The 100th boatload of asylum-seekers has arrived off north-western Australia since the election of the Rudd Government in December 2007. Many Australians are now increasingly concerned that the Government, by taking a softer line on border protection, has encouraged thousands of people to embark on the hazardous journey across the Indian Ocean to get to…
The release of secret e-mails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at East Anglia University last November, known as Climategate, confirmed suspicions that climate science has been manipulated to support extreme measures to cut the output of CO2 in developed economies. Not long afterwards, the UN Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen collapsed in disarray, when…
The lengthy prison sentences imposed on four Rio Tinto executives in Shanghai, including Stern Hu, an Australian citizen, raise fundamental questions about China’s legal and political systems. After being imprisoned without charge in mid-2009, the four men were eventually charged with accepting bribes – apparently to assist certain steel manufacturers to get preferential access to…
As the fiasco surrounding the Federal Government’s multi-billion dollar home insulation affair widens, there is mounting criticism of the Government’s $16 billion school infrastructure program, part of the Government’s economic stimulus plan. The school improvement plan operates under the Orwellian title, Building the Education Revolution (BER). In some cases, state education departments are alleged to…