John Spierings discusses the main findings of the How Young People are Faring report Insiders or outsiders?
Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Goanna tales
Last week, I told you a little of my strange friendship with a convicted murderer, the "enforcer" for the Painters & Dockers Union, Billy "The Texan" Longley. At the same time I had what might seem an even stranger friendship with Kerry Packer.
This week I'll tell you how those friendships collided.Although I'd worked for his father, Kerry and I had never met. But we disliked each other from a distance, on principle. Then he invested in a film I was producing, The Getting of Wisdom. Over the course of a few meetings I found myself liking him. I'll leave the details to the autobiography I'll never write - suffice to say that Packer was highly intelligent and very lonely. And we were more alike than we'd expected, both half-educated, both having survived harsh childhoods. Most of all, I liked Kerry's curiosity. He's not the sort of bloke who reads books so we'd talk for hours on end about anything and everything - from black holes to ancient history - passionately disagreeing about politic
• Phillip Adams [The Reserve Bank’s relationship with government is working well, except from an anachronistic process of appointing board members, writes Time for transparency ; Following the seventeen arrests, the debate becomes more complex, argues Andrew Lynch Suddenly, Security is no longer abstract ]
• · Property boom hangover: the debt ; How is trust in government created? It begins at home, but ends in the parliament
• · · How well prepared is Australia to meet the twin challenges of infectious disease and bioterrorism? This paper explores these issues and offers some advice about how Australia should incorporate these challenges into our thinking about security. The paper considers the spectrum of biological threats, both natural and deliberate. A summary is available online. Plague anatomy: health security from pandemics to bioterrorism ; Behind the execution of Nguyen Tuong Van lies a repressive city-state whose problems are becoming clearer Managing the contradictions
• · · · Australia has been selective in implementing its international obligations How Australia protects war criminals but not asylum seekers from torture ; How Saddam's man was cleared
• · · · · It is difficult to discover just who is actually advocating the cold rational systems The Enlightenment revolt against rationalism ; Oil output may well be at or near its peak level, and oil prices are likely to remain high for the foreseeable future. But adjusting to changes in relative prices is what market economies do best, at least when adjustment is supported by coherent and well-designed public policies. The Oil Shock of 2005 John Quiggin
• · · · · · The trial of King Charles I of England before the High Court of Justice in 1649 was, in essence, a political contest between a former sovereign and some of his former subjects over the rights of sovereign Trying times: The life and times of a tyrannicide ; Four Corners goes inside Supermax, Australia’s toughest jail, home to killers and suspected terrorists. Supermax