The lack of agreement on the question of whether undue criticism of Gillard is sexist boils down to how we think about sexism. Is sexism something we view at an individual level or a wider social structural level? Is it still sexism, when gender discrimination occurs at a structural level? Before addressing this, I’d just [...]
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GILLARD
Aren’t nuclear weapons harmful, too?
Last week the Red Cross and Red Crescent societies adopted a historic resolution which seeks to reshape the debate over nuclear weapons – from one focused on Cold War notions of deterrence and military dominance, to one demanding total disarmament because of the potential for these weapons to inflict grave humanitarian and environmental harm.
READ MORECould Australia’s record on arms control harm UN Security Council bid?
Last Friday over fifty states at the UN rejected US-led attempts to introduce a lesser standard of arms control. Australia, however, was not one of them, writes NAJ Taylor.
READ MOREWest Papua: How to lose a country
When Julia Gillard meet Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhuyono in Bali on the weekend West Papua barely got a mention. Although the text messages inside West Papua went into overdrive with the rumour that the reason Australia and the United States were stationing 2,500 U.S Marines in Darwin was to prepare for military intervention in West Papua. I told my friends in West Papua it wasn’t true, writes Jason Macleod.
READ MOREThe loopholes in the Labor Party’s Cluster Munitions Bill
Labor caucus today voted not to amend its widely criticised Cluster Munitions Prohibition Bill to remove two loopholes that go against the spirit and intent of the international Convention on Cluster Munitions. I will be on the ABC Radio National breakfast program with Fran Kelly on Wednesday morning to discuss the Caucus vote alongside defence minister Stephen Smith.
READ MOREThe moral syncretism of Gillard’s uranium sales pitch
What strikes me most about the Gillard’s about-turn to sell uranium to India is how ‘moral’ the pitch has been. As I see it, the ALP message has distorted a triumvirate of benefits for Australians: that there are considerable domestic gains to the economy and employment, that “principled” uranium sales is a modern policy befitting [...]
READ MOREAssange case: it’s time for Gillard to ask Obama some important questions
It is time for Australia to stand up for its citizens, for its values and for itself as a nation. Gillard reassured the Australian public that our government was doing “everything it could” to get that 14 year-old Australian home from Bali. Can we say the same for what she is doing for Assange? asks Jennifer Robinson, Julian Assange’s legal advisor
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Theorising Darwin: US may stockpile and transit cluster munitions
A US military ‘base’ in Darwin will necessitate foreign weapons systems and armaments being stockpiled, retained and transited on and in Australian territory. That is likely to be yet another international embarrassment for Australian arms control, writes NAJ Taylor
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Australian uranium sales overlook India’s nuclear history
NAJ Taylor discusses uranium exports in the context of nonproliferation and disarmament, after Labor yesterday announced its proposal to sell uranium to India.
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Benny Wenda: Indonesia’s silent genocide
The Australian Government has so far refused to condemn the ongoing human rights abuses in West Papua. Worse still, they continue to arm and train the deadly Indonesian Detachment 88 forces, who are responsible for some of the most grave acts of torture against my people, says exiled Independence leader Benny Wenda.
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