This story in The Age alleges that the Prime Minister has vetoed the recommended appointee, Hugh Borrowman, to the position of Australian Ambassador to Germany.
One of the assertions made in the piece is that Mr Rudd “is known to prefer Australia’s representatives abroad speak the local language”, an attribute which Mr Borrowman apparently doesn’t possess. [...]
The Age reports that the Business Alliance for Asia Literacy – a coalition of sixty business groups, unions and corporations – is calling for a greater educational focus on Asia, with the leader Australian Industry Group, Heather Ridout, saying “understanding Asia, knowing the languages, cultures and traditions and teaching our children about our near neighbours [...]
December 9, 2008 – 5:21 pm
A belated contest for a House of Representatives Congressional seat in the USA has delivered a result against the trend. A Republican challenger with no political experience defeating a Democrat incumbent with decades of experience in the current electoral climate is significant in itself. In addition, the winner is someone who came to the US [...]
November 28, 2008 – 4:11 pm
Kevin Rudd has been coming in for a bit of flack for inserting turgid, bureaucratic language into his speeches. Given all the – somewhat overblown in my view – fuss about plagiarism by politicians, perhaps he feels it is safer for him to write his own speeches rather than relies on words provided by others.
I [...]
November 10, 2008 – 10:30 am
Back in August, I noted Ms Rashida Tlaib, a Muslim woman of Palistinian descent, had just won the primary contest to be the Democratic nominee for a Detroit based state seat. In the elections held this week, she won that seat, polling 90 per cent to the Republican candidate’s 10 per cent, and in the [...]
November 7, 2008 – 3:29 pm
The provision in the US Constitution prohibiting a person from being President unless they are “natural born” sits strangely for a country who’s economic and political might owes so much to immigration. Presumably it made sense when the US Constitution was adopted in 1787, but it is simply unjust now.*
This provision obviously means no migrant [...]
October 21, 2008 – 6:56 am
For hundreds of thousands of Australian residents, next month’s New Zealand election has greater significance than the recent WA or ACT polls or the NSW by-elections.
By global standards, both New Zealand and Australia have a very high proportion of their population who were born in another country. In 2006, 22.9 percent of people usually living in [...]
October 19, 2008 – 11:14 pm
The by-elections in New South Wales turned out much as expected. Thumping swings against Labor, but still only enough for them to lose one seat, while the Nationals’ discomfort also continued with their failure to stop Port Macquarie staying in the hands of an Independent. Cabramatta was always likely to stay Labor, given the 29 [...]
October 11, 2008 – 8:48 pm
When Malcolm Turnbull was pondering the make-up of his new front bench, I suggested he could do far worse than give Petro Georgiou a position, particularly in areas dealing with immigration or multiculturalism. I wasn’t surprised that this didn’t happen, but this article by Mr Georgiou in The Age last week shows why he would have [...]
