Student outcomes in literacy and numeracy continue to go backwards. Why? Missing from the list of causes for poor learning outcomes, as it is from every such list, is the ineffectiveness of the Learning Assistance Program. Student outcomes in literacy and numeracy continue to go backwards, according to the Productivity Commission in a report released Continue reading »
Government
The Timor-Leste March 2022 Presidential elections gave a resounding win in the second round to Nobel Laureate Jose Ramos Horta, and this provided leverage for Xanana Gusmão in his efforts to wrest back the executive power he apologetically relinquished in February 2015. But Gusmão and his National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction (CNRT) must still win Continue reading »
It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that the referendum on the Voice will be won not as a virtually unanimous offering to First Nations Australians but narrowly in an ugly, bitter and divisive brawl between older and younger Australians. Even a win will have the capacity to leave divisions in the nation, and Continue reading »
As is now usual around Australia Day, commentators from all sides of the argument weigh in to suggest new dates on which we might celebrate the founding of the nation. Henry Reynolds, for instance, has made a case for not celebrating on 26 January and in response in these pages David Havyatt has wondered whether Continue reading »
In the applause showered on Jacinda Ardern at the close of her term there’s one credit missing: The NZ PM swore to never mention the name of the 2019 Christchurch mass murderer. After High Court Judge Cameron Mander’s sentencing to life imprisonment without parole she added the harshest of punishments: The Biblical curse of casting-out. Continue reading »
The failure of this country’s school system to give many students a fair go and a fair share of resources did not feature on the last Federal election agenda. Nor has it surfaced to date as a key issue in the NSW state election. What does this silence mean? With an election only two months Continue reading »
Australia has a racist constitution. It gives the Federal Parliament power to make laws for ‘The people of any race, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws’. Deemed necessary, that is, by the Parliament itself. The argument for including such a provision in the Constitution was provided at the conventions that drafted Continue reading »
New records obtained by the ACLU shed light on the scope of a mass surveillance program keeping tabs on Americans’ financial data.
The post How the Arizona Attorney General Created a Secretive, Illegal Surveillance Program to Sweep Up Millions of Our Financial Records appeared first on scheerpost.com.
In 1996 Paul Keating said, “when you change the Government, you change the country”. Nothing could be truer as the Albanese Government goes about implementing a far reaching, some might say radical agenda, particularly as it relates to many of Australia’s most marginal and disadvantaged. Since the federal election in May last year, we have Continue reading »
In noting that debate about Australia Day began early this year, Henry Reynolds has made a very strong case for not celebrating on that day. That case is well made, however, the simple problem remains that 26 January 1788 remains the single most significant day in Australian history. It is the day from which everything Continue reading »