Year: 2011

The Australian

Greens unlikely to emulate German success

05/04/2011
The Australian Greens’ ambitions were dealt a blow in the recent NSW state election. They may have won the seat of Balmain, but their overall primary vote barely moved above the 10 per cent mark. To add insult to injury, the Greens are struggling to fend off a challenge by Pauline Hanson for a seat in the upper house. On the other side of the world, green is a far more popular colour.

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Business Spectator

Britain’s debt time bomb is still ticking

31/03/2011
It must have been a seminal event judging by the coverage it received in British newspapers. The tabloid The Sun dedicated seven pages to it. The Daily Telegraph provided 16 pages of reports and commentary, The Guardian 23 pages and The Financial Times, not to be outdone, a full 26 pages. Few occasions would ever justify such journalistic lengths. So had Her Majesty abdicated? Were Martians about to invade Scotland? Had the English soccer team finally won a penalty shoot-out against Germany?

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Uncategorised

Getting the nanny state out of alcohol retail

28/03/2011
Coming from a country where even petrol stations are allowed to sell alcoholic drinks as ‘essential traveller needs,’ I have always found Australian alcohol licensing practices rather bizarre. To Australian regulators, beer, wine and spirits seem to be in the same danger category as guns and porn – and thus have to be hidden from the public’s view in specialised stores.

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Sydney Morning Herald

Should we have an absolute freedom of speech?

26/03/2011
When everyone agrees with a proposition, you have to fear that it is meaningless. Freedom of speech is a case in point. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, signed by almost every country, guarantees freedom of expression. The problems are in the fine print because even the covenant limits the scope of this right.

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Business Spectator

The hysterical republic

24/03/2011
The narcissist Germans increasingly behave like ill-mannered children on the international stage. Perhaps it would be wise to treat them like that. And ignore them.

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Speeches

Social impacts of migration – international perspectives

22/03/2011
It’s not a great secret anymore that European countries have had very mixed experiences with their immigration programmes after World War II. In particular, Germany’s so-called ‘guest worker policy’ of the 1950s and 1960s is now widely regarded as an example of how not to run an immigration programme.

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Ideas@TheCentre

Getting the nanny state out of alcohol retail

18/03/2011
Coming from a country where even petrol stations are allowed to sell alcoholic drinks as ‘essential traveller needs’, I have always found Australian alcohol licensing practices rather bizarre. To Australian regulators, beer, wine and spirits seem to be in the same danger category as guns and porn – and thus have to be hidden from the public’s view in specialised stores.

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Business Spectator

A plan that will damage Europe

17/03/2011
You would think that the transformation of the European Union into a transfer union, the extension of the rescue facility for the continent’s fragile currency by a few hundred billion dollars, and new policy dictates to struggling economies like Greece would be of some interest to the wider public.

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The Australian

Most voters just want a pretty face

17/03/2011
Sometimes, even a politician’s smile is more important than his or her policies. Voter bias towards more beautiful politicians has long been confirmed in surveys. Where voters are uninformed about politicians’ plans and beliefs they instinctively go by their appearance. But new research from Scandinavia reveals that good looks are quite unevenly distributed in this beauty contest.

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