Peter Whiting. The new minimum wage rate has come into effect on 1 July. The Fair Work Commission (FWC) recently announced an increase of $18.29/hour, or approximately 3.3%. Inevitably, the decision failed to satisfy any of the vested parties within the Australian Industry Group representing employers seeking to limit the increase to $10.10/hour, citing weak […]
Tony French. When my daughter, Kate, recently joined the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) as a graduate trainee, I thought, there’s not much long-term future for her being a ‘consumer cop’. My reasoning was, isn’t there already a well accepted and established Australian consumer law at State and Federal levels, and plenty of awareness […]
Bruce Duncan. Unexpectedly, Pope Francis has emerged as one of the most significant world leaders. Largely unknown before his election, Jorge Bergoglio as Pope Francis has assumed the moral stature of a new Mandela, and not just among Catholics. Four and a half years after his election, Francis shows no signs of slowing down or […]
Jason Davies-Kildae. A cursory scan of just about any set of prisoner demographics quickly reveals a catalogue of social disadvantage. Our prison populations show disproportionately high numbers of people with health problems, including mental illness, addictions, intellectual disability, and acquired brain injury. Other over-represented groups reflect lifelong social barriers, such as coming from a place […]
Diana Perche UNSW. Ten years ago this month, the then prime minister, John Howard, and his Indigenous affairs minister, Mal Brough, launched the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) into remote Indigenous communities. With no warning, and no consultation, the federal government moved swiftly to seize control of many aspects of the daily lives of residents […]
Reviewed by Bruce Duncan. Robert Murray Labor & Santamaria (Melbourne Australian Scholarly Publishing 2017) ppx+103, with a Foreword by Graham Freudenberg. Veteran political journalist, Bob Murray, has produced a short lively account of the traumatic events of the great Labor Split of the 1950s in a way which makes the story readily accessible to readers […]
Bonded through tragedy united in hope: The Catholic Church & East Timor’s struggle for independence, a memoir, by Hilton Deakin with Jim and Therese D’Orsa (Melbourne: Garratt Publishing 2017). Reviewed by Rowan Ireland. Australian Catholic bishop, Hilton Deakin, now aged 84, has given us a remarkable memoir. It was produced over several years, with the […]
Dr Race Mathews in conversation with Professor Paul Smyth. Social Policy Connections hosted Dr Race Mathews to talk about his new book, Of Labour & Liberty: Distributism in Victoria 1891-1966, at Box Hill in the YTU Study Centre on Tuesday 16 May. The book had been launched by former Victorian Premier Steve Bracks on 20 […]
Bruce Duncan. The month of May has been a real rollercoaster, with shocking terrorist attacks on innocent people in Britain, Egypt, Afghanistan, and Iraq, as well as in France and Germany. Wars continue to fester in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East and Africa, with thousands killed, including women and children. In Yemen, a […]
Peter Rodgers. The breathless hypocrisy of Donald Trump’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia should leave us all reeling. Bad enough is the fact that the new president could make his first overseas journey to the very country he previously castigated, rightly, as the motherlode of 9/11. But the sycophancy he displayed to his hosts, especially […]
