Senior officials representing nearly 200 countries gather in Lima, Peru this week for the final stages of United Nations-led climate change talks. The meetings, which began December 1, are intended to…
Police violence has dominated American headlines over the past year. The seemingly unaccounted-for police shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson brought renewed attention and public protests…
From the way Ed Miliband’s recent turn on the campaign trail in Scotland was reported, you might think that his chosen theme of social justice has just suddenly appeared in the independence debate, just…
Few economics books have caused quite the stir which accompanied the release of the English version of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty First Century. And there can be few who are not familiar with…
Chris Paul and Blake Griffin of the LA Clippers.
EPA/John Mabanglo
In a scandal that has rocked the American sporting world, David Sterling, owner of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team, was caught on tape excoriating his girlfriend for associating with black people…
Al-Madinah school in Derby: making news for all the wrong reasons.
Rui Vieira/PA Wire
Each new administration tends to try to improve compulsory education by introducing a new and purportedly better type of school. The current government has at least three, and is pushing vocational schools…
Certainty of funding is important and that’s why an income tax levy or premium is the way to go.
Image from shutterstock.com
While an income tax increase may be hard to sell to some people in the community in the lead-up to a federal election, it’s the right choice for a sustainable National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS…
The victims of forced adoption want an apology from the Commonwealth government.
Nikkirk
A long-awaited Senate Committee report will tomorrow reveal whether the Commonwealth’s policies and practices played a role in coercing young, unwed Australian women to give up their newborn babies for…
Victoria has the among the highest level of inmates imprisoned in privately run jails in the world, alongside the US.
flickr/rlevans
The Productivity Commission has just released a report on Government Services 2012 containing a 177 page chapter on corrective services. It found one third of Victorian prisoners were held in private prison…
When people need to beg, the last thing we should be doing is seeing them as criminals.
Flickr/galawebdesign
The criminal offence of begging should be abolished. Criminalising begging is tantamount to criminalising poverty. It perpetuates, rather than alleviates, the marginalisation and disadvantage experienced…
Day 15 of OccupyMN protest that has occupied Minneapolis. Meanwhile corporate greed continues unabated.
Fibonacci Blue
At a time when the “Occupy Wall Street” protests against corporate greed are proliferating in the United States and around the world, it’s ironic to read the floating of yet another corporate “get-even-more…
Nearly 90% of the long term homeless people surveyed in the study had experienced child abuse.
SamPac
Failing to help the homeless can come with a high cost to the public purse, with many ending up in hospitals for treatment of substance abuse and chronic health problems, a study has found. A joint research…
West Coast Eagles player Patrick McGinnity has been suspended after making comments about another player’s mother.
AAP
AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou constantly reminds us that women love Aussie Rules and that the AFL returns that respect and allegiance. The key expression of this regard, the AFL’s Respect and Responsibility…
London’s burning: but the rioters had a point.
EPA/Kerim Okten
The powers that be describe the street violence and social upheaval which took place in England’s major cities last week as “mindless”. Yet it was anything but. Prime Minister David Cameron, among others…
Research Director: Developmental, Capable and Ethical State (DCES) research division, and Coordinator of the South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS), Human Sciences Research Council