Invert always invert. Turn a situation or a problem upside down. Look at it backwards, whats in it for the othert guy? What happens if all our plans go wrong? where dont we want to go, and how do we get there? Instead of looking for succes, make a list of how we fail instead - through sloth, envy, resentment, self pity, entitlement, all the natural habits of self defeat. Avoid these qualities and you will succeed. Tell me where Im going to die, that is so I dont go there.

Charlie Munger

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.

Breathless in Canberra (released 16 August 2007)
We’re at that dangerous point in the political cycle when journalists think they determine the outcome of elections. However one ex-journalist does seems to be turning the tide.
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The Lamb Enters the Dreaming (released 14 August 2007)
Robert Kenny's remarkable book is the story of Wotjobalak man, Nathanael Pepper, who reaches the heights of religious acceptance and hope in the late nineteenth century and yet is doomed never to move beyond a certain level. When he dies at the age of 36, after an extraordinary life as an interpretor of two worlds, he has achieved only the status of ‘native helper’.
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The Possibility of National Labor Governance (released 25 July 2007)
A Rudd Federal Labor government working with State Labor governments could re-vitalise our national institutions.
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Divided Minds (released 25 July 2007)
We are, most probably, a nation of people who are divided in our own minds about the future of Indigenous Australia.
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Go Left Failure, Go Right Destruction: The Price of the National Indigenous Leadership Group’s Unwillingness to Lead (released 9 July 2007)
John Howard is dividing and ruling the leadership of Indigenous Australia.
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Putting Indigenous Child Abuse in the Northern Territory into Perspective (released 30 June 2007)
There were 319 substantiated instances of Indigenous child abuse in the Northern Territory in 2004/5. This compared to Qld 1,186, NSW 1,642 and Victoria 770. Perhaps the Commonwealth and other states should be sending an army of bureaucrats to study why the Northern Territory has a comparatively good record for looking after Indigenous children. But let us not doubt the motives of John Howard and Mal Brough in seizing control of NT Indigenous communities! Download the key statistics below.
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Political gimmicks, Welfare Tourists & the Continuing Farce of the Commonwealth Response to the Wild/Anderson Report (released 28 June 2007)
Politics is about the art of the possible. It’s about spinning on the tip of a pin, having no principles and constant reinvention to suit the circumstances of the day. But there is one thing that you cannot hide in politics and that is pure emptiness of policy. The sight of the latest welfare tourists from Canberra in Aboriginal communities conveys just how empty the Howard-Brough incursion into the Northern Territory is.
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A Welcome Change: Back to Basics with Jeff Lawrence (released 15 June 2007)
Paul Keating criticized the LHMU and by implication Jeff Lawrence in his recent Lateline appearance. However the facts do not bear his criticism out.
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Hillary and the Women's Vote (released 13 June 2007)
(A short version of this article on Hillary and the women's vote was published in The Australian on Nov 21, 1996 when President Clinton and Hillary Clinton made their first visit to Australia. Subsequently the author was able to introduce Mrs. Clinton to several prominent Australian women politicians and leaders, this unfortunately cut into the time allocated to the new Prime Minister's wife Jannette Howard's meeting with Mrs Clinton and the classmates of her daughter's school and received some interesting press coverage at the time. All polls in the USA now show Mrs Clinton ahead of her Democratic rivals because of the women's vote, making this article once again, topical.)
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Cape York Land Rights (released 8 June 2007)
Cape York Indigenous Land Rights a fitting tribute to the Pearson brothers and the elders of Cape York Peninsula
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