The difference between a derelict and a man is a job.
(Circa 1933, still current)
Latest Papers
The working papers collection comprises historical papers as well as current ideas and works in progress on some of the major issues and topics of our times.
The must-see movie of the summer.
From big country town in 1974 to the modern metroplis of 2011 - there are lessons for Brisbane's recovery.
The secret behind Australia's incredible come-from-behind victory in the Third Ashes Test in Perth from Dec 16-20, 2010
One of the things that the voters of NSW, the last rusted-on supporters of the Labor Party in NSW and the labour movement of NSW have to calculate in the run up to the next election is: should Labor candidates be completely disregarded, and consciously ranked last, on their ballot papers? It is the only way the most morally corrupt political machine since the Rum Corps, can ever be curbed.
There is a cycle of poverty abroad in our land that has nothing to do with material wealth. It concerns human spirit, capability and capacity, enduring knowledge, independence, self worth and well being. It is better to be materially poor than spiritually impoverished. Aboriginal Australians understand this to their core. That is why, so often, the admonitions of bureaucrats and the lures of wealth, mean nothing to them.
It was a time of wildness in thought and action...
The Bastard’s A Genius: The Robert Clifford Story
by Alastair Mant,
Allen and Unwin, 2010
Today I woke up thinking if only we could trade Joe for Annette Tripodi - the creative director of WomAdelaide. But it would be so unfair on South Australia.
Tony Abbott cannot take a trick. In the 2010 Australian national election the Liberal-National Party effectively won one more seat than the Labor Party. It also slayed Labor on the first preference vote. 44 per cent of the electorate gave their first preference vote to the Coalition compared to only 38 per cent for Labor. It also won a 2.5 per cent swing to it on the two party preferred vote against a swing of about as much against Labor. But despite all this Abbott could not convince the Country Independents, who you would think would naturally side with him, to form government. Gillard and her Labor advisors have totally outclassed Abbott since election day. They have carefully stitched up deal after deal with the Greens, the independent Andrew Wilkie and the Country independents to attain government. To add insult to injury, on the first sitting day of the new parliament, Labor’s Daryl Melham and others secured the numbers for the Liberal Peter Slipper to become Deputy Speaker ahead of Abbott’s preferred candidate, Bruce Scott. What is going on? There are five major reasons why Abbott has lost out so badly to Gillard since election day: old political thinking within the coalition, the national green labor political majority, the ideological consensus in Canberra, Abbott’s personality and the slow turn of the media towards Gillard.
