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JENNY Macklin has slapped down ambitions for a new indigenous representative body to have legislative powers, declaring the Rudd Government has no intention of creating "another ATSIC". more

Attorney-General Robert McClelland says the government will recommend to the governor-general that Justice Bell be appointed to the court from February 3 next year. more

IT IS extraordinary that any lawyer - let alone retired High Court judges or colourful QCs - can seriously contend that the common law and democratically elected parliaments are adequate to protect human rights. more

AUSTRALIA is a step closer to getting a bill of rights, which could enshrine rights to free speech and non-discrimination. The Federal Government is set to begin a consultation process into what the document should look like next week. more

PORT MORESBY: Frustrated women in Papua New Guinea's Highland region are killing their male babies to end a tribal fight that has warred for more than 20 years. more

NSW Attorney-General John Hatzistergos has staged an extraordinary attack on High Court judge Michael Kirby, describing recent comments as unnecessarily provocative and profoundly wrong. more

ONE in every three boys think it is okay to hit girls, and many think forcing "flirts" to have sex is acceptable, a survey shows. more

How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb? None. Feminists can't change a thing. In the past year my email inbox has been inundated with jokes of this kind. As a young feminist coming up through the ranks I seem to have become something of a novelty for my friends and family who, eager to get a rise out of me, relish sending me anti-feminist jokes and articles. more

IT is extraordinary how quickly the Government of Kevin Rudd has lost the goodwill of the Canberra press gallery. Women in the gallery, in particular, seem upset with the approach of the PM's media office. more

THE Governor-General, Michael Jeffery, says a directly elected president would be a "risk" to political stability and may lead to friction between the head of state and prime minister. more

DESPITE an earlier assurance by Kevin Rudd, the batting feats of Sir Donald Bradman are not guaranteed to survive an overhaul of the Australian citizenship test. more

AUSTRALIA'S creaky constitutional framework would get a makeover - with a republic, a bill of rights and a preamble in the Constitution recognising indigenous people's custodianship over the land and sea - under proposals adopted at the summit. more

History stands against Kevin Rudd's ambitious plans for constitutional change, writes George Williams. more

At 11.58am on Wednesday one half of the Australian Parliament "celebrated" the 60th anniversary of the state of Israel. More than a third of that one-half was absent, whatever their reasons. A number of MPs deliberately excluded themselves. Labor's Kevin Rudd, as the host, did not. more

Emily Maguire, the author of Princesses & Pornstars, talks to Ruth Pollard about the sisterhood and being labelled a slut. That Kevin Rudd put only one woman on his 2020 Summit steering committee would have come as no surprise to the 51 per cent of the country who are female. In the past two weeks, Australia's dark underbelly of sexism has revealed itself as alive and well in four of the pillars of our society - politics, employment, sport and religion. more

CATE BLANCHETT will join the former deputy prime minister Tim Fischer and the vice-chancellor of the University of Melbourne, Glyn Davis, on the steering committee of the Federal Government's Australia 2020 Summit. more

HALF of all Australians lack the minimum reading, writing and problem-solving skills to cope with life in the modern world. more

The Lewingtons have been farming near the village of Uranquinty, just south of Wagga Wagga, for more than a century. In the late 1930s a lump of the Lewington property was taken over by the Defence Department for a wartime air force base which survived until 1959. Later, Jenny Lewington married into the family and moved to Uranquinty in the early 1970s. These days Jenny Lewington edits the Uranquinty Newsletter, without which I'd never have heard of Puddin' Rudd. more

TWO women will sit on the country's top bench for the first time after the Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, appointed a Queensland judge, Susan Kiefel, to the High Court. more

INDIA did it in 1966. Britain did it in 1979. New Zealand did it in 1997, but Australia never has. It is perhaps the biggest disconnect between our egalitarian self-image of a fair go for all and a more discriminatory reality. more

At 9 am yesterday, as Philip Ruddock was about to address a symposium on Law & Liberty in the War on Terror, an anti-war activist confronted Ruddock with a formal Warrant, charging him with various war crimes. more

With so many candidates clamouring for top spot over the past week, the time has come for a mid-year (OK, early May) review of current standings on the gaffe hit parade. more

