JULIA Gillard’s recent announcement of a white paper to guide national responses to the rapid changes occurring in Asia is a small but noteworthy attempt to garner some credibility on foreign policy.
It’s also an attempt to make her own way, distinct from that of her predecessor, Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd.
Policymakers in Australia in recent years generally have been slow to grasp the significance of the social and economic revolution under way to our north.
There are far-reaching consequences for the course of Asian history and for Australia’s future.
The need for long-term …

RECENTLY we have heard from a chorus of people all singing from the same economic song sheet: Australia needs a sovereign wealth fund.
It’s claimed that a sovereign wealth fund could provide the answer to a number of our country’s economic challenges. Its proponents argue that it can lock away the gains of the current mining boom for a rainy day; increase national savings; facilitate investment in offshore assets; put downward pressure on the Australian dollar; provide a source of foreign income; and reduce our current account deficit.
Those in favour of …

FORMER Federal Court judge, civil libertarian, human rights advocate and Living National Treasure Marcus Einfeld OA (since rescinded) made a big mistake when he was caught speeding in Sydney.
He claimed his car was driven at the time by a US-based Australian friend, feminist philosopher and author Teresa Brennan.
In fact Brennan had died three years earlier, the victim of a mysterious and suspicious hit-and-run accident.
Instead of ‘fessing up, Einfeld compounded this lie by then claiming that another Teresa Brennan, also US-based, also deceased, was driving his car. The resulting, highly …

Peace, for the party and ‘betterment of the whole world’

Clayton with his wife, Peace Joy Source: Supplied

FOUR days after the Soviet spymaster Walter Seddon Clayton died at 91 in Newcastle on October 22, 1997, I interviewed his wife.

In an interview published in Brisbane’s Courier-Mail on November 15, 1997, Peace Joy Clayton (nee Gowland), a committed communist, confided to me that to …

Cigarettes and cereal just don’t mix

The supermarket or convenience store is no place for age-restricted products to be sold.
IT may not be politically correct to say so but I have some sympathy for the position in which the tobacco industry finds itself.

Cigarette companies are off to the High Court to attempt to preserve copyright against legislation that stops them from using it to brand their cigarette packets. Which, to a degree, is fair enough. If the product is a legal one, …

Former ALP Senator and power broker Graham Richardson is absolutely right; no one in the current ALP leadership in Canberra has the communication sk ills to talk to ordinary Australians. As a result it is little wonder tha t Julia Gillard’s minority government is so unpopular and badly los ing the carbon tax battle with the Opposition to win the hearts and minds of Australians.
The federal government has many policy, administrative and leadership failures which have caused its present unpopularity but poor communication is high on the list and this …

Wilkie holds a match to the dynamite fuse

ONE of the time bombs ticking away at the heart of Julia Gillard’s fragile government is her promise to Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie that she will deliver poker machine reforms by the middle of next year.

Few people believe the Prime Minister will be able to force the system of mandatory pre-commitment through the Labor caucus, let alone federal parliament.
It is through pure cynicism that Gillard has persisted with …

The touchy topic of our classification system.
A reliable means of gauging broad public opinion is needed.

Clearly many Australians want to have their opinions heard on how, in the foreseeable future, official censorship in this country will be administered. The proof of that is that the Australian Law Reform Commission has received a record 2451 submissions to its inquiry into Australia’s Classification Scheme.
About 10per cent of respondents were from industry groups who use the scheme to derive an income, while another 10per cent were from …

Fool’s Paradise, an extract

Historian and author Ross Fitzgerald has written a new novel, Fool’s Paradise. Picture: Renee Nowytarger Source: The Australian

GRAFTON Everest is Professor of LifeSkills and Hospitality at Mangoland University and unwilling biographer of the state’s former premier Sir Otis Hoogstraden. Grafton’s day job as is under threat from the economically and sexually rapacious vice-chancellor Deirdre Morrow. And …

IN the 2000 Boyer Lectures, then chief justice of Australia Murray Gleeson QC said: “The essential purpose of the criminal law is to keep the peace, so people can lead their lives, and go about their affairs, in reasonable security.”
If that is so, then is it not the case that, in so far as children and other vulnerable people (such as those who are cognitively impaired) are concerned, the aim of the criminal law should be to ensure that their security is absolute?
Yet these people are often the least protected …

Not easy to be jester in court gone mad

IT’S getting harder and harder to write satire. Those of us trying to think up wildly absurd ideas are constantly being undermined and gazumped by reality.

The “real” world has become so absurd. Conservative gays forming the Gay Shooters Party? Look up the Pink Pistols in Wikipedia. Cane toad leather goods? Check out eBay. What about a rock opera based on Milton’s Paradise Lost? Improbable? Well, it has recently been …