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Author: Tony Kevin

  • AUSTRALIA

    Australia's ad hoc refugee rescue costs many lives

    • Tony Kevin
    • 09 July 2012
    21 Comments

    When distress calls come from asylum seeker boats, Australia's current policy is to rescue by choice. Many of the calls come from the Indonesian search and rescue region. To its credit, Australia usually responds to these calls. But not always. Sometimes we pass them to the less well equipped Indonesian search and rescue authority BASARNAS and wait to see what happens.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Greens moral vision safe in Milne's hands

    • Tony Kevin
    • 19 April 2012
    28 Comments

    Retiring Greens leader Bob Brown is not the avuncular teddy-bear politician some paint him as. He and new leader Christine Milne share the same steel and political acumen. The next promising generation of Greens leaders will be nurtured and grow under Milne's leadership. And there are many of them.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Why Gillard should lead

    • Tony Kevin
    • 24 February 2012
    36 Comments

    Minority government has presented unique challenges to Gillard and her team, to which they have responded with dignity, clarity and efficiency. Politics in the Australian party system is a  team sport, and it's clear Kevin Rudd has a thing or two to learn about loyalty and solidarity.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Opportunists could rule in 'nervous' America

    • Tony Kevin
    • 31 January 2012
    9 Comments

    The US today is a nervous nation. The old small town verities and values can no longer be taken for granted in this apprehensive, celebrity-drugged culture. Conceivably, if the economy tanks or there is some destabilising foreign policy crisis, Newt Gingrich could beat Obama.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Praise for Wilkie's rage against the machines

    • Tony Kevin
    • 24 January 2012
    20 Comments

    Catholics in Australia have tended to be more tolerant of alcohol and gambling than 'wowser' Protestants. But too many Catholics turn a blind eye to how today's poker machine technology and operating environment is designed to nurture dangerous (but profitable) addiction.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Questions surround latest asylum seeker boat disaster

    • Tony Kevin
    • 19 December 2011
    20 Comments

    The latest tragedy comes ten years after SIEV X and a year after the Christmas Island shipwreck. It will be exploited by both Gillard and Abbott to further their border protection policies. Questions surround the disaster that the Australian Government would prefer not be asked.

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  • MEDIA

    Julian Assange's clear and present danger

    • Tony Kevin
    • 15 December 2011
    29 Comments

    If Julian Assange is soon extradited from UK to Sweden, as now seems likely, he faces rendition to the US, and the prospect of a long prison sentence or even assassination. The Australian Government continues to do almost nothing to protect its besieged citizen. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Gillard and Obama's mutual exploitation

    • Tony Kevin
    • 18 November 2011
    9 Comments

    Australia is now indelibly associated with Obama's strong messages to China in Canberra. We were used. But our government wanted this, because it will all be popular with the middle ground former Labor voters Gillard is trying to win back from Abbott and the Greens.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Bringing civility back to the parliamentary cockfight

    • Tony Kevin
    • 31 October 2011
    14 Comments

    Many Australian politicians who should know better give the people and the media exactly what they want: rancorous confrontations and barbed insults. The 'tough' way in which Australian politics is played corrodes civility and potentially erodes our democracy.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Abbott faces fallout from Gillard's Big Week

    • Tony Kevin
    • 17 October 2011
    29 Comments

    Abbott will face a worsening dilemma. If he continues to rage about revoking the carbon tax, he will alienate industry groups that want stability above all. If he goes quiet, he will validate Labor's portrayal of him as a cynical opportunist who stands for nothing but gaining power.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Carbon tax saves Gillard (for now)

    • Tony Kevin
    • 14 September 2011
    11 Comments

    Though Gillard's leadership has started to come under pressure, no one in Labor will want to overthrow her until the carbon pricing laws package is securely in place. This means no challenge before the first half of 2012. Only then, if opinion polls keep trending down, may Gillard be vulnerable.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Border Protection's selective rescue

    • Tony Kevin
    • 10 May 2011
    15 Comments

    Last November, a refugee boat was lost at sea en route to Christmas Island. It's presumed the 97 on board perished. Evidence suggests Australia's Border Protection Command selectively chooses to make little or no effort to find and help SIEV boats in possible distress.

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