Bücher veröffentlicht von Connor Court Publishing Pty Ltd

The Governor-General of Australia is not a mere figurehead. Governors-General possess real power which is given to them by the Constitution. It is intended that these 'reserve' powers should be used only very rarely. One of these is the power to withdraw the commission of a Prime Minister, and this was invoked in 1975 by Governor-General Sir John Kerr to resolve an intractable political impasse. As a result of his actions, Kerr has been vilified mercilessly ever since.Villain or Victim argues that Kerr acted constitutionally, judiciously and effectively. It also postulates that the campaign against him has been crafted and sustained to undermine those reserve powers and to intimidate future Governors-General against their use. This compelling book explains the constitutional basis for Kerr's decision, clarifies the role of the Monarch in Australia and warns that circumstances under which the use of any of the reserve powers may be called for, could very easily arise in the near future. Australia needs a Governor-General well versed in the nature of these powers and prepared to use them when necessary. And we need an informed public that is able to understand such action.Peter O'Brien graduated from the Royal Military College Duntroon in 1970 and was posted as an infantry platoon commander on operations in South Vietnam with the Fourth Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment. He served in the Australian Army for twenty-one years, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. During his military service he gained a Bachelor of Science degree, a Graduate Diploma in Data Processing and a Diploma of Military Studies.After retiring from the Army, Peter spent twenty years in business and scientific computer sales. He has contributed frequently to Quadrant and Spectator Magazines and is the author of Bitter Harvest - the illusion of Aboriginal agriculture in Bruce Pascoe's Dark Emu.

Acclaimed by many as Australia's greatest prime minister, John Curtin overcame alcoholism and a troubled relationship with the Scullin Labour Government to win the Labor leadership by one vote in October 1935. Rescuing the Labor Party from division and humiliating defeats in 1931 and 1934, he put it in a position to win in the years after 1937. A constructive wartime Leader of the Opposition, he engineered the creation of an Advisory War Council to help minority Coalition and Labor governments manage a divided House of Representatives. From October 1941 he steered his wartime Labor Government through perhaps the greatest strategic challenge that Australia has ever faced. In doing so, he led Labor to one of its most emphatic electoral victories in 1943 and put his party in a position to enshrine long-held aspirations such as national control of banking and provision for a welfare state. His death in July 1945 was met with a national outpouring of grief that underlined the extent to which Curtin had been recognised as a national leader above party. David Lee is Associate Professor in History, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of New South Wales, Canberra. He was General Editor of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's Documents on Australian Foreign Policy series from 1997 to 2019. His publications include Australia and the World in the Twentieth Century (2005), Stanley Melbourne Bruce: Australian Internationalist (2010) and The Second Rush: Mining and the Transformation of Australia (2016).

The ABC was established in 1932, following in the footsteps of the BBC. In its early years it was a shining example of a revered public broadcaster.The key to its early success was having two strong minded, long serving General Managers who ensured that the place was well run, with everyone knowing their place.But as the years went by senior management progressively outsourced responsibility to producers and celebrity presenters and the organisation lost its way, so that now it is little more than a mouthpiece for "progressive" outpourings.It still remains an important national institution, especially in regional Australia, but its political obsessions, catering almost exclusively for inner suburban elites, render it in dire need of reform.As Alston argues, the fundamental problem is that the ABC is a protected entity, with a guaranteed income in excess of a billion dollars, while commercial media outlets struggle to stay alive.With no competitors it doesn't have to earn a living and has no incentive to perform or innovate, let alone live within its means. Instead of catering for its audience it prefers to lecture to them.Effectively accountable to no one, it feels free to ignore its charter obligations, or the interests of its audience, ignoring valid criticism or contemptuously dismissing it.Despite being founded in the depths of the Depression it has long since lost interest in the joys and struggles of the middle class.Instead of relating to basic issues such as jobs, families and incomes it prefers to pander to the elite, inner urban instincts of people like themselves.Alston concludes with a practical reform agenda for adoption by government, but no doubt it will be strenuously contested by the organisation.Richard Alston AO has been a barrister, a senior Cabinet Minister, Australian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and Federal President of the Liberal Party. He is currently a businessman and company director.

