Scarcely a year goes by without somebody in Australia wanting to draw up a Bill of Rights. While such a proposal may seem superficially attractive, Bill Muehlenberg has identified several reasons why a Bill of Rights would in all probability jeopardise people’s existing rights. The Victorian Government is currently holding a public inquiry as to…
What is disturbing about the recent London bombing is the lack of criticism by most Islamic leaders, writes Peter Westmore. The suicide bombings on the London Underground raise serious questions for Australia, and more generally, for other pro-Western nations which have been trying to curb Islamic extremism in the Middle-East and its export to the…
Children with anonymous sperm-donors as fathers frequently suffer anguish from not knowing one half of their ancestral identity, writes Richard Egan. Reproductive technology, of its very nature, tends to reduce both the child and the parents to objects rather than subjects. The child is brought into existence not by an act of human love-making but…
A major report on competition policy fails to explain why European countries not pursuing deregulation have much higher output per hours worked than countries pursuing these policies, such as Australia, writes Pat Byrne. A major report on competition policy fails to explain why European countries not pursing competition policies have much higher output per hours worked than countries pursuing these policies, such as Australia. The glaring inconsistency appear in the just-released, 500-page Productivity Commission’s Review of National Competition Policy Reforms. The same inconsistency was pointed out by the Australian Financial Review columnist, Brian Toohey, when the commission’s draft report on…
The Victorian Bracks Labor Government backs elite sports – why not elite studies, asks Kevin Donnelly. If ever there was an example of double standards in politics, then the recent announcement by Victorian Education Minister Lynne Kosky about establishing an elite sports academy in the western suburbs of Melbourne takes the guernsey. Kosky is reported as agreeing to establish a specialist sports school, to be opened in 2007, on the basis that such a school would allow sports-minded students to train at the highest level. The contradiction, of course, is that while it is now OK to have a secondary…
The Australian Government should stand by its traditional allies, the United States and Japan, and not seek short-term benefits by siding with China in regional disputes. Late in March, the Australian Prime Minister John Howard somewhat optimistically foreshadowed an Australian role as a bridge between China and the United States. In a foreign policy address…