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Abbott’s budget reply supports avoiding waste, opposes cutting inefficient spending
In his 2011 budget reply speech, Tony Abbott emphasised avoiding waste and getting value for money from public spending. But when it came to speaking about expenditure reductions in a mental health initiative, it seemed to be a different story.
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Votes, preferences and the NSW Legislative Council
There has been a lot of discussion about the Greens’ preference decisions and Pauline Hanson’s chances of being elected to the NSW upper house. I attempt to answer some of the main questions people might ask about preferences and their impact on the result.
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Science and tragedy: Australia’s floods and the Tucson shootings
Tragedy strikes. Who or what can we blame? Chances are I don’t know, because that’s not what science is about. But if there’s a pattern of catastrophes or problems, chances are there is a theory that accounts for it. My article in The King’s Tribune discusses the limits of knowledge.
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Understanding polls: Margins of error
A tutorial on the concept of margins of error in polling. What are they? How are they calculated? Why are they important? This post tries to answer those questions, with both short and detailed explanations.
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Open
New Year. New site. Here’s an introductory post that says a bit about me and a bit about this place. Hello and welcome to my blog.
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Jury trials, the Internet and human behaviour
Read my article at New Matilda responding to concerns that the Internet threatens the integrity of the jury trial system.
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Linguistic analysis of deception cues from a convicted murderer
Our forthcoming paper in Applied Psycholinguistics analyses transcripts of the media interviews and subsequent trial of a convicted murderer to investigate linguistic cues to deception in a real-life, high-stakes situation.
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Linguistic cues to deception: New article in Applied Psycholinguistics
Our recently-published paper in Applied Psycholinguistics presents the findings of an laboratory experiment that looked for linguistic cues to deception.
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Right-wing authoritarianism and anti-Obama aggression
Read my article at ABC The Drum Unleashed about how right-wing authoritarianism might explain why some conservative leaders don’t distance themselves from conspiracy theories about Barack Obama – and how this might relate to the recent aggression from some conservative followers.