Archived publication for 2008
Recent publications
The imaginary bikie threat and due process in South Australia
South Australian Premier Mike Rann is obsessed with the Hells Angels. The Labor leader thinks that bikie gangs like the Hells Angels are a scourge on his state and the root of most evil, and that they are threatening the very existence of the good...
The moral code of Grand Theft Auto IV
Want to steal cars and shoot cops? Then Grand Theft Auto IV (GTA IV) is the videogame for you. You won't be the only one playing it: released for the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3 in April this year, it's the game of 2008. In its first...
Have bad movies edged out good?
Chris Berg reviews Sleaze Artists: Cinema at the Margins of Taste, Style, and Politics. It may not come as a surprise that Hostel: Part II, the 2007 movie which depicts nearly an hour and a half of brutal, explicit and uninterrupted torture, is...
Selections from A Political Rakes Progress
Constituents Make yourself seen by knocking every door. Reject that offer of a paramour. Well, press their interests in the Parliament And never ever cross the folk you represent. For so say they: so says your party too. Both claim your...
Volume 60 Number 3
Louise Staley on Gordon Ramsay's worst recipes, Chris Berg on the politics of the Olympics, Tony Barry on why the 'small target' strategy doesn't work, Benjamin Hourigan on violence and morality in Grand Theft Auto IV, Christopher Murn on how the...
ACCC analysis of FuelWatch unconvincing
A critique of the ACCC analysis of the FuelWatch scheme
Much has been made of the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission analysis of the Western Australian FuelWatch scheme. This paper investigates the ACCC analysis published last December and comments briefly on the additional analysis the...
The politics of wheat
For purely domestic political reasons, the government takes a strongly protectionist approach to the Australian wheat industry by limiting who can export wheat in bulk, the main form for transport of grain in the international grain trade.
New evidence of old concerns: Fair trade myths exposed... Again
This paper outlines new evidence questioning the benefits of fair trade; and demonstrates that concerns about fair trade's environmental, social and economic benefits are not merely differing ‘interpretations'.
All in good cause: Framing science for public policy