Australia

Prime Minister cannot continue to leave an example of 'trust me' and 'I was young and naive' while other Australians would have come before the justice system

Julia Gillard claimed that she was young and naive while her then partner, Bruce Wilson, siphoned members' funds from the AWU but instead she was a 36 year old lawyer, and a partner in the burgeoning law firm, Slater and Gordon.

A refresher on who’s behind one of our uranium mines

Jim Green

The story behind the corporation that owns the Beverley uranium mine in north-east South Australia is scarcely believable.

By Systemic Disorder Imagine a world in which which labor safeguards, safety rules and environmental regulations will be struck down because a multi-national corporation’s profits might be affected. A world in which measures to reign in financial speculation are illegal. A world in which the task of governments, codified in law, is to maximize corporate profits.

Imagine a world in which corporations can bypass national laws and courts when they are in a dispute with a government, and instead can have their dispute adjudicated by a closed tribunal controlled by their lawyers.

Unfortunately, the above is not dystopian science fiction; it is the reality of the top-secret Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Related: More analysis of the TPPA -- Occupy the TPPA -- Melbourne protest at TPPA negotiations

By Chris Graham*

Mal Brough has won Liberal National Party pre-selection for the seat of Fisher, virtually guaranteeing him a seat in federal parliament in 2013… unless voters find out about his past performance, of course.

The best predictor of someone’s future behaviour is their past behaviour. Which means that with Mal Brough winning pre-selection for the federal seat of Fisher, parliament is in for a sideshow the likes of which it hasn’t seen since… well, the last time Brough was there.