Now that fifteen years have passed since I began writing the Question Time column for The Catholic Weekly and this fifth volume of questions and answers sees the light of day, it is time to write a new Introduction.How did this whole project begin? It started in 2004 when I was Director of the Catholic Adult Education Centre of the Archdiocese of Sydney and was receiving occasional questions about the Catholic faith. I duly answered them and filed the answers in a folder on my office computer. In December of that year I was sitting with the editor of The Catholic Weekly at a lunch and offered to use this material to write a question-and-answer column for the paper. His eyes lit up because the Archbishop had asked him to find someone to write such a column and now here was someone offering to do so.I began writing the column in January 2005 and have done so every week since then. Soon I was receiving reports of people who were cutting out the columns and pasting them on paper for future reference, or photocopying them for others. Over those first years numerous people asked if there was any plan to publish the columns as a book.As regards the structure of the book, it seemed appropriate to arrange the questions and answers systematically by topic, following the general structure of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Thus, in all the volumes Chapter 1 deals with matters of Catholic doctrine, Chapter 2 with questions relating to the sacraments and the liturgy in general, Chapter 3 with matters of morals and Chapter 4 with questions relating to prayer and Christian devotions.People sometimes ask if I am running out of questions. The answer is an emphatic no. I receive an envelope from The Catholic Weekly from time to time containing questions sent in by readers and from that source alone I have more questions than I can answer. But questions also come directly by email from around the country, and even from abroad, and many others come from personal conversations and from classes I give. So there is no shortage of questions.How long can I keep this up? God only knows. I continue to write the column and all the new ones go into a folder on my computer titled Question Time 6. So my intention at present is to write long enough at least to bring that book to light. After that, we shall see.

Are pupils, parents and the public being fed political propaganda on climate change? Now is your chance to find out. Professor Plimer gives 101 simple questions with answers for you to ask teachers, activists, journalists and politicians. The climate industry adjusts the temperature record and withholds raw data, computer codes and information from scrutiny. Computer predictions of a scary future don't agree with measurements. Past natural climate changes have been larger and more rapid than the worst case predictions yet humans adapted. Is human-induced global warming the biggest financial and scientific scam in history? If it is, we will pay dearly.About the author: PROFESSOR IAN PLIMER (The University of Adelaide) is Australia's best-known geologist. He is also Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences at The University of Melbourne where he was Professor and Head of Earth Sciences (1991-2005) after serving at The University of Newcastle (1985-1991) as Professor and Head of Geology. He was on the staff of the University of New England, The University of New South Wales and Macquarie University. He has published more than 120 scientific papers on geology. This is his eighth book written for the general public, the best known of which are Telling lies for God (Random House), Milos-Geologic History (Koan), A Short History of Planet Earth (ABC Books) and his best-selling Heaven+Earth (Connor Court). He won the Leopold von Buch Plakette (German Geological Society), Clarke Medal (Royal Society of NSW), Sir Willis Connolly Medal (Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy), was elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering and was elected Honorary Fellow of the Geological Society of London. In 1995, he was Australian Humanist of the Year and later was awarded the Centenary Medal. He was Managing Editor of Mineralium Deposita, president of the SGA, president of IAGOD, president of the Australian Geoscience Council and sat on the Earth Sciences Committee of the Australian Research Council for many years. He won the Eureka Prize for the promotion of science, the Eureka Prize for A Short History of Planet Earth and the Michael Daley Prize (now a Eureka Prize) for science broadcasting. He is an advisor to governments and corporations and a regular broadcaster.

Australian Biographical Monograph, No 15. The cabinet has one leader who announces its policy. When he announces it, we follow, and as soon as he announces it, we know where we stand. We do not seek to know what he is going to do, and are prepared to surrender our judgement, if necessary, in advance.-- Mark Gosling, Chief Secretary in Lang''s 1930-32 Cabinet (quoted by L.F. Crisp)Jack Lang, Labor Premier of New South Wales from 1925-27 and 1930-32, was until his death in 1975, a hero for some in his party and reviled by others. This biography highlights the disruption he was responsible for, particularly to the Labor Party. Indeed, his legislative achievements are outweighed by the damage he caused to the economy, politics and social cohesion of New South Wales. Lang''s leadership style was autocratic, messianic, radical, and vindictive. Although he still has his defenders, Lang is now better remembered for his notoriety, particularly his 1932 dismissal by Governor Game, rather than his achievements. It was left to others like Bill McKell, who became Premier in 1941, rebuild the Labor Party, and, more importantly, bring it back to its true mission of helping those in need rather than indulging in self-serving political crusades of the type pursued by Lang.Dr David Clune OAM was for many years the Manager of the NSW Parliament''s Research Service and the Parliament''s Historian. He is currently an Honorary Associate in the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney and Consultant Historian to the NSW Legislative Council History Project. Dr Clune has written extensively about NSW politics and history.