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Keywords: Polarisation

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The allure of moral outrage

    • Lucas Keefer
    • 27 January 2022
    30 Comments

    It’s no secret that highly politicised issues seem to elicit strong emotional reactions, particularly feelings of intense anger. But not only are these feelings common, individuals seem actively motivated to seek out stories of tragedy, scandal, and injustice on a seemingly unending quest to feel moral outrage.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Is democracy going down the drain?

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 24 November 2021
    31 Comments

    There is much discussion about the future of democracy, freedom and other aspects of liberal institutions. Mainly in the United States, under the pressure of a polarised public life. But also to a lesser extent in Australia, in the face of the evasive and authoritarian behaviour of governments and the manifest priority of winning elections over addressing the existential threats of global warming and gross inequality. 

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Biden's middle class in a divided America

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 19 November 2020
    9 Comments

    The priority given to the middle class was not new — Biden stressed it in speeches through the primaries and again as a candidate. And it is no doubt important. But when seen in the light of the passionate polarisation of the campaign, the closeness of the results, and the continuing mutual antipathy of the supporters of each party, rebuilding the middle class seems an unlikely source of healing.

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  • FAITH DOING JUSTICE

    Parsing the Catholic bishops' election advice

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 02 May 2019
    11 Comments

    The Australian bishops' statement on the federal election is significant as much for the fact it was made as for its argument. Given the polarisation of public debate, they might well have thought it wiser to remain silent. For them the greatest success of the statement may be that, when they spoke of public issues, the sky did not fall in.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The myth of polarisation in modern Australia

    • Jeff Sparrow
    • 10 December 2018
    12 Comments

    Why do so many pundits decry the divisions in Canberra at a time when, objectively speaking, the parties have never been closer? The short answer is that they're responding to a genuine polarisation — not between Labor and Liberal but between both parties and the rest of society.

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  • PODCAST

    ChatterSquare: Osmond Chiu on navigating post-GFC polarisation

    • Podcast
    • 18 July 2017

    When UK Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn appeared to some acclaim at Glastonbury Festival, it triggered some amount of pining in Australia. Why do we not have someone like that? With Osmond Chiu, the Secretary of the NSW Fabians and Deputy Editor of Challenge magazine, we unpack what this sentiment is about and whether it gets to the heart of what is wrong with our current politics.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Appeals to caring and fairness alone can't bridge climate divide

    • Greg Foyster
    • 02 February 2017
    10 Comments

    If climate change were a short-term problem, polarisation wouldn't be so crippling. One side could push a solution through parliament, and by the time the other side took power it might be a non-issue. But climate change is an extraordinarily long-term problem that requires massive investment in new infrastructure and consistent policy settings over decades. It needs a supermajority of support so years of work isn't undone with each change of government. That means getting conservatives on board.

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  • ECONOMICS

    Hollowed out labour market stymies equal opportunity

    • Veronica Sheen
    • 13 December 2016
    5 Comments

    Over the last two decades we have seen a process of job polarisation. There has been growth in high end jobs, but mostly in low end jobs, the outcome of which has been the hollowing out of middle level jobs. This hollowing out of the middle also relates to greater wealth polarisation, as French economist Thomas Piketty has brought to light. The labour market is under a lot of pressure from many angles, so what does this mean for the project of women's equal opportunity in employment?

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  • ECONOMICS

    Why the rich are getting richer

    • David James
    • 19 November 2014
    6 Comments

    Investing capital in the production of goods and services may create jobs, but it's not the best way to make money. It's more profitable to manipulate the financial system to create more money from money, which is why the finance sector does so well. The polarisation of wealth is less extreme in Australia, but we have our own capital-driven Ponzi scheme - the residential property market, which has become an exercise in making money out of money. 

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  • MEDIA

    Eureka Street comes of age

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 15 March 2012
    25 Comments

    This year Eureka Street celebrates its 21st birthday as a small fish in the ever turbulent lake of global media. Like other print and online media it has had to adjust to its environment. It has had to negotiate the particular challenge of the polarisation of attitudes within the Church.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Rudd in rut over national reforms

    • Bill Calcutt
    • 17 June 2008
    3 Comments

    The Howard era was typified by reactive short-term politics, adversarial confrontation, polarisation and a resistance to transparency. Labor must overcome residual community cynicism and grandstanding by the media if it is to advance its progressive agenda.

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