February, 2009

Adelaide historian Cameron Raynes has a piece at Inside Story which is well worth reading.  It is about his new book, which is called “The Last Protector: the illegal removal of Aboriginal children from their parents in South Australia.” It also details the hurdles put in his way by the South Australian government to frustrate his efforts [...]

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, is currently visiting Australia.  His position overseeing refugee issues and debates at a global level makes him well qualified to make his assessment that “When things go wrong in a country, there are two potential targets. One is the government, the other is the foreigners.” Governments [...]

It’s hard to think of another time when the goings on at a local Parish church has received so much media coverage.  Father Peter Kennedy, the about-to-be-ex Parish priest of St Mary’s Catholic Church at South Brisbane, featured in the glossy weekend magazines of both The Courier-Mail and The Australian.  This follows a myriad of previous [...]

The Global Financial Crisis* led directly to the collapse of Iceland’s government last month. Now Lativa is following suit, with their Prime Minister handing in his resignation. As with Iceland, it looks like this will lead a new Coalition government being negoitated, rather than an immediate election. Just a few years ago, Latvia’s economic growth [...]

Human Rights Watch reports on a concerning court ruling from the USA which has echoes of the major human rights breaches enabled under Australian laws permitting the indefinite mandatory detention of innocent people who have no other country to go to and the forcible transportation of refugees to Nauru where they were beyond the reach of [...]

Given the enormous under-representation of Indigenous Australians in full-time employment, it is hard not to be sympathetic or supportive of any efforts aimed at increasing employment opportunities, even if one has doubts about the prospects of success. So the announcement last year by mining magnate “Twiggy” Forrest that he was working with the federal government [...]

The Australian Electoral Commission has formally determined that there will be one extra House of Reps seat in Queensland at the next federal election, and one fewer in New South Wales.  This was widely expected and will probably have little impact on the overall outcome of the next federal election, but it will leave quite [...]

Media speculation that an early state election will be called in Queensland has been going since before Christmas.  I guess if people keep predicting an election is about to be called, they’ll be right eventually.  Certainly the fact that there has been a steady stream of state Labor MPs announcing they will retire at the [...]

Last week, the federal Immigration Minster released a draft of new regulations affecting temporary skilled workers in Australia – often known as 457 visa holders. These changes flow on from a review conducted last year by Barabara Deegan, who has a background in industrial relations.  Her final report is available at this link. This visa class has [...]

The widely varying views over the merits or otherwise of the stimulus package put forward by the Rudd government shows just how uncertain the overall economic situation is.  Economists giving evidence to the brief Senate inquiry have expressed differing views.  Even after you take out the partisan talking points, the same variance of views is occurring [...]