WHAT is it about Australia that so little prominence is given to the first Aboriginal person to serve in the NSW parliament?
This is despite the fact she has been Labor MP for Canterbury since 2003 and is now deputy leader of the NSW opposition.
Born in 1957 to an Aboriginal man and an unmarried white woman in a small town in the Riverina, Linda Burney strongly identifies as a Wiradjuri woman.
After her mother abandoned her, fleeing the hospital, Burney was raised by an elderly aunt and an uncle who had worked …

APART from Tony Abbott, who is clearly the most influential member of federal parliament, for the remainder of this year there appear to be 10 other key parliamentary players.
Top of the list is Western Australia-based Julie Bishop.
Deputy leader of the Liberal Party, the most senior woman in the federal parliament, and our first female Foreign Minister, Bishop is responsible for managing relations with the US, China, and Indonesia, which arguably are the three nations most important to Australia.
In tandem with the ambitious Malcolm Turnbull, the influential Bishop will this year …

WHEN used with amphetamines, ice and steroids, and often on its own, alcohol is a very dangerous mood-altering drug. In a large section of the population, alcohol all too readily fuels violence, including public and domestic violence and sexual assaults.
Yes, most people drink responsibly. But, as the liquor industry knows, it’s the top 10 per cent of heavy drinkers who account for 50 per cent of total alcohol consumption, and the top 20 per cent who account for 70 per cent of alcohol consumed. These are the individuals whose alcohol …

‘Pushed From the Wings : An Entertainment’ is the black comedy that introduced readers to Grafton Everest. Grafton is ten years sober, which is all for the good, but he’s overweight, indolent, indecisive and gets on badly with most of his fellow academics at tinpot Bowen University. Given his druthers, he’d spend most of his time in bed.
If things seem bad, they only get worse when Grafton discovers that his old high school teacher recruits graduates for National …