Commonwealth Government

Accountability / Arc of instability / Asia-Pacific / ASIO / Australian Federal Police / Bill of Rights / Commonwealth Government / Corruption / Democracy / Government / Human Rights / Law Enforcement / RAMSI / Rule of Law / Shared humanity / Solomon Islands / Terrorism / West Papua

The War on Terror and democracy’s faustian bargain

FAUSTUS: Ah, Faustus. Now hast thou but one bare hour to live, And then thou must be damn'd perpetually! Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven, That time may cease,…

25 Comments
September 18, 2012
Asia-Pacific / Australian Federal Police / Commonwealth Government / Corruption / Discrimination/Racism / Equality / Fred Martens / Government / Hypocrisy / International Law / Justice / Law / Law Enforcement / PNG / Rule of Law

A lie by any other name does not make a truth, unless you’re the AFP

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its adversaries but rather by the fact that these adversaries finally die, and a new generation grows up familiar with the…

26 Comments
August 22, 2012
Accountability / ACT Government / Australian Federal Police / Commonwealth Government / Corporate profit / Corporate responsibility / Corruption / Democracy / Equality / Ernst & Young / Government / Hypocrisy / Law Enforcement / Rule of Law

The real problem with hypocrisy – it knows no honour

The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting. Milan Kundera One of the first Communist texts I read, following the French edition of Quotations from…

25 Comments
July 19, 2012
ACT Government / AHRC/HREOC / Assimilation / Australian Federal Police / Australian Labor Party / Commonwealth Government / Culture / Discrimination/Racism / Equality / Government / Government welfare / Human Rights / Law / Law Enforcement / Police / Rule of Law / Sexism

Forty years on, Indigenous women still without rights

It was freezing last night where I slept in my travels, below freezing in fact. In Bangerang country, home of the Yorta Yorta people, Mother Nature may have frozen the…

28 Comments
July 7, 2012
Accountability / Asia-Pacific / Australian Federal Police / Commonwealth Government / Corruption / Discrimination/Racism / Fred Martens / Government / Justice / Law / Law Enforcement / Neo-Colonialism / PNG / Racism / RAMSI / Rule of Law / Solomon Islands

An ‘Ethics Commissioner’ without ethics: welcome to Australia

Yesterday, Thursday I received a phone call from Captain Fred Martens, the man who spent a 1,000 days in jail, having been wrongly convicted of an offence under Australia’s Child…

20 Comments
March 9, 2012
Accountability / Asia-Pacific / Australian Federal Police / Commonwealth Government / Corruption / Democracy / Discrimination/Racism / Equality / Government / International Law / Julian Moti / Justice / Law / Law Enforcement / PNG / RAMSI / Rule of Law / Solomon Islands

Lost Sovereignty; a disgraced judge and a kidnapped Attorney-General

Carl Schmitt’s Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty is both famous and obscure. A twentieth-century political theory, containing two canonical sentences: "Sovereign is he who decides on…

1 Comment
January 31, 2012
ACT Government / Australian Defence Force / Australian Federal Police / Commonwealth Government / Commonwealth Ombudsman / Corporate profit / Corporate responsibility / Corruption / Discrimination/Racism / Ernst & Young / Former Commissioner / Government / Human Rights / Law Enforcement / Refugee Policy / Refugees / Respect / Rule of Law

Ernst & Young: A vehicle for hiding corruption in Canberra

There is no question about racism being a profound form of ignorance, but when it becomes something that informs employment decisions by one of the world’s biggest accounting firms, Ernst…

24 Comments
September 26, 2011
Accountability / Arc of instability / Asia-Pacific / Australian Defence Force / Australian Federal Police / Commonwealth Government / Corporate profit / Corruption / Democracy / Discrimination/Racism / Equality / First Nations/Indigenous / Government / Human Rights / Hypocrisy / Indonesia / International Law / Law Enforcement / Neo-Colonialism / Pacific Neighbours / PNG / Racism / Rule of Law / Shared humanity / Solomon Islands

Fear and Trembling – Australia’s gutless approach to the genocide in Papua

The following article appeared in Friday’s Jakarta Post: Maj. Gen. Wisnu Bawatenaya has been appointed to become commander of the Indonesian Army Special Forces (Kopassus) replacing Maj. Gen. Lodewijk F…

21 Comments
September 13, 2011
Accountability / ACT Government / Arc of instability / Asia-Pacific / Commonwealth Government / Corruption / Culture / Democracy / Discrimination/Racism / Equality / First Nations/Indigenous / Government / Human Rights / International Law / Law Enforcement / Neo-Colonialism / Pacific Neighbours / PNG / Racism / RAMSI / Respect / Rule of Law / Solomon Islands / Stanhope Government / United Nations

The wisdom of Miles Jordana: Hidden in plain sight

The following is a modified version of an article which first appeared in the Fiji Sun on 12 September, 2011 and which Blak and Black has linked to since publishing…

21 Comments
September 12, 2011