Category Archives: Politics

Courageousness

Posted on 6 May, 2010 by admin

Plenty has been written over the past week or so about the clearing of the decks by the Prime Minister that appears to have taken place in advance of the budget and the highly anticipated election campaign to come. In … Continue reading →

Posted in Australia, Politics | 2 Comments

Indonesian parliament claims a scalp

Posted on 5 May, 2010 by admin

The real test of the maturity of Indonesian democracy might turn out to be nothing to do with how it handles an election, but what the parties do with the legislative power they received after that election. Those that provide … Continue reading →

Posted in Indonesia, International relations, Politics | Leave a comment

Secession from the Commonwealth: a simple plan

Posted on 1 May, 2010 by admin

Those of us who have studied Australian politics at all learn a fairly important point about referendums under the Commonwealth Constitution, i.e. that they’re pretty hard to win. That’s why if there’s another, simpler way to achieve an objective Federal … Continue reading →

Posted in Australia, Politics, Western Australia | Leave a comment

On innocence… lost?

Posted on 5 April, 2010 by admin

By Rewi Lyall Firstly, I was relatively pleased to see Joe Hockey on Lateline a few days ago talking, amongst other things, about CCTV. He’d given a speech earlier in the evening where he had apparently expressed some disquiet about … Continue reading →

Posted in Australia, Law, Politics | Leave a comment

Fixing what ain’t broke

Posted on 27 March, 2010 by admin

By Rewi Lyall For a while I’d been trying to convince myself that I could write about this in a general sense and move on to specific arguments later. But then Tony Abbott reminded me of the time that the … Continue reading →

Posted in Australia, Politics | Leave a comment

Reflections on conversations in Perth: part 2

Posted on 18 January, 2010 by admin

By Rewi Lyall The other big conversation point in my visit to Perth last Christmas concerned variations about nationalism in Australia. One of my friends was decrying the lack of a national identity in Australia, or at least an identity … Continue reading →

Posted in Australia, Politics, Western Australia | Leave a comment

Private surveillance

Posted on 6 January, 2010 by admin

By Rewi Lyall In the light of suggestions that Japanese whalers have, through a third party, hired aircraft to conduct surveillance on anti-whaling group Sea Shephed, the ABC reports that Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard is seeking legal advice on … Continue reading →

Posted in Australia, Law, Politics | Leave a comment

Reflecting on conversations in Perth: part 1

Posted on 4 January, 2010 by admin

By Rewi Lyall Visiting Perth in the last week of December was reassuring politically in a couple of respects. I had been concerned about the election of Tony Abbott to the leadership of the Federal Liberal Party. My concern centred … Continue reading →

Posted in Australia, Politics | Leave a comment

Latest victory in campaign for Safety First

Posted on 12 November, 2009 by admin

By Rewi Lyall The True and Just of Western Australia have scored another victory for the forces of Safety over the perils of freedom, and in this have no greater Crusader than Western Australian Liberal Peter Abetz. Western Australians have … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics, Western Australia | Leave a comment

Demonstration to support the Indonesian anti-corruption commission, the KPK

Posted on 10 November, 2009 by admin

By Rewi Lyall One of the things you get told quite early on when coming to live and work in Indonesia is that it is preferable that you not attend any political rallies or demonstrations, let alone participate in one. … Continue reading →

Posted in Indonesia, Politics, Yogyakarta | 1 Comment