April 4 will mark 50 years since the assassination of Martin Luther King. In the ABC’s Religion and Ethics Report, Andrew West interviews Jonathan Rieder and Anthea Butler, two authors who have written about King’s life, ideas and legacy. West reminds us that King had “a very tough message about the poverty and violence that propped up racism, and that made the powerful very uncomfortable”.
“It’s time to finally eradicate all sales incentives for bank staff to push loans on to customers” writes Jessica Irvine reporting from the banking inquiry. Warning – her story in The Age contains harrowing accounts of exploitation of vulnerable people.
“How to make free trade fair”. On Late Night Live Phillip Adams interviews economist Dr Jim Stanford Director of the Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work. What political advocates have come to call free trade agreements “in many cases have nothing to do with actual trade” says Stanford. He outlines the asymmetry of such agreements, pointing out that Investor State Dispute Resolution agreements establish “kangaroo courts that allow companies to sue governments”.
In a week where the idiotic behaviour of a sporting team has dominated our media, even Ross Gittins has weighed in to the issue. But he puts it into perspective: “I can’t see why people are so shocked to discover our cricketers have been cheating. Surely that’s only to be expected in a nation that’s drifted so far from our earlier commitment to decency, mateship and the fair go.” He goes on to remind us about our government’s treatment of asylum seekers and the unemployed, about widespread tax evasion, and about how unscrupulous businesses treat those who are further down the food chain.
Lying in Politics: Reflections on The Pentagon Papers – Hannah Arendt, New York Review of Books (1971).
No free lunches so why are we feeding foreign multinationals’ profits? – Ross Gittins in the Canberra Times.
Cricket Australia Chairman, Peever, ducks for cover – Canberra Times.
In Saturday Extra with Geraldine Doogue this March 31st, a discussion about women and power with Kimberly Dennis, Associate Professor, Department of Art & Art History and Program in Sexuality, Women’s & Gender Studies Rollins College, Marguerite Johnson, Professor of Classics, University of Newcastle and Susan Ryan educator, Former Age Discrimination Commissioner, and first female Labor Minister; A Foreign Affair with Jacinta Collins from the National Security College, ANU; Euan Graham, Lowy Institute and Brain Doolan, former CEO of Fred Hollows Foundation; The New York Times is going back in time to right the wrongs of all the remarkable women who missed out on an obit and writer Caroline van de Pol growing up in Broadmeadows, Victoria.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/saturdayextra/
Japanese PM asks China to explain secret meeting with Kim Jong Un – Free Press Journal.
Steve Cohen vs Peter Jennings debating the new cold war. http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/betweenthelines/russia/9601114
Australia insincere about engaging with Asia – Global Times
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