government
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Is It Easier for Labor to Pass Laws Now That Most of Australia Is Held by Them?
When Dominic Perrottet gave a gracious concession speech after his defeat in the New South Wales election on Saturday night, it was hard to avoid favourable comparison with the United States. There was no sign of rancour or hyper-partisanship. He praised Labor’s Chris Minns for a clean campaign. He predicted Minns would be a “fine”…
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What Do First Nations Peoples Mean When They Say ‘Sovereignty Was Never Ceded’?
In discussing the Uluru Statement from the Heart, I will be doing something that, as a lawyer, is perhaps not best practice: I am not going to define my terms or confine my comments to the law. Although our constitutional system of governance is underpinned by a rigid concept of sovereignty we have inherited from…
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If Russia Were To Fracture, What Would Happen?
Among the many questions asked about Russia’s disastrous war against Ukraine, one of them is posed only very rarely: can Russia survive what seems increasingly likely to be a humiliating defeat at the hands of its smaller neighbour? On the face of it, the prospect seems almost absurd. Vladimir Putin may have been weakened by…
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A Royal Commission Into Robodebt, the Coalition’s Worst Ever Idea, Has Been Announced
With a Royal Commission announced, here’s a refresher of what Centrelink’s automated income compliance program, colloquially known as Robodebt, was all about.