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Author: Dean Ashenden

  • AUSTRALIA

    Accidental white heroes of Aboriginal culture

    • Dean Ashenden
    • 25 May 2012
    5 Comments

    A Yankunytjajara elder has damned a current 'songlines' anthropological  study, declaring that 'white do-gooders need their boundaries defined'. Anthropologists, like missionaries, have a mixed record, but are credited by many Aboriginal people for doing more good than they intended or anticipated.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Tony Abbott's class war

    • Dean Ashenden
    • 15 May 2012
    19 Comments

    One way of conducting class warfare is to accuse your opponent of conducting class warfare, as Abbott did in his Budget reply speech. It is no coincidence that over the period when talking about class became the political equivalent of breaking wind, the actions of governments of both stripes have accelerated social inequality. 

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  • EDUCATION

    No easy cure for 'cost disease' in Australian schools

    • Dean Ashenden
    • 07 May 2012
    13 Comments

    The Productivity Commission Schools Workforce report released on Friday does contain evidence of the dire state of productivity in Australian schools, but it is largely neutered. It's as if the Commission was anxious to avoid stating too plainly a disease for which it can suggest only palliatives.

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