Election 2013 Essays: As the federal election campaign draws to a close, The Conversation asked eminent thinkers to reflect on the state of the nation and the challenges Australia – and whichever party…
With Australians feeling like they are observers rather than participants in formal politics, is it any surprise that most voters ‘hate’ politics?
DonkeyHotey
While for some Australians the recent leadership spill will be viewed as a simple act of restorative justice, many others would have spectated on events in Canberra with an equal measure of indifference…
The army massacre of June 4, 1989, in and around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square should be remembered everywhere.
EPA/Michael Reynolds
An earthy citizen of a country led by politicians and journalists bugged by “boat people”, Chin Jin fits no standard categories. Now the foremost democrat in Sydney’s thriving Chinese community, he first…
With uprisings continuing to take place in Turkey, questions must now be asked over whether the ‘Turkish model’ for democracy is the way forward for the Arab world.
EPA/Evrim Aydin
The ongoing protests across Turkey, stretching from May 28, show there is ample evidence of a flourishing culture of democracy in the country. They also highlight a worrying counter trend. Last week, the…
Any agreement to end the forest ‘wars’ should neither prop up a failing industry nor shut down dissent.
AAP Image/Matthew Newton
Fred Gale’s article, Tasmanian Forests Agreement: deeply flawed, worth backing, provides interesting insights into the views of one segment of the Tasmanian community that supports the Tasmanian Forest…
Young people have less and less electoral clout as our population ages.
AAP/Marianna Massey
An ageing population is a threat to not just the Australian economy, but also our political system. In The Republic, Plato wrote: “it is for the elder man to rule and for the younger to submit”. This concept…
Yes, we need energy, but sometimes it’s OK to say “no”.
AAP Image/Tracey Nearmy
Fracking is utterly transforming the global energy industry. It has opened up new energy reserves by making it economically viable to extract natural gas from coal seams and shale formations. As a result…
Follow the money: the US may not be perfect, but Australian campaign finance laws need tightening.
EPA/Erik S. Lesser
In the run-up to today’s presidential election, President Barack Obama received just over $632 million in candidate contributions. Want to know who from? These direct, individual donations (known as “hard…
Debates can change a campaign, as the US experience has shown.
EPA/Rick Wilking
Only a month ago the outcome of the US presidential election was seen my most commentators as being a question of the margin of President Barack Obama’s victory. But then the television debates intervened…
Some young people aren’t as disinterested in others in politics. Why is that?
Flickr/Adam Scotti
History will be made when Scots vote in October 2014 on whether their country should take independence from the United Kingdom. This has nothing to do with the outcome of the vote: the very fact that 16…
Across Australia tonight, thousands of Australians will aim their tweets at the ABC’s flagship forum Q&A in an attempt to get some brief screen-time on the program. Joining with their tweeps, they…
Leave “wicked” to the witches and let’s get on with the job of policy research.
Witches image from www.shutterstock.com
Wicked problems, so we are told, are everywhere. Climate change, conflict, an ageing population, obesity… the list goes on. The debate over asylum seekers, difficult and important and politically charged…
The flags of 204 nations were on display in London, but do “nations” even exist?
Christophe Karaba/EPA
As I sat there this morning watching the London 2012 closing ceremony, I was impressed by the artistry, choreography, stage-setting (an artistry unto itself), music and the sense of celebration in the…
What percentage of Londoners said they wanted the Olympics? No one knows.
Christopher Bevacqua
As the giant bureaucratic beast that is the IOC lumbers through London, locals can be heard saying, “I don’t remember voting for this”. The Olympics is a strangely undemocratic affair: locals of host cities…
Argentina, like many other Latin American economies, could learn much from Australia’s economic resilience.
Luis Fdez
In 2009, I launched a book titled Drifting Apart: The Diverging Development Paths of Argentina and Australia, which I co-authored with Fernando Tohmé from Universidad Nacional del Sur in Argentina. We…
To solve sustainability problems, governments need to know what the people are thinking. Elections aren’t quick enough.
John Ager
Australia is currently unsustainable in many respects. Change is coming. Will that change be wisely managed? Or will it be forced upon us in potentially catastrophic ways? Wise management will require…
Western Governments will be recklessly ignoring their human rights obligations if they continue to support Shell in its US supreme court case.
EPA/George Esiri
We all know corporations do bad things. Big corporates have been publicly named and shamed for their participation in causing harm to people and the planet, and they are not always held to account. As…
On her recent visit to Thailand, Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi said her country had an urgent need for basic education.
EPA/Barbara Walton
On June 1, after decades of struggle to be a legitimate voice for the Burmese people, Aung San Suu Kyi addressed the World Economic Forum on East Asia in Bangkok. She did not raise a call to arms or popular…
The census has benefits for every Australian.
AAP/David Sproule
AUSTRALIA BY NUMBERS: Today, the Australian Bureau of Statistics will release the first batch of its 2011 census data. We’ve asked some of the country’s top demographers and statisticians to crunch the…
Julia Gillard espouses “evidence-based” policy and Bob Hawke set up a Future Commission, but policy-making is necessarily subject to all manner of short-term pressures.
AAP/Tracey Nearmy
In part five of our multi-disciplinary Millennium Project series, Scott Prasser questions easy sloganeering about the importance of “long-term” policy-making. Global challenge 5: How can policymaking be…