It’s Time: Women and Affirmative Action in the Liberal Party
Australian political parties may legally pursue affirmative-action policies of quotas if they are intended to achieve equal or near-equal outcomes between men and women. The Labor Party has taken advantage of this to bolster the number of women in its ranks. This article argues that the Liberal Party has for too long resisted affirmative-action. Adopting a quota system to increase the percentage of women in the Liberal Party’s parliamentary team should improve its quality and may prove a useful means in providing women with political equality and fair representation.
Ainslie van Onselen
The Monolith Becomes Fragile
The events in South Africa over the last year have left the African national Congress in a state of disarray. Effectively the party has seen the moderate replaced by left wing ideologues. In their successful attempts to wrest control from the Mbeki faction, the Zuma/Motlanthe axis have allowed the movement to shed some of its most talented leaders. – all leaders revered for their role in the liberation struggle. In the past, the glue of liberation was such that it kept the party together as a cohesive unit. Now, the glue is fast becoming unstuck.
Daniel Silke
Alan Reid’s Wartime Scrapbook
A scrapbook of press cuttings that once belonged to the legendary political reporter Alan Reid has recently come to light. It comprises newspaper articles that Reid wrote from Canberra in 1940 and eloquently testifies to his ambition as a young journalist while the content of the articles provides fascination glimpses of life and work in the national capital at the start of World War II.
Stephen Holt
Who’s the Money Fetishist? Coinage in New Guinea Between the World Wars
There is far more to money than its pure economic functions. Historically, money acquired importance in the West as a representation of the current ruler of the empires that European states carved out from the 16th Century onwards. Within these empires the issue of a local coinage emerged as an important symbol of national identity. This article explores the story of coinage in New Guinea and the clash of the symbolic meanings attached to it by Europeans and indigenous people.
John Perkins
Mind Your Language
Rachel Morris
The Murder of the “Reverend” Mr Clode: Capitalism, Debt and Death in Early New South Wales
George Parsons
Review Essay – ‘Tart Noir’: Erotica or Pornography?
Tony Smith
Lost Interwar Motoring Heritage
Ian Willis
South Australian Young Tall Poppy Science Awards 2008
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