This article by Waleed Aly is from the August 12 issue of The Age Digital Edition China may present the geopolitical flashpoint of the century, yet we’re left in the dark without robust debate. Foreign policy problems can be uniquely difficult to solve. They require us to make predictions that are almost certain to be wrong. With rare exceptions –…
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comments about current affairs, matters of public interest
US democracy and global order are at stake
This article by Peter Hartcher, International Editor of The Age, is from the 26 July 2022 issue of that paper. US democracy and global order are at stake as the former president marshals support for another tilt in 2024. Absorbing as they may be, the US Congressional hearings into the January 6 insurrection have told us a great deal more…
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This article by Fred Chaney is from the May 4 issue of The Age Digital Edition.
Fred Chaney was deputy leader of the Liberal Party from 1989 to 1990 and served as a minister in the Fraser government. Independent Kate Chaney, who is running for the WA seat of Curtin, is his niece. I was federal deputy leader of the Liberal Party. But this time, I’ll be voting for an independent. Until 1995 I was a…
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The West thought money could tame dictators. Has Putin proved it can’t?
by Edward Alden and first published in The Washington Post 11 April 2022 Edward Alden is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, a visiting professor at Western Washington University, and the author of, ‘Failure to Adjust: How Americans Got Left Behind in the Global Economy’. Globalisation was supposed to bring peace through capitalism Since the end of…
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The Australian Government gets Bigger
(Reprinted from the Financial Review 1 April 2022) The one big public sector takeaway from the federal budget is that big government is here to stay. And almost certainly to get larger, as health, disability, aged care, early childhood and climate emergency costs surge over the next 40 years. Taking the helicopter view, federal spending during the 50 years until…
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This article about studying maths is by Fran Molloy from the 2/10/21 issue of The Age Digital Edition.
Students who stick with maths score ‘brain plasticity’ and enjoy other advantages. More than 140,000 students in NSW and Victoria will sit HSC or VCE exams next month. But while English is compulsory, about 25 per cent of students ditch studying maths in years 11 and 12. In fact, maths has steadily dropped among Australian senior students overall. According to…
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Message from Dr Swan
Hello there! Dr Norman Swan here and back again for another edition of ABC Yours. With vaccine rates increasing, it looks as though the light at the end of the NSW & VIC lockdown tunnel is in sight. Questions are still circulating about the risks of the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines and there’s still some fear of the unknown. To put…
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In 2019, carbon dioxide concentrations were higher than at any time in the past 2 million years
Article by Nick O’Malley and Peter Hannam of the Melbourne Age 10 August 2021 The world is likely to heat to 1.5 degrees or more above preindustrial levels by 2040, exposing it to the sort of extreme weather now ravaging Europe and North America, the most comprehensive analysis yet undertaken of climate change shows. The latest report by the United…
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Australian stories – culture, identity and the importance of our cultural industries
Address by ABC Managing Director David AndersonLa Trobe University15 March 2021 INTRODUCTION Good afternoon everyone. It’s a pleasure to be here. I would like to acknowledge that wherever we are today, we are on Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander land. I acknowledge the Elders of those lands past and present and also pay my respects to any Indigenous people listening…
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We marched fuelled by anger and sickened by grief – by Jo Dyer
Published in the the Guardian 17 March 2021 Last month’s strong words from political leaders about tackling the power imbalance at the heart of our democracy between men and women, bosses and staffers, have long since been drowned out by the brutal echoes of “lying cow” and “mob rule”. The initial pledge of action for women, the commitment to change…