Analysis

  • A pig of a health-care system

    The first person to die after testing positive to swine flu in Australia was a 26-year-old Aboriginal man from a remote desert community. Health workers have said it is evidence of the significant gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous health, and warn more deaths are likely.

  • Connex bites the dust

    There are few words that attract negative outbursts of emotions from Melbournians as much as the mere utterance of “Connex”.

  • Write on — letters to the editor

    Health system in crisis It came as a shock to me, and to some of my friends, about the way some of the hospitals refuse to admit patients for serious operations unless they pay at the time of arrival. As recently as June 11, a friend of our

  • Mulrunji inquest to re-open

    The inquest into the death in custody of Palm Island man Mulrunji Doomadgee in November, 2004 will be reopened. In 2006, deputy state coroner Christine Clements found senior sergeant Chris Hurley was responsible for Doomadgee’s death.

  • Qld to sell $15bn of public assets

    Citing the dubious need for Queensland to keep its AAA credit rating, on June 2 Premier Anna Bligh announced the state would sell off $15 billion of public assets.

  • Big business calls for tax 'reform'

    The Business Council of Australia (BCA) — representing Australia’s largest 100 corporations — has called for a higher consumption tax and for the company tax to be halved. It did so in a submission to the federal government’s review of taxation (the Henry review) made public on June 14

  • Lethal weapons: Ban Tasers now!

    “Tasers are not the ’non-lethal’ weapons the QPS [Queensland Police Service] leadership claims”, former state MP and former police officer Peter Pyke told the media in April. He predicted a Queenslander would die in 2009 from a Taser.

  • Banks cry poor (again)

    On June 15, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) raised the rate of its standard variable mortgage by 0.1%. For home buyers with the typical $300,000 mortgage, this means repayments go up by $18 a month.