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Let’s get serious, Senator Faulkner, the problem is the process of candidate selection. John Faulkner’s excellent speech last night describes a process of ALP decline that has been underway for most of…
Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama is currently in Australia yet Prime Minister Julia Gillard has refused to confirm whether she will meet him or not. Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and Greens…
Despite high vaccination rates, Australia and other developed countries periodically have small outbreaks of measles, as seen in the recent scares in Victoria and New South Wales. Until about 40 years…
Predicting the future is a mug’s game. When I reflect back on what we thought we knew at the start of my research career in the mid-1990s, I sound like a wizened octogenarian, recalling a simpler time…
The news that NBN Co has found a way to move forward from the crucial cost-of-construction issue must have surely lifted the Gillard Government’s spirits. NBN Co, the government-owned corporation in charge…
Welcome to “In Conversation”, the first in a series of discussions between leading academics and major public figures in Australian life. Today Politics Professor John Keane is in conversation with Senator…
Speak to any teacher who has worked in a school with a high level of social disadvantage and you’ll find plenty of concern about the links between educational failure and long-term social exclusion. Teachers…
Last week, scientists set a new distance record, seeing a burst of gamma-rays from a star that exploded when the universe was only 520 million years old. The light from this distant source has been travelling…
There are several myths regarding what constitutes “porn addiction”. Some argue that, like alcohol problems, porn addiction is a disease. Once trapped, the consumer of porn will hit rock bottom with no…
Today the Gillard Government released an independent assessment of Australia’s management of vaccine adverse events. Commissioned by the Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Ageing, Catherine King, the…
In questioning the fundamental nature of the universe, cosmology regularly grabs the public’s attention. But in an era in which we are observing deeper and more widely than ever before, our knowledge of…
For a policy the tobacco industry claims “won’t work” or that there “is no evidence” to support its implementation, plain packaging has elicited a deafening chorus of conflicting arguments as to why it…
Labor’s post-WorkChoices industrial relations regime has come under renewed scrutiny in the past week, following Fair Work Australia’s recognition that community sector workers were being underpaid due…
Under this proposal, anyone who wanted to buy a tobacco product would need to have a licence. This wouldn’t happen overnight – we would need to identify a starting point to the scheme, which might be five…
“To speak Chinese is not to know China,” our man in Beijing announced this week. “Many examples can be found of people who speak Mandarin to a high level but who do not understand how China works. They…
A new way for academics to survive the “publish or perish” imperative has emerged. The imperative itself is not new: commentators in the 1950s were already lamenting the growing pressure for academics…
Julia Gillard’s time as Prime Minister has been dogged by much personal scrutiny – of her dress, her partner, her hair and her speech. Julia’s ability as a negotiator is well known in the halls of power…
In a ceremony at London’s Frontline Club on Tuesday, May 10, before an array of television crews from around the world, WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange received the Sydney Peace Foundation’s gold medal…
The most serious environmental problems facing our planet require cooperative solutions. Ensuring the sustainability of the Murray-Darling river system requires the cooperation of several states. Preserving…
Having a “broken” or a “heavy” heart is a description often used by people who are feeling down or depressed. It turns out they’re not that far off the mark. People with depression are three to four times…