Dean Dwyer

Australian writer, Richard Flanagan, is a celebrated novelist and historian, notably receiving the Booker Prize for one of his works of fiction. As a journalist, he has written for various Australian and international publications, including Le Monde, The Daily Telegraph, The New York Times, and The New Yorker. Yet, in spite of the fact he is clearly a gifted writer, his latest non-fiction work should in fact be filed under the category “nonsense”. From the 20th to the 30th of August,...

As we are all familiar with, most Western societies divide power into three distinct branches: the legislative, the executive and the judicial. Focusing on the judicial branch, the role of our courts is to decide on cases brought before the court by interpreting and applying the law ensuring that, particularly in the area of criminal law, the appropriate penalties are handed down. However, for the court system to function as designed, judges should at all times remain impartial. So far...

Although it remains a confusing and somewhat vague idea, across the Australian political spectrum we have recently seen the rise of a newly favoured phrase: “social cohesion”. Because Australian politicians are now using it with such regularity, it is helpful to understand what it means to the ruling class, how they propose to achieve it and how it is measured. Broadly speaking, social cohesion has been described as the “glue” that binds society together. Or, if you desire a more robust...