You've been taken for mugs. And Bill Heffernan is handy fodder. All that confected outrage after the latest edition of The Bulletin went on sale on Wednesday, and for what? I'll tell you. The press and the politicians are having election-year party time with remarks a year old. They were first published in a 4500-word profile in the Herald magazine, Good Weekend, in May last year under the headline, "Hard Man of the Hill". Did anyone froth and fume at the time? more

JOHN Howard has launched a full-frontal attack on Kevin Rudd's credentials, declaring that only the Coalition can be trusted to deliver targets to cut Australia's greenhouse gas emissions without wrecking the economy. more

THE pay gap between men and women is widening and the Fair Pay Commission has a responsibility to help reverse the trend, an academic report says. more

Socialist Alliance significantly increased its upper house vote in Saturday’s election. With up to a million votes still to be counted, the Socialist Alliance ticket had received 12,476 (0.38%) votes on the latest available figures. more

Federal Parliament, both sides of it, could do with an industrial strength make-over. You know the kind. A sweeping attack on all that dead wood, lots of slimming down and skilling up, leaving you with a better quality of politicians who understand accountability and basic common sense. more

In a landmark religious decision, the Grand Mufti of Egypt, Dr. Ali Gomaa, has upheld a fatwa (religious opinion) he issued a year ago stating that, according to Islamic law, women in contemporary Islamic societies have the right to become heads of state and lead nations based upon the legal reasoning of Imam Al-Tabari allowing women to serve in political positions as well as judges. more

Australia once led the world in efforts to improve equality between women and men. more

KEVIN Rudd is not the Messiah. So said the Education Minister, Julie Bishop, yesterday as she accused Mr Rudd of poaching the idea of introducing a national school curriculum. more

Newly bald Britney Spears has checked herself back into rehab after a weekend of excessive partying and unsavoury exhibitionism, just another young woman self-destructing in front of our eyes. more

Psychologists call for replacing sexualized images of girls in media and advertising with positive ones more

The 41st Parliament, Ministry more

All Zimbabweans shall be equal, regardless of gender, physical ability, colour, national origin or tribe. Women’s and children’s rights shall be promoted and protected; more

MORE than 800 members of Women Of Zimbabwe Arise and Men Of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA/MOZA) today marched to Parliament in Harare to launch the People's Charter. Two groups started at different locations in central Harare, converging on Parliament at the same time. Upon arriving at Parliament, the two groups were met by riot police and arrested. more

Non-government organizations in Fiji have condemned possible regional intervention in the worsening standoff between the Government and the military, saying this move threatens the country's sovereignty and the rule of law. more

Dr Derek Wall and Siân Berry have been announced as the two new Principal Speakers of the Green Party of England and Wales. more

WITH the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Soviet communism, it became all too easy to pretend that the outcome of the Cold War was an inevitable result of large-scale, impersonal forces that ultimately left totalitarianism exhausted and democratic capitalism triumphant. more

SIXTY students at a Sydney high school can expect to be labelled failures 76 times over the next four years under the compulsory A to E grading system, the school's principal says. more

THREE state governments risk losing billions in schools funding after dismissing the finding of a summit of historians that recommended postmodern subjects be replaced with a traditional history course. The history summit communique foreshadowed a massive shift in the teaching of history, as well as a new level of commonwealth interference in state and territory education systems. more

John Howard wanted the new border protection laws but not at any cost, writes Gerard Henderson. more more

RADIO station ABC 774 has censored criticism of controversial ABC board member Keith Windschuttle more

The formation of a National Elders Council reached another milestone today with the announcement of the Aboriginal Government of Elders (AGE) NSW. more

'HELLO everyone," said the email. "The AFP issued a search warrant on my house on Friday, and I was suspended from my day job at OIPC on Sunday. Wanted to let our network know. Happy for your support, verbally or in your thoughts." It was signed Tjanara Goreng. more

There are a few changes in this issue of Frontline. We have a broader editorial board and you may notice that we now describe ourselves as an ‘independent Marxist journal’. These changes stem from the decision of the International Socialist Movement platform to dissolve. Frontline was the journal of the ISM. more

We the participants in the World Peace Forum Women’s Program, held in Vancouver, B.C. Canada, June 23 to June 28, 2006 have gathered and exchanged stories from many countries. We have come to the conclusion that poverty, violation of human rights, inequality, environmental destruction, militarization and violence are increasing as the plans for a globalized, privatized world moves forward. more

