Gillard as ‘reheated’. You might expect that…
No amount of AFL passes in the Oval Office during Prime Minister Gillard’s visit to Washington last month could disguise the real issue facing Australia, the US and the rest of the world: the rise of China…
The current media frenzy around the sex scandal enveloping the Australian Defence Force Academy, and the predictable response to reports that women will be fast-tracked into combat roles, illustrates the…
The rules of being a conflict reporter are largely unchanged and very simple. According to Fairfax’s correspondent, Paul McGeough: “You’ve got to get in. You’ve got to get the story”. The present uprising…
It seems every company now considers corporate social responsibility a vital part of their proposition for customers. But even with scandals involving multinationals like Enron, Tyco and Siemens, we could…
As the US was brought to the brink of a government shutdown this weekend, one of the sticking points was Republican insistence that President Obama curtail the activities of the Environmental Protection…
We are living in extraordinary times. People are using social media to campaign for freedom from their governments, but their ideas are built on a much more powerful medium: literature. Protests have swept…
One of the most widely held myths about the Australian labour movement is that decline of union membership was set in motion by economic and industrial relations reform initiated by the Hawke-Keating Labor…
Mad or bad, face of evil, addictions and tiger blood. How well does the media report mental illness when these are descriptions and catchphrases taken from stories this year? The answer is, it depends…
The cartoonist Ivan Rowley is captivated by a “New TV Idol” - a radio commentator and “CRITIC”. It’s Andrew Bolt, surely, broadcasting from the “The Temple of Enlightening Discussion”? No, it’s another…
Julia Gillard controversially claimed in her recent Whitlam oration that “the Greens will never embrace Labor’s delight at sharing the values of everyday Australians, in our cities, suburbs, towns and…
Innovation is not a topic that attracts much serious political debate in Australia. It improves living standards and the economy, but we’re missing out because of the government’s short-sighted approach…
With the South Australian parliament passing its latest euthanasia bill to committee stage, there is a real possibility locals will be given the right to end their life. And with an unprecedented number…
FOOD SECURITY - The World Bank has warned rising food prices have risen 36% in the last year, reaching dangerous levels and pushing millions into poverty. The unrest in the Middle East, Africa and Haiti…
Once a place is heritage listed, it’s protected, right? Wrong. Politics and a flawed statutory regime are undermining the independence of the listing system, and threatening Australia’s national treasures…