The luck of the Irish so often in history was chronic bad luck. That's how it looked for 250 Irish convicts when theirship, the Hive, sank ignominiously off the NSW coast in 1835. Miraculously, all survived, guided to safety by local Aboriginal people. Using this fascinating case study, in her new book The Luck of The [...]
In 2013, the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) established the Commission of Inquiry (COI) on Human Rights on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) (North Korea). This mandated the COI to investigate the systematic, widespread and grave violations of human rights in the DPRK so as to ensure full accountability, in particular, for [...]
Online dating came along just at the right time – a magical solution for a world where many people now spend long periods of their lives unwillingly unattached.Having started out as one of Australia’s first sex therapists, journalist and author Bettina Arndt is now our country’s first online dating coach, helping men and women navigate [...]
In July 2014, mining magnate and Indigenous advocate Andrew Forrest handed the Abbott Government a radical new report on welfare distribution and income management among Indigenous Australians. The Forrest Report also makes recommendations on ways to enforce attendance at school and other social dysfunction in many poorer communities and seeks to make recommendation to tackle [...]
Ellen Thomson was only woman ever to be executed in Queensland. Convicted of murder in 1887, the case still inspires considerable passion among those familiar with the facts, including her descendants, some of whom feel there was a miscarriage of justice. Whether or not she was guilty, and how a court might view her case [...]
Jordie Albiston studied flute at the Victorian College of the Arts but went on to become a published poet - her first collection of poetry, Nervous Arcs, in 1995, was followed in 1996 by Botany Bay Document: A Poetic History of The Women of Botany Bay. In 1998, she published The Hanging of Jean Lee [...]
Professor Kerry Brown is Executive Director of the China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. He is also the author of the newly released The New Emperors – Power and The Princelings in China exploring how current China is now firmly under the control of a power-conscious Beijing elite, almost half of whose members [...]
As Finance Minister in the Abbott Government, Senator The Hon Mathias Cormann has played a key role in the Budgetary reform process. With protracted negotiations in the wake of the 2014 Budget, Cormann has resisted commentary proposing a mini Budget and said the Budget process is a “marathon not a sprint”. He argues that the [...]
In July 2014, Australian Labor MP Michael Danby, the Member for Melbourne Ports, found himself in Israel in the midst of the latest missile attacks by the Gaza-based Jihadists of Hamas. Over 3000 missiles have rained down on Israeli cities from Ashkelon to Tel Aviv. Five million people with the stoic good humour trudged regularly [...]
On Friday 18 July 2014, The Sydney Institute held a Melbourne launch of Anne Henderson’s Menzies at War. The function was hosted by law firm Arnold Bloch Liebler and the speakers were introduced by Mark Liebler AC. The Hon Josh Frydenberg MP, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister launched the book and Professor Geoffrey Blainey [...]
