Federal politicians and the public like the idea of abolishing the states. But consider the likely result: a more powerful Canberra, with regional governments amounting to glorified shire councils.
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Articles on Bob Hawke
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Leaving aside party-politics, there are good reasons why Australia should consider changing its Constitution to abolish state governments.
Even though enterprise bargaining agreements proved controversial when introduced, their use is actually in decline today.
Labor’s project of economic transformation hit some harder realities as Paul Keating assumed the top job. And a new push on remaking Australia stirred a brooding reaction of its own.
Skirmishes over funding for renewable energy research are just the latest battle in a saga that stretches back to the early 1980s – years before the public became widely aware of the climate threat.
Since his ascendancy, the currently trim and muscular-looking Malcolm Turnbull has – for an Australian prime minister – had unusually little to say about sport.
Scare campaigns only work if there is some anxiety to build on. Labor’s Medicare campaign plugged into a long history of Coalition ambivalence – or open hostility – towards Medicare.
There’s been a deafening silence in recent Australian elections over the environment. But it hasn’t always been the case.
The recent history of elections in Australia is a varied one, with some spectacular crashes and own goals along the way.
The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody’s report was meant to be a blueprint for reducing the disproportionate incarceration of Indigenous Australians and deaths in custody.
The conventional wisdom is that Bob Hawke’s 1984 election was too long and almost disastrous, and therefore not to be repeated. But the times are very different now.
Do fossil fuels need saving from efforts to combat climate change? The Australian government seems to think so, but that sort of thinking is out of date.
The logic of the policy changes initiated by the Hawke government in mid-1990 has underpinned asylum-seeker policy for much of the quarter-century since.
There is little of Gareth Evans’ sweeping analysis in the cabinet papers of 1990-91 of a rapidly changing world order or of his vision of good international citizenship.
The National Archives of Australia today released selected federal cabinet records for 1990 and 1991. They reveal intense battles over Australia’s domestic climate targets and, above all, a palpable determination that Australia not damage its coal revenue.
While the press at the time focused on what Keating called “the Punch and Judy show”, cabinet papers reveal that the fourth Hawke government was working at an astonishing pace at reforms still felt today.
In the 1980s Australians grappled with the challenges of living in an era that brought together boom and crisis, nationalism and globalisation, confidence and anxiety, and conservatism and exuberance.
Mainstream Australia isn’t allowed to define multicultural priorities, as the policy has no legislative legitimacy.
In leadership contests in particular, the media’s role is often markedly different from the competition between parties.
When Australia’s government first pledged to set an emission-reduction target, Jon Bon Jovi was riding high in the charts. The progress made in the 25 years since has hardly been a blaze of glory.
Top contributors
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Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
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Professor of History, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University
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Visiting Fellow, SPRU, University of Sussex Business School, University of Sussex
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Emeritus professor of politics, Monash University
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Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin University
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Senior Lecturer, School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash University
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Emerita Professor, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Adelaide
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Professor of Economics, UNSW Sydney
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Professor in History, Australian National University
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Senior Research Fellow and Associate Professor, Melbourne Climate Futures initiative, The University of Melbourne
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Senior Fellow, Federation University Australia
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Professor of Management, Faculty of Business and Economics, The University of Melbourne
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Distinguished Professor of Workplace Law, RMIT University
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Jim Gillespie is a Friend of The Conversation.
Associate Professor in Health Policy, Menzies Centre for Health Policy & Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney
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Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Technology Sydney
