How can we ensure that Australian mining companies adhere to a set of basic minimum standards when operating overseas? Techa Beaumont

Peter Edwards and former Australian Ambassador to Iraq Rory Steele each give their views on the state and future of the Australia -US Alliance. Edwards identifies five arguments that governments have used to justify the alliance, while Steele encourages us to step back from the personalised, deferential relationship Prime Minister Howard has with President Bush

Paul Barratt puts the AWB scandal into its true context. At the very time that the AWB kickbacks were being paid to the Iraqi regime, Australian naval officers were involved in operations to prevent attempts to break the sanctions. Given this context, Barratt considers what the government should have done to honour its obligations under the sanctions and argues that more diligence should have been applied in the examination of contracts

Michael Fullilove considers the Australian diaspora, the 870,000 Australian citizens living overseas. He argues that it makes good economic and policy sense for Australia to increase its efforts to reach out to the diaspora and enmesh them in our national endeavours. Policy options include improving information collection and management about ex-pats, increasing efforts to simplify and promote absentee voting processes and encouraging businesses to utilise ex-patriate knowledge and skills.

Richard Woolcott examines Australia's recent retreat from multilateralism and how we perceived at the United Nations, and calls for the government to change of attitude.