politics
Opposition leader (till at least Monday), Peter Dutton, has warned voters in the upcoming Dunkley bi-election that if they don’t vote for his candidate then they will be getting a nuclear reactor in their backyard, should the Coalition win the... Read More ›
I arrived in Australia with my family at the time when Malcolm Fraser was the Prime Minister of Australia. He was preceded by Gough Whitlam and succeeded by Bob Hawke and Paul Keating. They were all intellectual, individualistic and humane leaders. I had never felt more secure and proud to be Australian. However, the subsequent Continue reading »
GP visits are down 37% since the government took office. But all we get is spin. Decades of inadequate funding and poor policy has driven Medicare to the point of crisis and beyond — and the crunch-point coincided with the election of the Albanese government. It looks as if GP clinics had held out in Continue reading »
More than four months after a crushing defeat in the Voice referendum, and soon after the Closing the Gap report confirmed that there was almost no progress in improving Aboriginal lives last year, Aboriginal players in the yes case are moving towards an inquest into how their case went so terribly wrong. Marcia Langton, for Continue reading »
Two years since the Russian invasion, Ukraine has faded from the headlines. But not in the Vatican and for the man who might be the next Pope. Tied down in a strategic frontline stalemate, Ukraine has faded from the headlines, especially after the October 2023 Hamas attack and Israel’s Gaza response. In a late-December 2023 Continue reading »
In a small dark and windy lane in Leith in Edinburgh I got into a conversation with an artist painting a bright yellow mural of a young woman on a wall. The artist told me she was painting Bisan, a young journalist, who opens all her posts with – “Hey everyone, this is Bisan from Continue reading »
When do shared values become shared interests? Australia’s relations with India have accelerated exponentially. The nearly century-long pattern of discovery and rediscovery of India by the Australian polity is now history. Durable knots are being tied across the spectrum of political, economic, and social issues. No one-night stands anymore. It is all so reminiscent of Continue reading »
“A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.” —Franklin D. Roosevelt. We must educate and act urgently on these problems. The continuing decline of the life support system of ecosystem services and biodiversity is a crisis needing urgent, Continue reading »
The South China Morning Post recently published an illuminating article on China’s policy towards ethnic minorities, with a particular focus on Inner Mongolia that has strived hardest to assimilate its Mongols with the rest of the Chinese population to promote a single national identity. But does China’s policy reflect the assimilation policies towards First Nations Continue reading »