With a million people from all over the world applying each year to migrate to Australia, it is natural to assume that much of the debate about Australian immigration policy revolves around the limited numbers, out of all those who apply, who are selected.
Recently I had occasion to think very hard about The Sydney Institute due to a contribution made by Sydney personality and political stirrer, Bob Gould, at a conference on privatisation which I was attending. There was a raging debate by various members of the Labor party over the privatisation issue.
Soon after the formation of the Labor Party there was an intense debate about what it means to be Labor. How could it be otherwise? After the Labor Party won 36 seats in the NSW Legislative Assembly elections in June 1891 splits occurred over the issue of caucus solidarity. Questions arose as to the right alliances and tactics to be pursued.
As a young boy William John McKell watched a procession of men and women marching by the Sydney Town Hall on 26 January 1901. They were celebrating Australia’s birth out of the six federated colonies.
There is a large irony about the composition of the Third Hawke Labor government. Although it is sometimes said that the NSW ALP dominates the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party, the fact is that NSW enjoys its lowest representation in a Federal Labor ministry since the formation of the Scullin Cabinet in 1929.
The trade union movement, as Engels once said of the proletariat, has discredited itself terribly at various moments of human history.
At the November 1986 ACTU Special Unions Conference the investment policies of superannuation funds came under scrutiny. A policy concerning the utility of current trends and practices was adopted by this Conference.
First circulated at the NSW ALP Council Meeting held at the NSW Teachers’ Federation auditorium in September 1977 Labor Leader was unmistakably a NSW ALP right wing factional newspaper, with various attacks on the Left and statements and articles articulating a social democratic approach.
There are three issues that need to be addressed in the current debate on immigration policy: how many migrants, what guidelines should apply and where they should be settled.
Throughout the debate on immigration, a debate ignited by Professor Blainey’s views, all sides have claimed to represent the average man.