Guest Post: Attack on Aboriginal Community in Broome
I’m not talking about a verbal or newspaper attack, a political attack or a funding cut. I mean that somebody threw a bomb out of a car at a group of people at the One Mile Community in Western Australia.
Abbott on the first people: just muddling through
Tony Abbott’s address to the Sydney Institute last Friday went little remarked or reported, but offered the nation a glimpse of the Coalition’s planned approach in government to the Aboriginal Affairs portfolio. This strange little wishy-washy excerpt from the speech […]
Coal Seam Gas: Behind the Seams – what we did while Labor imploded
While, seemingly, the rest of the world was focused on each twist and turn of the Labor leadership shenanigans, the FAQ Research team was on a field reporting trip to Queensland’s Western Downs. Often we were on the road, driving […]
Invasion Day/Australia Day: Unity/Disunity
I think everyone of a certain age can remember a certain mantra from John Howard. Symbols, he intoned, are not important. “Symbolic Reconciliation” is not important, he couldn’t say Sorry. The Republic was just a symbol, of interest to “elites”. […]
Culture Wars: Self fulfilling prophecy time
The peak body representing Australian Universities has adopted The National Best Practice Framework for Indigenous Cultural Competency in Australian Universities. Not something, if you read the key points, I’d have thought should be overly controversial.
Wild Rivers, the LNP and combating poor policy debate
The Queensland Wild Rivers legislation bubbles its way in the political pot, occasionally bursting forth to inject a shot of steam into state and federal political debates. Most notably, recently, has been Tony Abbott’s promise or threat to introduce a […]
The Northern Territory Intervention and “evidence based policy”
When Labor came to power in 2007, one possible consolation for those who opposed the Northern Territory Intervention, and indeed those who were sceptical of its efficacy, was the prospect that under a new government, its effects would be rigorously […]
Julian Assange, Andrew Bolt: political celebrity and the ‘free speech’ of privilege
Julian Assange, a little late to the party, penned an op/ed for Fairfax last week defending Andrew Bolt’s ‘right to free speech’. It’s an odd piece of writing. Assange asserts, all John Stuart Mill-like, that: The best policy decisions result […]
Quickhit: the risks and rewards of privatising our security
The prisoners get all the risks (including death during transport to remand for a misdemeanour), the corporations get all the rewards. The taxpayer turns an unseeing eye.
Quick link: Alpine NP grazing may infringe native title rights
The push to return cattle grazing in Victoria’s Alpine National Park relies heavily on its claim to be preserving a vital part of Australia’s heritage – the mountain cattlemen romantically portrayed by Banjo Paterson, and George Miller a century later. […]