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 deaths of over 170 people in the Victorian bushfire tragedy of February 2009 has led to a change in policy by the state’s Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE), which is now trying to conduct large-scale burn-offs around Victoria. Evidence given to the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission showed clearly that the failure to reduce fuel loads in state forests and national parks over recent decades contributed to the huge death toll and the extensive loss of property during the bushfires. The 2009 bushfires burned over 400,000 hectares (ha). Although wildfires in some previous years burned larger areas, the 2009…
The Shanghai trial of Rio Tinto executive, Stern Hu, has important lessons for Australia. Mr Hu, an Australian national born in China, was arrested nine months ago, along with three other Rio Tinto executives who are Chinese citizens. The four men were detained incommunicado for about six months on suspicion of espionage, before charges of…