http://www.thepunch.com.au/author-bios/nick-dyrenfurth-/ Nick Dyrenfurth is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Work and Organisational Studies at the University of Sydney. Growing up in Melbourne Nick supported a range of hopeless causes including the now defunct Fitzroy Football Club and the Victorian Labor Party. He moved to Sydney in early 2009, where he is Federal Secretary of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History and Associate Editor of its journal, Labour History. Nick co-edited Confusion: The Making of the Australian Two-Party System (Melbourne University Publishing, 2009) and is a frequent contributor to The Australian newspaper. en Copyright 2012 The Punch penberthyd@newsltd.com.au penberthyd@newsltd.com.au Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 Politics, opinion, world news, sports news, latest news, views, Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Nathan Rees, Malcolm Turnbull, Peter Garrett, Barnaby Joyce, Australian, federal politics, opinion polls, election, The Punch, thepunch, punch ExpressionEngine 1.6.7 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 15 http://www.thepunch.com.au/images/punch-logo-rss.png http://www.thepunch.com.au/ 144 70 Politics, political opinion, world news, sports news and the latest news and views updated live, daily on The Punch - Australia's best conversation. Search The Punch keywords http://www.thepunch.com.au/search/ http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/asylum-seekers-another-lost-opportunity/ In August 1939 a Jewish woman named Ilse decided to flee Nazi Germany. In the wake of Kristalnacht, the previous November’s violent anti-Jewish pogrom, the writing was on the wall for the Berlin resident. After years of state-sanctioned persecution, including the removal of her citizenship, immediate emigration was now the only feasible option. Still, this was a difficult decision. Her highly assimilated, secular family had lived in Central Europe for centuries. They considered themselves German. Indeed, some had fought for that country during World War One. Shortly afterwards Ilse found sanctuary in wartime London, seemingly paying a bribe to one of those pesky people smugglers (i.e. a Gestapo officer) to exit the barbarism engulfing the continent. Somewhat perversely, on account of a German accent, Britons viewed her ilk suspiciously. At war’s end, Ilse made her way to Australia with her young son – ironically as ‘ten pound poms’ – eventually settling in Melbourne, home to the largest proportion of Holocaust survivors in the world. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Nick Dyrenfurth ) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/asylum-seekers-another-lost-opportunity/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/asylum-seekers-another-lost-opportunity/#item2857 Fri, 16 Apr 2010 19:50:12 +0000 Nick Dyrenfurth | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/liberals-fighting-a-labor-party-which-doesnt-exist/ Whether the recent federal Liberal party showdown over the now rejected Emissions Trading Scheme develops into a thoroughgoing schism only time will tell. Malcolm Turnbull’s robust description of new federal leader Tony Abbot’s climate change thinking is a crude reminder to those Liberals celebrating the weekend’s by-election results in Bradfield and Higgins: environmental politics is here to stay and cannot be swept under the carpet by short-term circuit-breakers. As I argued in The Australian during August, the current schism between so-called ‘moderates’, small ‘l’ liberals gathered around Turnbull and Joe Hockey, and the conservatives of Abbot and Nick Minchin’s ilk has many of the hallmarks of the 1950s ALP split over communism which spawned the Democratic Labor Party and kept Labor from office for some two decades. Most accounts of the farcical goings on in the federal Liberal’s party room over the past few weeks have highlighted this underlying ideological conflict. The conservative coup d’état against Turnbull resulted from a fundamental policy divide over climate change dovetailing with opposition to Turnbull’s divisive crash or crash through personality. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Nick Dyrenfurth ) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/liberals-fighting-a-labor-party-which-doesnt-exist/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/liberals-fighting-a-labor-party-which-doesnt-exist/#item1950 Tue, 08 Dec 2009 19:45:42 +0000 Nick Dyrenfurth | Author bios | The Punch