Past Programs
Government - State - 2007
The election and the environment
21/11/2007
If nothing else, the Federal election campaign has placed the environment on the political agenda as never before. The pulp mill, climate change and the drought - why have voters picked up the issues and how have the politicians responded?
Balance of power in the Senate
30/10/2007
Issues like the housing crisis, climate change and IR reform are all on the agenda in this election, but one of the emerging themes is: who will hold the Senate majority?
Electoral preference deals are firming up between the minor and major parties, and last week's Galaxy Poll showed that the Coalition was in the lead for Senate control.
Some people now think that voting Green in the Senate is insurance against two-party domination in Parliament -- a role traditionally held by the Democrats.
So what do the minor parties stand for, and what kinds of preference deals will be done? Who is likely to hold the balance of power in the Senate?
Shipwrecks
14/09/2007
We're diving into the world of shipwrecks. Australia helped develop some of the world's best practice in the handling of these important underwater cultural sites but has stalled at the barrier on signing a UNESCO convention that would help provide better protection for wrecks around the world.
Why do shipwrecks continue to fascinate and what's the best way to tell the stories that they hold?
Poker machine revenues
13/09/2007
Are our state treasuries -- as Kevin Rudd has suggested -- too dependent on poker machine revenues? Does the social impact of the pokies outweigh the benefits to the coffers and to the hospitality and entertainment industry, and is it realistic to expect that we can go about changing behaviour by limiting access to the one-armed bandits?
Different visions of the Tasmanian economy
22/08/2007
Competing visions of the Tasmanian economy? A 1.5 billion dollar pulp mill on one hand, and niche tourism, wineries and restaurants on the other. With the public on a ten day deadline to respond to the Gunns mill proposal we look at the tension between the clean and green image of the state, and the place of viable industry...
Looking beyond the Palm Island case.
05/02/2007
Paul Barclay begins "Australia Talks" for 2007 - with a discussion of the national implications of the decision to prosecute Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley in relation to the 2004 death of the man now known as Mulrunji Doomadgee.
Not just a Queensland story, what does it mean for legal review, for the role of politics in the legal system, for policing, for trust in public institutions, for Aboriginal deaths in custody . . . all across the country?
Join Paul Barclay - and guests Megan Davies, from the Indigenous Law Centre at UNSW; Assoc Prof Colleen Lewis, criminologist and specialist in police accountability from Monash University; and QC Robert Cock, WA DPP.
