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  • international

    The two worlds of Eurovision

    • Michael McVeigh
    • 16 May 2024

    Millions around the world tune in for Eurovision each year, making it one of the world’s most-watched non-sporting events. It’s a mess of all that is funny, camp and bizarre. And yet instead of exploring the boundaries of our collective imagination, it's often overshadowed by regional politics and conflict. 

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  • religion

    Can today’s church overcome division?

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 16 May 2024

    The Week of Christian Unity encourages the healing of divisions between churches, and is intended to restore unity among Christians. However, we should wonder at how realistic that vision is in a society where division provides most of the news of the day.

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  • arts and culture

    What's the deal with Unfrosted?

    • David Halliday
    • 14 May 2024

    Jerry Seinfeld makes his directorial debut Unfrosted, a gleefully silly family comedy about the invention of the Pop-Tart. But the problem with this film is whether the sheer weight of comedic talent involved translates to actual laughs. Packed with countless cereal-based gags, it raises the question: Are disposable, pointless things worth anything?

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  • arts and culture

    Please, not Bridgerton again

    • Juliette Hughes
    • 17 May 2024

    What can you say when faced by another season of Bridgerton – that posing, poncing, irony-defying travesty of all history, literature and human relationships? Bridgerton took the Barbara Cartland romance/mild erotica ethos and dumbed it down to fifty shades of fluorescent polyester.

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  • religion

    Does Vatican II offer a blueprint for political healing?

    • Julian Butler
    • 15 May 2024

    Next year marks the 60th anniversary of the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council. What lessons might our contemporary democratic community take from the Church over that period that might that help our common conversation? 

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  • arts and culture

    Taller when prone: The contradictions of Les Murray

    • Paul Mitchell
    • 10 May 2024

    Les Murray once confessed it was his mission to 'irritate the hell out of the eloquent who would oppress my people,' by being a paradox that their categories can’t assimilate: the Subhuman Redneck who writes poems. And therein lies the ‘poem’ of Les Murray: complex, contradictory, sublime, and sometimes ready to whip his enemies with a scorpion’s tail.

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  • Realities

    • Paul Williamson
    • 16 May 2024

    Could a storm burst / because butterfly wings beat / a thousand miles away / to tip dominos of change / so the future emerges / like in the Chaos theory we use / to estimate future weather?

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  • Sixty-five South

    • Geoff Page
    • 09 May 2024

    Today we leave Antarctic proper; /we’ve seen the penguins and the whales, /the icebergs in their convolutions /and thought about the Age of Sail /whose heroes nosed around down here /sniffing out a sort of fame. /Or was it just the golden oil  /that burned with such a lambent flame?

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  • Courtship rivalry

    • Eddie Hampson
    • 08 May 2024

    What at first appears to be a light-hearted romantic comedy glosses over the dark intensity of Challengers. The tangled and obsessive nature of the relationships within a love triangle mirrors the sport at the centre of Luca Guadagnino's latest. 

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  • Can Australian diplomacy temper Chinese bravado?

    • Jeremy Clarke
    • 13 May 2024

    The recent mid-air encounter between an Australian naval helicopter and a Chinese fighter jet over the Yellow Sea had the usual reactions, but ultimately failed to strain economic relations between the two states. 

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  • An indelicate balance: Israel and Iran exchange blows

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 01 May 2024

    For decades, the major powers of Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia have kept a restraint on their hostile engagements, with preference given to battle waged via proxies. A recent Israeli air strike on Iranian offices in Syria and Iran's subsequent attack on Israel with 185 drones, 110 ballistic missiles and 36 cruise missiles suggested that calculated restraint had been finally abandoned.

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  • Famine looms in Sudan as conflict enters its second year

    • Kirsty Robertson
    • 30 April 2024

    One year after civil war erupted, Sudan has become one of the world’s worst humanitarian tragedies with around 5 million people experiencing emergency levels of hunger. This puts Sudan on the brink of famine. Sudanese leaders claim this is the crisis the world has forgotten.

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  • Under pressure from High Court and Dutton, government rushes immigration bill

    • Frank Brennan
    • 13 May 2024

    The Albanese government’s refugee and asylum policy is in a mess. When Minister Giles introduced his Migration Amendment Bill, they bypassed typical parliamentary procedures, wanting to be seen as tougher than Peter Dutton in getting unvisaed non-citizens out of the country. It’s time for the government to return to due process in this whole field. 

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  • Advocating against the wind

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 08 May 2024

    With the Queensland Government changing the Youth Justice Act, detention of children will no longer be seen as a last resort, causing widespread dismay among youth justice advocates. It invites reflection on what we should expect when we advocate for a cause, ranging from climate change to perceived injustice, and how we should evaluate our efforts.

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  • Thoughts and prayers

    • Warwick McFadyen
    • 08 May 2024

    'Thoughts and prayers': Is it now a tired, worn-out cliché, its usefulness questionable? It is now used so many times to render its meaning, its core message, void. Sometimes more than words are needed. 

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  • The Greens, the Church and freedom of religion

    • John Warhurst
    • 01 May 2024

    The relationship between the Catholic church and the Greens has been one marked by near constant antagonism. Are there any consequences from this for either the church or the party?

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  • Where does Infinite Dignity meet finite reality?

    • Bill Uren
    • 24 April 2024

    The recent Vatican declaration 'Dignitas Infinita' aims to provide a response to pressing bioethical and social issues, from abortion and euthanasia to gender theory and the rights of migrants. But does it effectively bridge the gap between doctrine and the lived experiences of the marginalised?  

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  • Vatican invites global discussion on human dignity

    • David Kirchhoffer
    • 18 April 2024
    4 Comments

    Though there are few surprises in Vatican document 'Dignitas Infinita', this summary of Pope Francis’s moral theology on dignity invites a reevaluation of our shared humanity in the face of an increasingly complex ethical landscape.

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