The firestorm over foreign donations was set alight by former Senator Sam Dastyari, whose links to donors with Chinese links prompted him to quit parliament.
The republic of letters was an intellectual community that took shape in the Enlightenment. And just like writers’ festivals, it had rules about who could speak.
If forced amalgamations proceed, we may well see hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer and ratepayer funds squandered simply because policymakers preferred dogma to empirical evidence.
Joe Hockey’s second budget has two large deficits: the fiscal one, plus the lack of a coherent and creative plan for Australia. The Abbott government failed to ‘have a go’ at building the future.
Julia Gillard’s autobiography, My Story, presents a comprehensive defence of her prime ministership. Gillard dives straight into the heart of her story, beginning on the day she was sworn in as prime minister…
Former foreign minister Bob Carr’s recently released memoir, Diary of a Foreign Minister, discussed in-depth the influence of Melbourne branches of the so-called “Zionist lobby” over policymaking. Late…
Bob Carr took on the job of Australian foreign minister believing, as he doesn’t hesitate to tell us in his Diary of a Foreign Minister, that it was highly unlikely that he would be there for very long…
Former foreign minister Bob Carr’s stunning claims about the pro-Israel lobby influence raise timely questions about its advocacy in Australian politics. What is the lobby Carr refers to? And how significant…
If he’d been willing to take more of a chance, Bob Carr might have got a crack at the prime ministership. In his Diary of a Foreign Minister, Carr recounts how NSW ALP secretary Mark Arbib urged him to…
A defiant Bob Carr says he is proud to have resisted the bullying influence of the pro-Israel lobby on the Gillard government, after critics have accused him of bigotry and making claims just to sell his…
Bob Carr is at least as vain as your average politician. The unusual thing is that he knows it. And the shocking thing is that he doesn’t seem to mind letting us know that he knows it. Such are the complex…
As the federal election calls Australian attention to matters domestic, our diplomats are preparing for one of their most demanding briefs. On September 1, Australia becomes President of the United Nations…
“The numbers have spiked. Twenty per cent of Australia’s immigration program now comes to our shores courtesy of people smugglers… You’re dealing with a very different situation when you’ve got what could…
“People are coming here, not now as a result of persecution, but because they’re economic refugees who have paid money to people smugglers.” - Foreign minister Bob Carr, Meet the Press, June 9. There is…
A casual vacancy in the Victorian Legislative Council has now been filled. The replacement member for the Western Metropolitan Region in the upper house, union official Cesar Melhem, enters Victorian parliament…
Suddenly, everyone seems to be unloading about the state of federal-state relations and the problems of the Council of Australian Governments. COAG, where the prime minister, premiers and chief ministers…
Australia’s successful campaign to win a two year seat on the UN Security Council is welcome news. While much of the commentary has focused on the domestic politics or the diplomacy of the bid, security…
Allegations that Australia is funding death squads in West Papua have brought the troubled province back to Australian attention. Blanket denials by both Indonesian and Australian governments – standard…
Visiting Professor in Biomedical Ethics, Murdoch Children's Research Institute; Distinguished Visiting Professor in Law, University of Melbourne; Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics, University of Oxford