Attack dog journalism, with rabies

Note to Chris Mitchell: It’s the red pills in the morning, and the green ones at night.

THE AUSTRALIAN newspaper’s obsession with a ‘tweet’ tells us more about our national broadsheet than it does about the tweeter, writes CHRIS GRAHAM.

Making black policy: The HOP, skip and dump

Former Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Mal Brough… his plan to transform home ownership on Indigenous lands has been a policy failure.

EVERY now and then, a story comes along that sums up Aboriginal affairs perfectly. The floundering Home Ownership on Indigenous Lands program – and in particular the media’s coverage of it – is one such yarn, writes CHRIS GRAHAM.

The heroes and villains of black budgets past

Gough Whitlam famously pours sand into the hands of Vincent Lingiari in 1974, as he announces the return of Aboriginal land to traditional custodians. Just a few weeks earlier, Whitlam cut funding to the Aboriginal budget despite a massive increase in the government’s coffers.

WHEN you’re in Opposition, sometimes you have to say silly things to get a headline. Hence, in 2003 the Howard government introduced a tax cut worth about $4 a week to average families. The then Federal Opposition Leader, Simon Crean, thought he could smell some political blood in the water, so he called a news conference.

Another gap gets bigger

Canberra, February 8, 2005: Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet Dr Peter Shergold at the Senate inquiry into the Administration of Indigenous Affairs in Canberra.

KEVIN Rudd, and now Julia Gillard, have both committed to “Close the Gap” between black and white Australians. But in the area of black employment in the Australian Public Service, Labor is still failing its targets, writes CHRIS GRAHAM.