Comment and Analysis

Former Coalition government treasurer Peter Costello envisions Queensland as a privatised, “small government” state in the final report he has written for the state government.

A huge sell-off of remaining public assets was recommended in the 32-page executive summary released on March 1. The full report in excess of 1000 pages has been withheld until after the May budget.

A 72-year-old man overly fond of a cold shandy on a hot day and a cigarette or two, was found dead in the room he rented in a pub in Waterloo, Sydney on February 23.

There was nothing particularly unusual about it except that the man, Eddie Trigg, was the last person to see Juanita Nielsen alive.

Nielsen was a society heiress, a member of the family that owned the iconic Sydney retailer Mark Foy’s. In the 1970s she was living in Victoria Street, Kings Cross, running a local paper called Now.

I have always found tests and exams, whether the NAPLAN or Victorian Certificate of Education, very problematic.

For one thing, it only tests English and numeracy, as if other subjects are not important and do not contribute to numeracy and literacy skills.

For several years, educators have known that there are different learning styles and techniques. Some people have one dominant learning style, others use different styles in different situations, and styles are not fixed.

The international boycott campaign against the world’s third largest defence company is about to arrive in Australia and the first battleground may be at RMIT University in Melbourne.

Palestine solidarity activists have focused a boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign on the Max Brenner chocolate store chain, a subsidiary of the Strauss Group, which supplies and supports the Israeli army. This year however, cross-campus activist based group Students for Palestine has decided on a new target.

Meet BAE Systems — short for British Aerospace Engineering.

There's a lot of unease in progressive circles in Western Australia in the wake of Liberal Premier Colin Barnett's landslide reelection win in the March 9 WA state election. The expectation is that many things will get worse before they get better.

The minority Liberal government, dependent on National Party support and buoyed by mining royalties, has been restrained compared to the slash-and-burn of public services rammed through by its counterparts in Queensland and Victoria.

This year marks the bicentenary of the first European crossing of the Blue Mountains in NSW.

For white Australia it was a great triumph and a significant step forward in the process of colonising the entire continent.

For the Aboriginal people of this area, however, it was a disturbing development that heralded the most significant challenge they had ever faced.

Over recent weeks, lawyers and campaigners have been racing to the courts to prevent immigration department plans to deport Afghan refugees back to Kabul.

Refugee advocates raised alarm bells on March 5 when four Afghan Hazara refugees who had been living in the community on bridging visas were re-detained after attending scheduled immigration meetings.

We all know that the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) is busy at the moment. One or two troubling matters that go to planning applications in the coal mining industry.

ICAC was set up in 1989 by former Liberal Premier, Nick Greiner. Ironically enough, Greiner was referred to ICAC in 1992 and found to have corruptly offered former Liberal turned Independent, Terry Metherell, a public service position, as a director of the Environmental Protection Authority.

We have known for some time that the death of Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chavez was probably coming soon. But that did not make it any easier for many of us when it came.

Cynics, and worse, have started to pour scorn on the mass grief in Venezuela and around the world.

Chavez wasn't just a leader of a revolution in a faraway Latin American country. He was a hero and champion of people all around the world precisely because he broke so radically from the ugly mould of most 21st century politicians.

This is an excerpt from a talk Green Left Weekly journalist Ewan Saunders gave at a Walkey Media Talk called "Trust me, I'm a journalist" on February 27 in Brisbane.

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In answer to the question have journalists lost the public trust, it depends on what media you’re talking about. I don’t think it’s the right question to be asking because the way the mainstream media develops and its trajectory is not changing.