Editorial: Capital in the West - David Ritter

The geographic loneliness of Perth is so complete that it can feel like the gates are closed. Our far-flung littleness can be good and bad: at best, cosseting and familiar...at worst though, the capital of the western state can feel like a stuffy lounge-room....

Review - ‘He can visualise our world in fifty years, and this vision haunts him’: Tim Flannery’s ‘Now or Never: A Sustainable Future for Australia?’ - David Hodgkinson

People are listening to Tim Flannery now. His most important book dedicated to climate change, The Weather Makers,  was an international bestseller. And now there’s ‘Now or Never: A Sustainable Future for Australia,’ a 2008 Quarterly Essay which has generated correspondence and debate in Australia and around the world...

Social justice in health globally - Gavin Mooney

It seems that in considering health policy not just in Australia but worldwide there is a great tendency to forget the poor and other disadvantaged groups. Yet we know from the work of Wilkinson (2005) and others that not just poverty but also inequality is bad for our health...

The Artist, the Judge and the Government: Post-Wik Debates in Ralph Heimans Radical Restraint: A Portrait of Justice Michael Kirby? - Jess Panegyres

The legal historian’s interest in Ralph Heimans’ Radical Restraint: A Portrait of Justice Michael Kirby (‘Radical Restraint’) extends beyond the conventions of portraiture.  Heimans’ portrayal of the High Court judge has various remarkable features, arguably none of which include novel insight into the sitter’s private character...

What can we learn from Israel? - Mustafa Quadri

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the birth of Israel and the dispossession of Palestine. Arguably the most ubiquitous political saga of the post Second World War world, nothing has been raised at the United Nations more frequently than the Palestine issue and Israel’s conduct in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT)...

If it would be a punishment: the case of Andrea Grant - Cameron Raynes. Edited extract from The Last Protector (forthcoming, Wakefield Press 2009)

William Penhall was the last Chief Protector of Aborigines in South Australia. He was also the inaugural Secretary of the Aborigines Protection Board (the board). From 1939 to 1953 he presided over an Aborigines Department whose practices were characterised by a blatant disregard for the legislation it acted under...

The West Australian Policy Forum: our progressive State think-tank - Julian Roche

The West Australian Policy Forum (WAPF), www.wapolicyforum.org.au exists to identify problems and promote suitable progressive solutions that State Parliaments and other State actors can adopt...