If we want the best republic, the debate has to begin now

by David Muir

DEPUTY Prime Minister Wayne Swan joined Liberal MP Malcolm Turnbull last week to say a new debate on the republic was "overdue". It is appropriate that this debate be associated with the Queen's Birthday long weekend.

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Another Queen’s Birthday passes by

by Sarah Brasch

Every year, republicans watch the Queen’s barge slowly passing by at this time of year and pretty soon we will be celebrating the King’s birthday.

EVERY YEAR, republicans watch it "passing by" as Bob Menzies famously put it in 1963, quoting Elizabethan poet Thomas Ford (d.1648).

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WHY a REPUBLIC?

by PETER CONSANDINE © April 2013

In the pre-election climate obtaining, there are semblances of the kind of apprehension in the body politic that abounded in the republican referendum year of 1999. Perhaps this is because a percentage of the body politic are observing a general trashing of the place being perpetrated by a desperate Federal Labor government in its death throes.

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Working Casual - The New Black

by Mark Drummond (CIT 1999-2009)

Canberra Institute of Technology employs almost half a casual workforce. These casual teachers are the most vulnerable to bullying. This site aims to keep the pressure on the bullies.

''We've been saying to staff very clearly that we want them to speak up, that the RED framework gives you a language to speak up and framework within which you can speak up, and so if we were investing this effort and not seeing a tip-up, we'd be concerned.'' (Commissioner Andrew Kefford, October 3, 2012 quoted in an article by Noel Towell Canberra Times).

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Save Parkes Place ― because symbols matter

by Benjamin Thomas Jones

An international visitor to Australia would be excused for thinking this country is still a British colony under the control of the royal family. Evidence of the British royals can be found in every state and territory ? indeed two of our six states are directly named for a British royal. Streets, buildings, statues and other memorials named George, Edward and, of course, Victoria are literally everywhere. The present monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, who recently enjoyed her diamond jubilee, has hardly been forgotten. Hospitals, parks, suburbs and roads across the country all bear her name and, of course, her image is on the reverse of every Australian coin. Many schools and Defence Force buildings also have a portrait in honour of the monarch. The British royals are nothing if not revered.

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