Unravelling Polliespeak
By Ad astra This is a sequel to The ugly language of politics, published in November. It endeavours to unpick and describe the many variants of […]
Politics
Report from the Asian Summits: From Official US Alliance Media Scripts to New Perspectives for Change
Denis Bright invites comment on the significance of President Trump’s engagements with Asian leaders. Is it outrageous to suggest that travel has widened President Trump’s […]
The Veiled Threat: Australia’s Campaign Against New Zealand Refugee Policy
Another twist in the farce over the stained treatment of refugees on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island has surfaced. New Zealand has been insisting for […]
Abbott’s down, but is he out?
By Ad astra Tony Abbott has been on the way down for years. His time in the sun began unexpectedly on the 1st of December […]
Sally McManus: Speaking words of hope
Of the thousands of words in the hundreds of articles written about Sally McManus none describe her more passionately – or more succinctly – than […]
Forget ‘are we there yet’ – let me outta here!
As parliament and political commentary are consumed by the citizenship debacle and the same-sex marriage legislation, the country lurches along with no clear direction on […]
The Expensive Affirmation: Australia Says “Yes” to Same-Sex Marriage
The overall figure was comfortable, though hardly dashing. Sixty-two per cent of Australians (7.82 million) decided that same-sex marriage was a perfectly feasible, even desirable […]
Someone told me…
The leader of One Nation in Queensland, Steve Dickson, has been forced to apologise over comments he made about the Safe Schools program in which […]
Trans-Pacific Follies: Australia Asleep as Canada Wakes Up
It was as dreary as listening to the formulaic assessments of political economy by an unreconstructed Leninist. But Sunday morning with Steve Ciobo, Australia’s trade […]
PNG could soon free these men
By Nikala Sim The fate of 421 refugees and asylum-seekers will be determined in the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea tomorrow week (Wednesday 22/11). […]
Marriage Equality this year: We shall see!
By Terence Mills What has become known as WA Liberal Senator Dean Smith’s draft of amendments to the Marriage Act 1961 appear to be the […]
The ugly language of politics
By Ad astra It was with some trepidation that I embarked upon this piece. Language is complex. Embedded in the language we use is a […]
Australian values, immigration and employment
Isn’t it ironic that we are lectured to about Australian values by a government full of migrants and their immediate descendants. That is the reality […]
The Tragic Declaration: Colonial Legacies, Balfour and Israel
So much after the fact; so much in terms of opportunism gone to seed and destruction. But planned historical calamities tend to be rare. There […]
Fixations of Propriety: The Manus Closure Scandal
When confronted with the spectacle of the malnourished, the impoverished, the famine stricken, and the desperate, the Australian political instinct is simple: Why did these […]