153 research outputs found
The Australian at forty-five
No full textFor all its faults, it’s a miracle that it exists. But it could be a whole lot better, writes Rodney Tiffen on our partner website, INSIDE STORY
Why Bill Shorten and Labor can afford to ignore Rupert Murdoch
No full textWith declining reach and influence, the Murdoch empire can no longer determine election results, writes Rodney Tiffen
Deep Throat comes out: revisiting Watergate
No full textThe last great secret from Watergate has been revealed 31 years after the scandal forced President Nixon to become the first US President to resign. In the frenzy of comment following Mark Felt\u27s revelation, many legends about Watergate have been revived - and many have only a tenuous relationship to the facts, writes Rodney Tiffen
The US Electoral College: the antiquated key to presidential success
No full textPresidential elections in the United States are decided not by the popular vote but by the election of state delegates to the Electoral College. In this APO Backgrounder RODNEY TIFFEN describes how the system works and what it means for the result - and looks at the latest polling from the United States.
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Keneally's chance to choose how to lose
No full textKristina Keneally can\u27t win the state election, but she still has choices, writes Rodney Tiffen in the National Times
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WHATEVER she does Kristina Keneally is doomed to lose the state election. But she does have some choices about whether to lose smart or lose dumb.
The recent actions by her Treasurer, Eric Roozendaal, moving with all the finesse and guile of his predecessor, Michael Costa, to further privatise the supply of electricity, and the Premier\u27s subsequent efforts to prevent parliamentary scrutiny of his actions suggest she is likely to lose dumb…
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Illustration: Rocco Fazzari/ Sydney Morning Herald
Rod Tiffen is Emeritus Professor, Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney
Packer, ANI and the ethics of corporate secrecy
No full textIn April 1997 ABC TV’s Four Corners revealed details of Kerry Packer’s failed lobbying to win the licence for the Sydney casino – especially his company’s efforts to discredit its main competitor – and transactions made while he was the dominant shareholder in ANI, which had contributed to the company’s problems after his abrupt exit from its share registry in late 1991. Rodney Tiffen reviews the responses to these revelations and what they tell us about contrasting codes of ethics and disclosure in the public and corporate spheres.First published in Current Affairs Bulletin, June–July 199
Is Tom Crone Rupert Murdoch’s John Dean?
No full textComparisons with Watergate raise worrying prospects for News Corporation, writes Rodney Tiffen in Inside Story
•IT WAS, by any reckoning, an impressive performance. Rupert Murdoch faced ten hours of questioning over two days last week by a leading QC at Britain’s Leveson inquiry into press standards and seemed to emerge unscathed. No damaging admissions; no smoking guns. He was much sharper, much more on top of his brief, than when he appeared before a parliamentary committee last year…
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Photo: World Economic Foru
Lonely evenings at the photocopier
No full textForty years ago this week, the New York Times began publishing the Pentagon Papers – until recently, the largest leak of all. In Inside Story, Rodney Tiffen recounts a tale of two leakers
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DANIEL ELLSBERG and Bradley Manning are probably the two greatest leakers of classified documents in history. Both acted out of conscience, but in other respects their actions are a study in contrasts. In 1971, Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers, the internally produced history of American policy in the Vietnam War. Last year, Manning allegedly leaked the Afghanistan and Iraq war logs and volumes of US government internal documents to WikiLeaks…
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Photo: Wally Fong/ A
Shock of the new
No full textIn the National Times, Rodney Tiffen discusses why voters want life to be simpler
A KEY to understanding much of the current election campaign is in a book published 40 years ago. Alvin Toffler\u27s Future Shock sold more than 6 million copies but, more importantly, the concept became part of popular culture. For Toffler, future shock is the shattering stress and disorientation that individuals suffer when they experience too much change in too short a time.
Earlier futurists had concentrated on technology but Toffler was the first to focus on the psychological aspects of change. He realised even positive changes, such as a promotion at work, moving house or a new relationship, brought a degree of stress.
For Toffler, incessant change is the central feature of our age, driven especially by technology but pervasive in all aspects of life. Future shock and its manifestations of disorientation and disconnectedness follow. Constant novelty means…
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Photo of Alvin Toffler: Clp191
Sydney University three decades later
No full textA time travelling uni student would experience some shocks, writes Rodney Tiffen in the National TimesTHE Sydney University I am retiring from this week is very different from the one I joined in 1979.
A time traveller arriving from 1979 would first notice the digital revolution transformation. Then only a small minority of students submitted typed work, and there was an army of secretaries for academic and administrative typing. Although we complain about the oppressive volume of emails, computerisation has brought huge gains in productivity and efficiency.
The second thing to astonish our time traveller is how much Sydney University has grown. In 1979 it had 17,345 students; in 2009, this had increased to 47,253. The size of the student body makes even sillier the Howard government\u27s obsession with abolishing student unions, the only aspect of universities that seemed to animate that government during its 11 years in power...
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