Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site

Keywords: Politics

There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.

  • AUSTRALIA

    The public life of emotional Intelligence

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 01 December 2022
    4 Comments

    Emotional intelligence is one of those terms that is hard to define. They take their meaning from people whom we think certainly possess it and those whom we think certainly lack it. In the aftermath of the Victorian election we might also ask whether it matters if political leaders have emotional intelligence or not. Will it help them win elections or contribute to their defeat? 

    READ MORE
  • INTERNATIONAL

    In the US midterm elections, questions abound

    • Jim McDermott
    • 15 November 2022
    5 Comments

    In recent weeks it had become a foregone conclusion that the Democrats were going to post big losses in the midterms; it’s just the way American politics seems to work. The party in power loses seats halfway through a term. What are we to make of the fact that that didn’t happen, or that we didn’t see anything the protests and violence that ensued after the 2020 election?  

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Catholic political leaders: Does faith matter?

    • John Warhurst
    • 15 November 2022
    16 Comments

    Australia is awash with politicians who identify or are identified as Catholic. And Catholic media always take some interest in Catholic politicians whatever their political stripe. But what does this mean to have Catholic politicians from a theologically and ideologically diverse church? 

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Three-lie leeway

    • Michele Frankeni
    • 24 October 2022

    How do we go from insisting our children tell the truth, even if it leads to punishment for breaking rules, to casually accepting a lack of veracity from societal ‘leaders’? Why in this age of social media when the mildest of heterodox comments cause a storm of protest do blatant untruths cause not even a ripple? 

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Catholics and freedom of religion

    • John Warhurst
    • 13 October 2022
    13 Comments

    Freedom of religion, a matter of national interest still to be resolved successfully in the Federal Parliament, has yet again become a focus for the nation’s football codes. The Essendon controversy has demonstrated how it is issues with a religious-cultural component, not economic issues, which most polarize our society and are the most difficult for politics to resolve harmoniously. 

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    In praise of complexity

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 21 July 2022

    One of the tests by which we can judge political maturity is whether it gives due weight to complexity. It is easy to reduce political conversation to opposed statements between which we must choose. That will sometimes be appropriate. Often, however, discussion of policy raises several different questions, each of which needs to be considered.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Can the Class of '22 fix Australian Democracy?

    • Tim Dunlop
    • 22 June 2022
    5 Comments

    Concern about political malfeasance in Australian politics was one of the issues that drove the influx of new members (mainly women) into the Australian Parliament on 21 May, and they are promising a raft of reforms. The astounding thing is that we managed to leverage the change of 21 May 2022 within the confines of a system that inherently favours the status quo, the preferential voting system tending to channel votes back to the major parties.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    A pro-life crossroads in Australian politics

    • Michael McVeigh
    • 15 June 2022
    6 Comments

    One would assume that the Victorian Liberal Party has looked at the numbers, and believes that religious conservatives no longer make up a significant proportion of their constituency. Certainly, the moral authority of the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations has taken a battering in the state over the last decade, with many remaining openly hostile to religious perspectives. If the pro-life movement was ever a significant force in Australian politics, that’s no longer the case.

    READ MORE
  • ENVIRONMENT

    Wanted: A liberal dose of climate action

    • Stephen Minas
    • 09 June 2022
    9 Comments

    The Liberal wipeout in inner-city electorates is without precedent in Australian politics. For the Liberal Party, ‘existential crisis’ is not an overstatement. As the party founded by Robert Menzies finds itself in the hall of mirrors, climate policy should be a major focus of critical self-appraisal.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Independent triumphs: The changing of Australian politics

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 24 May 2022
    11 Comments

    The centre of the political system did not so much hold as desert. The vote was a furious, determined and tenacious shout from the estranged centre, a shivering of the timbers. The calibre of individuals elected — many from professions, many with public service outside the traditional party hierarchy of patronage and promotion, and most, women — has not been previously seen in this country’s politics.

    READ MORE
  • INTERNATIONAL

    Inconsistency in the treatment of foreign fighters

    • Irfan Yusuf
    • 12 April 2022
    15 Comments

    In a space of 40 years, Russia has been our enemy, then our friend and now is an enemy again. Russia is again attacking Ukraine. We are convinced the Ukrainian cause is just. But we also know that we face a domestic far-Right terrorism threat at home. What if young impressionable foreign fighters with little knowledge of Ukrainian history, politics and internal conflicts find themselves fighting with and influenced by anti-Semitic and Islamophobic neo-Nazi groups?

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Climate change and duty of care

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 07 April 2022
    10 Comments

    The children have been busy. On matters of environmental justice, Australia has witnessed much legal activity from youthful citizens who, despite in some cases not being old enough to vote, have stirred politics. In 2021, five lodged complaints with the United Nations over the failure of the Australian government to cut, in a meaningful way, greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

    READ MORE