The Canadian election of 28 June saw the election of a hung Parliament, with the Liberal Government remaining in power with the likely support of the NDP. In this Research Note Scott Bennett gives the background to the election, discusses the campaign, and speculates on the likely future of the minority government, the tenth in...

On 3 May 2004, the Attorney-General first used his new, executive power to proscribe the group Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) as a 'terrorist organisation'. Seventeen groups have been proscribed as terrorist organisations under Australian law to date, but PIJ is the only one of those groups not also listed by the United Nations Security Council...

The lack of uniformity in defamation law between the states and territories has been the subject of much criticism for over twenty five years. The Commonwealth Attorney-General has put forward a broad blueprint for a nationally consistent law. Unless the states and territories agree to bring their defamation laws into line with the paper, the...

Much of the debate over the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement centres on whether and how it will affect the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. In this Research Note Kate Burton examines the parts of AUSFTA that have caused the most concern and assesses their likely impact on the PBS.

This Research Note is one of a series examining the results of polls that test the importance of issues to voters and the parties that voters prefer to handle those issues. Sarah Miskin and Greg Baker show the latest results as compared to those of the previous poll and changes in the importance of selected...