Tag: Australians

Prime Minister Scott Morrison was responding to an Al Jazeera documentary that reported One Nation party officials Steve Dickson and James Ashby flew to the United States for meetings with pro-gun interests, including the National Rifle Association and political donors Koch Industries in September last year seeking money to undermine Australian gun laws. Dickson and Ashby later told reporters that they had not secured any U.S. money. Morrison said his government had made laws to “criminalize taking foreign political donations so foreign lobbyists cannot seek to influence our politics.” Opposition leader Bill Shorten, whom opinion polls suggest will be prime minister after the election, accused One Nation of a “betrayal of the Australian political system.” “The idea of One National political party operatives going to the United States, seeking millions of dollars, promising to water down gun law protection in Australia — that was absolutely horrifying,” Shorten said. One Nation, an anti-Muslim party that had four senators after 2016 election but has been left with two after defections, said in a statement that all party members “have always complied with the law.” One Nation also suggested the Qatar-owned Al Jazeera had breached new laws that prohibit covert foreign interference in Australian politics. The NRA did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. This was not about sourcing money from the NRA. One Nation state president Steve Dickson, who is a Senate candidate at the next election, traveled with Ashby and Muller to the United States to ask for political donations, Al Jazeera reported. Dickson told reporters on Tuesday he supported Australia’s gun laws. Hanson, One Nation’s leader who was criticized for wearing a burqa in the Senate, voted for the ban on foreign donations in November. “Overseas money should not have an influence in our political scene … so I believe foreign donations should be stopped,” Hanson told the Senate.

Aa Aa Concerns over ethical reporting and the internet's role in radicalisation have resurfaced after two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, were targeted in an attack on Friday that killed 50 people. Australian Brenton Tarrant, who describes himself as a white supremacist, has been charged for the murders. The suspect had indicated in his "manifesto" that his views on immigration "dramatically changed" after visiting Europe. Referencing how the "manifesto" was published online and the shooting was live-streamed, Portuguese MEP Ana Gomes warned that online communities play a role in a rise in extremism. "What I'm saying is that we need to develop counter-strategies that involve the communities, the families, to detect these individuals that are disturbed or that are prone to be radicalised," Gomes said. "We know that, for instance, the dark web plays a role in the radicalisation". Continuing to discuss the role that media can play in radicalisation, Euractiv reporter Brian Maguire said that the media should work on reevaluating how they report on events such as what happened on Friday. "We have to be very careful of how we report suicides, not to inspire others or to lead others to have that tendency," Maguire said. "We should have much more careful reporting when it comes to terror attacks."

Aa Aa Concerns over ethical reporting and the internet's role in radicalisation have resurfaced after two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, were targeted in an attack on Friday that killed 50 people. Australian Brenton Tarrant, who describes himself as a white supremacist, has been charged for the murders. The suspect had indicated in his "manifesto" that his views on immigration "dramatically changed" after visiting Europe. Referencing how the "manifesto" was published online and the shooting was live-streamed, Portuguese MEP Ana Gomes warned that online communities play a role in a rise in extremism. "What I'm saying is that we need to develop counter-strategies that involve the communities, the families, to detect these individuals that are disturbed or that are prone to be radicalised," Gomes said. "We know that, for instance, the dark web plays a role in the radicalisation". Continuing to discuss the role that media can play in radicalisation, Euractiv reporter Brian Maguire said that the media should work on reevaluating how they report on events such as what happened on Friday. "We have to be very careful of how we report suicides, not to inspire others or to lead others to have that tendency," Maguire said. "We should have much more careful reporting when it comes to terror attacks."

In international terms, Australia is a beacon, a country with a thriving economy and a political system that has not yet turned entirely on itself and succumbed to the populist forces roiling democracies elsewhere. Still, 2018 was a brutal year in national affairs. The defenestration was a panicked response to poor results for the ruling Coalition in byelection contests, and it has damaged the government’s political standing. But Turnbull’s replacement, Scott Morrison, has spent the opening months of his prime ministership in overdrive, trying to build a legacy to campaign on when voters go the polls in the first half of 2019. His objective is to hold an election in May, after first delivering an economic statement projecting a return to surplus, which would be the first positive bottom line delivered by an Australian government since the global financial crisis. Public opinion polls suggest an electoral rout looms for the Coalition. The government has not won a poll since the 2015 election. The major parties have undermined their own stability premium, which has helped fuel the rise of insurgents But the political story in 2019 is more complex and dynamic than a traditional major party contest that will play out in the first six months of the year. Voters are showing interest in political disruptors – mainly non-aligned independents now contesting elections, both state and federal, in growing numbers, and with increasing professionalism. While election cycles can be polarising, particularly at times when there is a national mood to change the government, one of the more fascinating stories of 2019 will be the extent to which political independents continue to disrupt the status quo, and the implications of that for the character of the parliaments that are eventually formed.

Why does Big Food hold such a powerful grip on Australian food and nutrition policy? The political power of Big Food The Four Corners program is consistent with our prior research showing that Big Food’s power to obfuscate, delay and undermine food and nutrition policy reform stems from several sources. Read more: Fat nation: the rise and fall of obesity on the political agenda Many tactics used by these transnational, economic titans sway public policy against what health research shows is the best way forward. Four Corners showed Big Sugar’s power also comes through its economic and political importance in the swing “sugar states” of Northern Australia. Evidence for a sugar tax Geoff Parker, CEO of the Australian Beverages Council, told Four Corners that policymakers have not implemented a sugary drinks tax because they “look to the evidence base”. Over half of free sugars is estimated to come from sugary drinks. Read more: What the world can learn from Mexico's tax on sugar-sweetened drinks Of course a sugary drinks tax is no silver bullet. Obesity is in-turn only one among several nutrition problems that will need to be tackled if Australia’s overall disease burden is to be reduced. Going forward, the most effective and efficient activity to promote good nutrition and prevent diet-related diseases, is a coherent national nutrition policy based on the Australian Dietary Guidelines. Such a policy will involve governments, nutrition scientists, industry and civil society working together across the food system – from food production through to retail – to promote consumption of five food group foods and the avoidance of discretionary foods.

The Christian right has been a forceful presence in American political life since the 1970s. Australian political religion began as an expression of identity, but today draws much of its appeal on notions of self-governance. Catholics and Protestants For the first half of the 20th century, religious identity was a major faultline in Australian politics: Protestants tended to support conservative parties; Catholics generally favoured Labor. Among Catholics, disproportionately less educated, religion was still understood as a form of group identity rather than a way of living. They defied the Labor and Catholic establishment to form the Democratic Labor Party (DLP) after the 1955 Labor Party split. Australia provided only a faint echo, but for ambitious evangelicals, the American Christian right was a model. Evangelical Christians pushed into politics even more explicitly in the 2000s. In 2002, former Assemblies of God pastor Andrew Evans established the political party Family First, and was elected to the South Australian upper house. But this moral panic misjudged the appeal of religion. Political entrepreneurs like Evans successfully corralled religious voters, but for many of them the appeal of religion was as a technology of self-governance.