Behind the rape and murder of an Iraqi girl and her family lies a far larger story of what's happened to women in Iraq since they were 'liberated' by the Bush administration. more

Some say “What a silly idea that war could ever be abolished. You can't change human nature!” But when you think about it, human nature has actually undergone significant evolutionary change. Just consider the development of language, and with it, the complexity of human communication and thought. And when it comes to resorting to war, it has become increasingly clear – at least to some observers – that it is a societal phenomenon rather than an unchangeable quality of human nature. more

THE ACT Government is considering a second shot at legal recognition of same-sex couples after the Federal Government yesterday pulled the rug on a law it says equated civil unions with marriage. more

Government's taskforce into nuclear energy has vowed he would approach the inquiry objectively and was not biased towards nuclear power. more

The women of Yuendumu are finding the solutions to problems plaguing their community. more

About 100 protesters, mainly women and children, also rallied near the main government building in a call for peace. more

Julia Gillard has accused the government of double standards after calling Tony Abbott a ``snivelling grub'' and being thrown out of parliament. more

I REFER to your article "Raping children part of 'men's business' " (16/5). I challenge, in the strongest terms possible, any suggestion that Aboriginal culture is to blame for endemic levels of sexual violence against children in Central Australia. It puts down the cultural values that I grew up with. more

TONY EASTLEY: The Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough will today ask state and territory leaders to attend an emergency summit to discuss the problems of violence in Indigenous communities. more

DECEIT BY THE TRUCKLOAD: PART TWO The story so far: despite emerging evidence of AWB's kickbacks, the Howard Government continued giving the wheat trader its unconditional support. By Marian Wilkinson and David Marr. more

It is the greatest international scam in Australia's history. David Marr and Marian Wilkinson reveal the inside story on the wheat board kickbacks. more

THE novel that means most to men is about indifference, alienation and lack of emotional response. The novel that means most to women is about deeply held feelings and a struggle to overcome circumstances and passion. more

SINGLE mothers have much worse mental health than other women, a survey of 20,000 women has found. It also suggests financial difficulties make this group highly vulnerable - even before the Federal Government's coming reform of their welfare payments. more

AUSTRALIA'S aid program must be overhauled and more funding given to health care, say the four women senators behind the RU486 debate. Sex education and reproductive rights should be emphasised, they say. more

Half of the world's population is discriminated against because of their gender. more

IT WAS a throwaway line from the chameleon Peter Costello, and who knows if he meant it. Having assumed the posture last week of a right-wing anti-Muslim bigot, he shifted to moderate mode this week to champion the cause of women. "We must look at how to improve opportunities for women to create the most female-friendly environment in the world," the Treasurer told the National Press Club. more

The Cole inquiry has adduced evidence making it clear that the Prime Minister's Department was aware of the bribes to Saddam Hussein's Iraq, made to ensure Australia's continuing wheat contract. more

They talk shop, gossip and offer each other support, but these women ambassadors also give new meaning to the phrase power lunch, writes Cynthia Banham. more

WOMEN MPs from all parties are planning to work together to influence government policies after their success in removing the Health Minister's veto on the abortion pill RU486. more

The abortion pill debate has shown the power of the women's voice. Anne Summers now wants to hear them roar. more

The shadow of abortion was never going to let the RU486 debate be just about a drug, writes Stephanie Peatling. more

BEFORE I read an extract from Maureen Dowd's new book, Are Men Necessary?, I hoped her stance was being exaggerated to sell copies, that no one would bother to make such a fuss over a book that argued that men are little more than walking-talking sperm banks destined for extinction thanks to modern science. I mean, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? more

AUSTRALIA has the world's most unpopular national flag. If you ask citizens of Britain, the United States, Canada, France or any other Western democracy whether they think their national flag should be changed, in almost every case fewer than 10 per cent think so. more

A former minister and a close ally of Prime Minister John Howard has urged the Federal Government to scrap the "shambles" of a child-care system and start from scratch to build a national policy. more

THE births of up to 10 million girls in India may have been prevented by selective abortion in the past 20 years, researchers say. more

THE 500 companies listed on Norway's stock exchange face being shut down unless they install women on their boards over the next two years in a radical initiative imposed by a government determined to help women break through the "glass ceiling". more

AS NSW begins to move into election mode, with a poll to be held in March next year, the law and order debate is expected to become more strident. However, politicians should reflect on their positions before engaging in this debate.

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