To most Australians, Ukraine is far away, and few know much about the history of relations between Ukraine and Russia, and why Russia has moved to occupy Crimea, the part of Ukraine which is predominantly ethnically Russian and where Russia’s Black Sea fleet is based. The history of Ukraine and Russia goes back over 1,000…
Since the election of the Abbott government last September, it has reoriented Australia’s foreign policy away from China towards Indonesia. While the immediate challenge of Middle Eastern asylum-seekers using Indonesia as a transit point was an important factor, the economic and strategic importance of Indonesia, a democracy of 250 million to our near north-west, clearly warranted this initiative. In April, elections will be held for the national parliament, and later this year, for the presidency. The incumbent president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, having served two five-year terms, is not eligible for re-election. President Yudhoyono has built and maintained close relations with…
The announcement of a royal commission into union-related corruption, particularly in the building industry, marks the fourth such inquiry into this industry. Earlier inquiries in New South Wales and federally had unearthed much illegality, but led to few prosecutions, and their recommendations were reversed when Labor governments later came to power. The response by union leaders and federal Labor leader Bill Shorten to the announced royal commission indicates that they will take a similar view to this inquiry. Shorten argued that allegations of impropriety were a police matter, and should be pursued by a police taskforce, ignoring the fact that…
When the Abbott government was elected last September, one of the most intractable problems it faced was the flow of boat arrivals on Christmas Island, just off the coast of Java, by people from the Middle East seeking refugee status in Australia. During the period of the Rudd and Gillard Labor governments, the trickle had become a flood. Following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in the late 1990s and sectarian conflict on the Indian sub-continent, the number of asylum-seekers heading to Australia rose rapidly. Throughout the 1990s, the number of people arriving in Australia by boat had been counted in…