If Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore is successful in her attempts to change late-night drinking patterns and the trouble that goes with it, she will earn a significant place in our history. Indeed, her plan should be regarded as a template for how councils and governments should deal with the liquor industry in Australia.
The truth is that most politicians municipal, state, and federal don’t have the gumption to tackle a problem that is endemic in Australia: booze-related violence.
It indisputable that increased trading hours of licensed premises, in particular 24-hour liquor …
FEDERAL Attorney-General Robert McClelland and Justice Minister Brendan O’Connor have announced a shake-up of censorship law in Australia through a review of the 1995 Classification Act.
This act determines where the line is drawn on various categories and forms of media. It legislates different levels of “intensity and explicitness” in images and words, setting out what can be accessed by various age groups in Australia. It designates whether different media can be viewed in private (for example by a couple in their home) or in public, such as at a movie …
SOME locations are perfect for reading particular books; those that foster an extra connection to history as lived by the protagonists.
Now that the labyrinthine corridors of Old Parliament House have been opened to all, climb the rickety staircase to the press gallery, Ross Fitzgerald and Stephen Holt’s book in hand, to reach the cramped den of power of their vulpine subject.
Among the evocatively recreated rooms and the very pipework of the building that, we learn, literally leaked the scoops from the House of Representatives below, the cigaretteaddled voice of ‘The …
AT the height of the catastrophic floods that last month engulfed much of Queensland, including Brisbane, Labor Premier Anna Bligh begged the state’s citizens to “remember who we are”.
In rhetoric reminiscent of Joh Bjelke-Petersen and Peter Beattie and other long-serving premiers, Labor and conservative alike, Bligh’s answer to the conundrum of how to be optimistic and survive this natural disaster was crystal clear. We are, she said, lips aquiver, “Queenslanders. We’re the people that they breed tough, north of the border. We’re the ones that they knock down, and we …
WE would condemn any society that refuses prisoners the right to rehabilitate themselves.
Yet this is exactly what the Queensland government is doing by stifling the artistic aspirations of those behind bars.
In September 2009 the Queensland Parliament passed legislation (Section 28 of the Corrective Services Act 2006) that prevents the artworks of prisoners in the state being sold or exhibited.
They can be gifted, but only with permission from the Queensland Department of Corrective Services.
In fact this overly punitive and ill-conceived legislation introduced by the Bligh Labor government runs contrary to international …
A COMPANY or product brand is a highly valuable asset that can change customer behaviour and shift demand through the creation of a positive image.
A brand’s equity is derived from the goodwill and name recognition earned over time, which in business translates into higher sales and profit margins over those of competitors.
Take Facebook. Over a remarkably short period, Facebook has built a brand image that represents all that is current, creative and cool in the technology world. IBM, on the other hand, has struggled with its brand over decades but …
BACK in the 1960s and 1970s, before the internet, before WikiLeaks, there was something called the alternative press. Sometimes it was called the underground press, with echoes of armed partisans resisting an occupying army.
It claimed to offer the real information, all the news the media refused to print and that governments tried to suppress.
But what if it was all a fraud? Sydney-based Michael Wilding’s new novel ‘The Prisoner Of Mount Warning’ explores this hypothesis.
What if the alternative, or some of it, was not alternative at all but run by an …
TO measure how much clout the Australian Greens command in the minority federal Labor government, look no further than Julia Gillard’s backflip on a carbon price.
On the eve of the election the Prime Minister emphatically ruled out pricing carbon, yet now she has made it one of her key policy targets for next year.
With the Greens keeping Labor in power, the political landscape has changed dramatically and voters can do nothing about it at present.
Gillard used the close election outcome to excuse the backflip: …
FRUSTRATED by the NSW Parliament, which has made it virtually impossible for the Australian Sex Party to be registered for the state election, its convenor Fiona Patten has hit upon a unique strategy.
White Pages in hand, Patten is currently actively seeking at least 15 people in NSW who have the word “sex” in their name – Sexton, Sexsmith and so on.
If she can find enough, and if they agree with Sex Party policies, this will enable the group to form a ticket for the NSW Upper House even though the …
THE Keneally government’s March poll will most likely add to the ALP’s national troubles.
IN recent years Labor’s much-vaunted marginal seats campaigning skills have lost their lustre. The results speak for themselves.
Labor lost six seats to the Country Liberals in the August 2008 Northern Territory election; a net loss of 10 lower house seats to the Liberals in the August 2008 election in Western Australia; 11 seats to the Liberal National Party in the March 2009 Queensland election; and a net loss of …
Julia Gillard during the debate over the NBN bill in parliament this week. Picture: Ray Strange Source: The Australian
Julia Gillard has not learned from her predecessor’s flawed approach to big issues
ACCORDING to some political observers, Julia Gillard’s spirited defence of the National Broadband Network in the last sitting week of federal parliament was evidence she was regaining her shattered confidence after the recent election.
Or, as some put it, …
