Forum for Saturday October 25 history economics

Maybe Francis Fukuyama had it wrong at the end of the Cold War when he talked about the “end of history”.

His predictions might have been more accurate if he had taken it one step at a time and first spoken about the end of economics.

Fukuyama thought that by 1990 the Marxist idea of the end of history occurring when the contradictions in capitalism caused it to eat itself was obviously wrong. Instead, with the commies were out of the way, ideological wars would end. Liberal democracy would be the world order. The great lists of trouble spots and wars that pepper the reportage of international relations would be at an end. It would be the end of history – in the sense of history being the story of titanic struggles between ideologies, the contest of ideas, wars and power struggles.

Liberal democracy had won, he thought.

Ho-hum. Fukuyama has not been alone. Even at a national level in Australia leaders have suggested that on their patch there would be a sort of end of history – an end to the great tussle of ideas.
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Forum for Saturday 20 October 2007 greens in Senate

Greens leader Bob Brown has been spruiking the possibility of the Greens winning an ACT Senate seat from Liberal Gary Humphries. He’s dreaming.

The community-based group GetUp is also running its Save Our Senate campaign strongly in the ACT in an attempt to overturn the Coalition majority in the Senate.

On that point, the ACT is critical. This is because ACT (and Northern Territory) senators take their seats immediately after the election. Senators from the states, on the other hand, take their seats on 1 July next year. State senators have a fixed six-year term. Half are elected every three years, usually at the same time as the House of Representatives election, but their terms run from the next July 1 to the June 30 six years later.

Territory senators terms are exactly the same as the terms of members of the House of Representatives.
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Forum for Saturday 13 October 2007 four year terms

Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd’s proposal for four-year fixed terms is like deciding to buy a new stove for the kitchen. Like a stove, elections are the working part of Australian constitutional democracy, but not its totality.

As you look at removing the old stove you realise it is attached to cupboards, so you will probably need new cupboards – not just either side of the stove but matching ones for the whole kitchen. That would then mean a new sink, dishwasher and splashbacks. So you may as well re-tile the floor and repaint. The power points, light switches and light fittings would complete the job.

Rudd thinks that Prime Minister John Howard has been playing games with the timing of this election. He argues that the uncertainty of the date has been highly inconvenient – for politicians and their staff who have spent the past couple of weeks thinking they might have to return to Canberra for a parliamentary sitting. He is right. Business and the public service would also like more certainty with election dates.
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2001_10_october_leader09oct war

The attacks early yesterday morning Australian time by the United States and Britain on Afghanistan mark the first salvo in their war against terrorism.

The leaders of the two nations, President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair, justified the attacks by the killing of about 6000 people in New York and Washington by suicidal hijackers who forced passenger jetliners into the World trade Centre and the Pentagon. The attack in the US was horrific and it killed thousands of innocent people. The US and its allies are right to seek to bring to justice those who perpetrated the deed. No-one has admitted responsibility for it. The US says it has evidence that it was done by Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist network. It says that that network is supported by the Taliban government of Afghanistan.

In ordinary circumstances where a crime has been committed a nation can seek extradition of those allegedly responsible. That was not possible here. The US asked the Taliban to hand over bin Laden. They have refused. They have admitted that he is in their territory and it would obviously be in their power to do so.
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Forum for Saturday 6 October 2007 defo unions

This week the boot was on the other foot in the long-running tussle over freedom of speech.

First, to some history. Let’s rewind to 1994.

Labor was apoplectic. The High Court had just delivered its judgment in Theophanous v Herald Weekly Times.

The court held that the Constitution required freedom of political communication. It meant that strict state defamation law would not apply to comments in a letter to the editor of the Melbourne Herald by then RSL leader Bruce Ruxton. Ruxton said that the Federal Labor MP and chair of parliamentary immigration committee, Andrew Theopanhnous, had been favouring Greek immigrants.
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