Hutchinson delicately weaves a tapestry that draws together the modern University of Western Sydney, Gough’s philosophical roots and his vision for ‘liberating the talents and uplifting the horizons of the Australian people’: none more so than his own constituents across Sydney’s greater west.
Read MoreYounger voters are the wild cards in the Australian electoral game. They are having a profound influence on the electoral landscape; an influence that has gone largely unrecognised.
Read MoreDr Brooker’s analysis of the voting intentions of young people at the Federal level is an indepth probe of the Newspoll Quarterly Data over the fourteen-year period from 1996 to 2010. It is worth stressing that this data is voter intention rather than actual votes.
Read MoreFor the inaugural Gough Whitlam Oration, Prime Minister the Hon Julia Gillard delivered a major national address Walking the Reform Road to a packed crowd at the Whitlam Institute within the University of Western Sydney.
Read MoreLisa Fowkes, author of Rethinking Australia's Employment Services, examines the tumultuous twenty year history of policy change and experimentation in employment services. Lisa brings an insider's perspective, having for many years been a key figure with Job Futures, an extensive national network of community-based employment services.
Read MoreDemocratic Challenges in Tackling Climate Change examines the urgency for Climate Change action, and the accompanying political challenges.
Professor the Hon Barry Jones AO tackles this vast issue with a remarkable distillation of the science and scientific history of climate change; a direct and vigorous exposition of the political meanderings that risk leaving Australia without any effective response; and a powerful argument for Australian initiative. Yet underlying his essay is an optimism that it is not too late, if only we choose to act.
In The Northern Territory Intervention and Human Rights: An Anthropological Perspective , social anthropologist Dr Mary Edmunds draws together the history, circumstance, culture, principles and practice surrounding the Northern Territory Intervention. It is a considered and robust examination of the tension between our human rights obligations, the imperative to act, and the way these intentions are experienced on the ground.
Read MoreCommoditising Banking: refashioning the private public partnership of banking around the relative strengths of the private and public sectors, by leading economic thinker and commentator, Dr Nicholas Gruen calls for banking sector reform. The essay argues that Australian banks' profitable navigation of the Global Financial Crisis may be pleasing shareholders but the political and community reception has been hostile. Dr Gruen proposes a viable, low risk policy reform which would address the current inequity in the structure of the Australian banking system.
Read MoreProfessor Jack Keating, in Secondary schooling and the education revolution: Looking for means towards the end?, argues that a genuine education revolution cannot be achieved without structural reform of schooling in Australia.
Read MoreIn An Agenda for Social Democracy, Professor John Qiggin addresses the question of where we want Australia to be at the other side of the Global Financial Crisis with a thoughtful, some may say provocative, exploration of what may be required to give practical effect to a social democratic economic agenda.
Read MoreThe challenge is not simply to listen to what young Australians think, but to give due weight to what they are saying, to find a way for the voices that are unheard to be heard, to support, encourage and acknowledge the contribution of young people to civics and democracy in Australia.
Read MoreIt is clear that the aspirations of many young people to participate in the civic and political life of the nation are as strong as perhaps they ever were. It is critical that policy makers and governments understand how our young people imagine their democracy of the future and the part they wish to play.
Read MoreThis paper offers valuable insights into the aspirations of young people, their experience and the changes in how they do participate in community and political life. It highlights several powerful questions; not least of which is the extent to which these emerging forms of participation influence particular decisions or the political environment more generally.
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