In a world of instant global connection, regional university fiefdoms need educating, writes ROSS FITZGERALD
Here’s something about which Craig Emerson, the new federal Minister for Tertiary Education, may care to ponder. On close examination, it seems that the Australian Regional Universities Network has things both right and wrong.
RUN is right to highlight the importance of our universities to regional Australia, but wrong in stressing supposed regional economic impact as their key indicator of success.
On the face of it, $2.1billion in gross domestic product, $1.2billion in household income, and …

Fifty years ago today, ‘The Canberra Times’ shed some fascinating light on the debut performance of the Australian Labor Party’s famed faceless men.
The notion that faceless forces control the ALP is deep seated. In its present form it originated in the wake of a special meeting, back in March 1963, of Labor’s federal party conference in Canberra. The special conference was called to decide party policy on a proposed US radio communications base at Exmouth Gulf in Western Australia. After meeting for over three days at Canberra’s Hotel Kingston, the …

AS the federal election date looms, there will be a heightened interest in Tony Abbott and his leadership team.
A defining feature of Australian politics has been the partnerships where two strong personalities have come together to complement each other in a way that means the combination is greater than the sum of the individuals.
Australia’s longest serving prime minister Robert Menzies had a close relationship with his immigration minister Harold Holt, who went on to be treasurer during the latter half of Menzies’ government and succeeded him as PM. As a …

Julia Gillard could take a leaf out of Peter Beattie’s book, writes ROSS
FITZGERALD.
Accepting full responsibility for Labor’s devastating loss which occurred in Queensland on March 24 last year was an unusual thing for former premier Peter Beattie to do. But that is exactly what he did in a front-page story in Brisbane’s ‘Courier-Mail’ last Friday. It headlined with: ”It’s my fault” and a huge photograph of Beattie.
I have followed Beattie’s political career for more than 30 years and know that would not have been easy for him to do, …

These days Opposition Treasury spokesman Joe Hockey steps 25kg lighter and appears to be losing more weight by the week. This is a startling transformation for the person John Howard once described as a “big bear of a man” and whom Labor regularly taunted as being “Sloppy Joe”.
Hockey is transforming in more ways than one, with his focus firmly fixed on the job of treasurer should the Coalition win the September 14 election. Few of his predecessors would be better prepared for the role than the member for North Sydney.
After …

SOME perceptive social commentators compare population ageing with climate change as a key challenge in the 21st century. But in the community at large it gets much less than its fair share of attention.
But, like climate change, population ageing is unprecedented, enduring, profound and pervasive. It will change the shape of the society in which we live.
Since the industrial revolution, the world’s population has been growing at an unprecedented pace. Successive and ever larger cohorts have kept the age structure of the population young. This young population has proven to …

FREE speech is fundamental to freedom and the very basis of democracy. All ideas, whether great or small, common or controversial, benefit from debate. Silencing argument, by contrast, is counterproductive and dangerous. It closes minds, forecloses options and ultimately risks removing effective political power from the hands of the citizenry.
Yet history demonstrates a pronounced tendency among committed ideologues of all types to silence anyone who disagrees with them. In Australia and the West, it is the so-called progressives from whom free-speech advocates have the most to fear.

The shrillness that defines …

I WAS alarmed to hear that the hugely talented director of the National Art School, Darlinghurst, Anita Taylor, may not be reappointed.
Given that student recruitment is strong, public programs are blossoming, the gallery schedule is sparkling, and there’s a raft of high-profile sponsorships and donors, the powers-that-be should be rejoicing to have Taylor in charge. As stellar as its history has been as Australia’s oldest school of art, the NAS had been dawdling around the turn of the century, constrained by the school-level art education priorities of the NSW Department …

IN most independent, Catholic and other private schools across Australia you will find plaques that serve as testaments to the fundraising activities of those school communities.
The plaques, be they old or new, pay tribute to the generosity of parents or benefactors, or sometimes simply dedicate premises to the “glory of God”. One way or another, these plaques are windows into the values that underpin each school.

When Julia Gillard introduced the Building the Education Revolution program, she insisted that every hall or new building would have a plaque that recognised the …

On this Australia Day it is appropriate to be reminded of the past weeks and the way Australians came together to assist in a time of natural disaster.
Whether it is bushfires, floods or some other catastrophe, rarely does a summer holiday season pass without a need for collective action from those who risk their own livelihoods to save and protect others. Although in times of crisis sacrifice seems to come naturally to many Australians, national goodwill is not so evident through the rest of the year, especially when politics are …

Do Australians want to create wealth or simply redistribute what we already have, asks ROSS FITZGERALD
With a federal election to be held this year, Australians must give serious consideration to the impact of policies promoted by Labor and by the Coalition in terms of building greater resilience and self-reliance in our society.

Australia has largely avoided the path taken by some European nations of a massive welfare state funded through high levels of taxation.
It is vital that as a nation we remain eternally vigilant against the false appeal of such systems.
This …