Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site
Forgot your password?
Subscribe

Keywords: Independent

  • AUSTRALIA

    Regional issues beyond the mad hatter's tea party

    • Rachel Baxendale
    • 04 July 2011
    4 Comments

    Some regional Australians may be enjoying the political day in the sun of rural independents Bob Katter, Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott. But despite the prominence of the NBN and the Murray Darling Basin, flippancy and apathy dominate metropolitan Australia's attitude to regional and rural issues.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Christian reverence for science

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 17 March 2011
    7 Comments

    When Christianity and science come together, the meeting place is often like a battlefield. That is a pity because the central Christian belief – that in Jesus Christ God’s reason entered the world – demands that science be given an independent and honoured place.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Cheap milk, no guilt

    • Michael Mullins
    • 14 March 2011
    31 Comments

    Independent Senator Nick Xenophon has said the 'unsustainable' $1 per litre milk price will force farmers off the land and ruin Australia's dairy industry. Economists ridicule this sentiment. Low milk prices are the market god's gift to consumers.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Priests, sex and the media

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 07 March 2011
    13 Comments

    Media coverage of the Church usually assumes priests form a homogeneous and disciplined body whose uniformity derives from fear of authority. Priests are more like franchisees than employees, independent and always ready to grumble. This does not amount to disaffection.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Natural disaster fund could be Gillard's easy path to glory

    • Michael Mullins
    • 31 January 2011
    5 Comments

    It is difficult for Prime Ministers to impose short term pain for long term gain if they want to be re-elected. But Gillard faces a different situation because the Independents are her masters, not the 2013 voters.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Mary MacKillop's lesson for Murray-Darling irrigators

    • Michael Mullins
    • 18 October 2010
    7 Comments

    Tony Windsor is proving himself to be a politician of integrity and tact, but has his work cut out for him in the case of the Murray-Darling Basin irrigators. Mary MacKillop was a champion of rural and regional Australians. It is worth considering her strategy in the context of the irrigators' struggle for survival.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Kristina Keneally's rational Catholic conscience

    • Tony Smith
    • 15 October 2010
    39 Comments

    Traditionally, Catholic-Labor links have been so strong that wits described the Church as 'the Labor Party at prayer'. NSW Labor Premier Kristina Keneally represents a growingly assertive Catholicism which might be described as progressive, rational and independent.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Rehabilitating Rudd and Turnbull

    • John Warhurst
    • 27 September 2010
    6 Comments

    Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull's past faults and misdemeanours have been forgotten and they have been charged with new responsibilities at the heart of Australia's domestic and international futures. The new leaders must wish their vanquished colleagues great success. But not too much.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Mary MacKillop's template for the Independents

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 23 September 2010
    9 Comments

    The aftermath of the election gave play to the mythical Australian preference for the underdog as people enjoyed the Greens' and Independents' day in the sun. There is an intriguing contrast to be drawn between this and the life of Mary MacKillop, who will become Australia's first saint.

    READ MORE
  • INTERNATIONAL

    Resisting the duty to die

    • John Kleinsman
    • 21 September 2010
    11 Comments

    The debate about euthanasia arises only in certain societies that see the world as belonging to those who are independent, strong and productive. In a society in which the sick, dying, disabled and elderly are undervalued, the 'right' to die will all too quickly become a 'duty' to die.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Pork-barrel politics rolls regional Australia

    • Michael Mullins
    • 13 September 2010
    5 Comments

    Deals struck between Prime Minister Gillard and Independents Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott saw hospitals in their electorates receive preferential treatment ahead of regions with greater needs. Pork-barrelling has always been part of politics, but that does not make it any less of a scandal.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Welcome back Julia, now do it differently

    • Moira Rayner
    • 08 September 2010
    22 Comments

    Three Independents, belittled as 'The Three Amigos' but riding into the sunset nonetheless, have won the trust of their electorates and been able to exercise a little, meaningful power about how Parliament should work. This may not last, now that the decision has been announced.

    READ MORE