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Weekly feature
Labor lost in democracy's gaps
by Fatima Measham
 How do we make sense of the perception that the economy is being mishandled when Australia is performing far better than other western countries? Or the fact that Labor faces a grim fate despite massive support for its major policies? The incongruence between public and political interest reveals democracy as an unfinished project.
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WEEK IN POLITICS
EUREKA STREET TV
Nuns, gurus and rebels: the best of Eureka Street TVPeter Kirkwood
 For the past three years video consultant Peter Kirkwood has produced a fortnightly series featuring some of the world's leading figures of faith and spirituality. We take a look back at some of his best Eureka Street TV interviews, including Hans Kung, Anwar Ibrahim, Peter Kennedy and more.
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Time to draw the line between Australia and Timor Leste
Frank Brennan 13-May-2013
 Australian governments of both political persuasions have reassured the Australian public that they are decent and special when it comes to dealing with the Timorese over disagreements in the Timor Sea. Time for such special pleading is over. For the good of ongoing relations between these two unequal neighbours, it is time for Australia to commit to negotiating final maritime boundaries.
Catholicism beyond slogans
Andrew Hamilton 01-May-2013
 The future of the Catholic tradition will not rest with Liberal, Conservative or Evangelical Catholicism. Not because those who would define themselves as members of such groupings are liberal or conservative, but because they are essentially reactive. They derive their energy from opposition to the perceived weakness or wickedness of other groups.
Pope Francis the smiling revolutionary
Neil Ormerod 16-May-2013
 It is difficult to get into the mind of a person who might have been pope eight years earlier. Would the intervening years have been filled with 'what ifs'? Would he have watched Benedict and wondered how he might have led differently? Whether they knew it or not the cardinals initiated a quiet revolution in electing this man.
Abbott's animal charms
Barry Gittins and Jen Vuk 02-May-2013
 Casting a Victorious PM Abbott as a puppet of Pell and Howard, or a fiddler with women's rights, seems risible; Abbott is bound by social restraints after all. Nonetheless, there is something ominous in David Marr's droll observation: 'His values have never stood in his way.'
High Court hedges bets on free speech
Patrick McCabe 25-Apr-2013
 In 2011 the US Supreme Court found it was not unlawful for members of Westboro Baptist Church to stage inflammatory protests at the funerals of US soldiers, whom the church believes are killed by God to demonstrate disapproval at tolerance of gay people. You might say 'only America', but recently something similar nearly happened here.
My family connection to Aboriginal genocide
Paul Newbury 29-Apr-2013
 My great-grandfather John Eckersley Newbury was a convict and a squatter who became wealthy through a generous land policy and because his wife's family helped set him up on the land. During this period, the Kamilaroi of northern NSW fought a guerilla war of resistance against the British.
Abortion drugs wake-up call
Kevin McGovern 02-May-2013
 The risk of physical complications after chemical abortion is relatively low, but real. The likelihood of psychological problems — even profound problems like post-traumatic stress disorder — is much greater. The girls and women of Australia who face an unplanned pregnancy deserve something better from our society than cheap abortion drugs.
Ensnared by sex abuse paranoia
Tim Kroenert 01-May-2013
 Kindergarten teacher Lucas' life falls apart after he is wrongfully accused of abusing a young girl. We might feel outraged at his persecution, yet are his persecutors really guilty of anything more than taking a victim at her word? Rather than a cautionary tale, Lucas' story is best viewed as a tragedy.
Aged care dirty work done dirt cheap
Michael Mullins 28-Apr-2013
Wage increases for aged care workers should not be allowed to become yet another laudable but failed Gillard Government initiative that an incoming Coalition government refuses to countenance because of its stated commitment to fiscal responsibility. The dignity of older Australians is not expendable.
Getting a grip on our asylum seeker whingeing
Caz Coleman 12-May-2013
 It has been embarrassing to sit in on meetings of the UNHCR recently and be asked by other countries' delegates why Australia is so worried about its relatively small number of asylum arrivals. We need to take a broader perspective on this issue and, rather than complain, learn how to better manage arrivals.
Most Commented
Abortion drugs wake-up call
Kevin McGovern 02-May-2013
The risk of physical complications after chemical abortion is relatively low, but real. The likelihood of psychological problems — even profound problems like post-traumatic stress disorder — is much greater. The girls and women of Australia who face an unplanned pregnancy deserve something better from our society than cheap abortion drugs.
Catholicism beyond slogans
Andrew Hamilton 01-May-2013
The future of the Catholic tradition will not rest with Liberal, Conservative or Evangelical Catholicism. Not because those who would define themselves as members of such groupings are liberal or conservative, but because they are essentially reactive. They derive their energy from opposition to the perceived weakness or wickedness of other groups.
Sex abuse justice cannot be fast-tracked
Michael Mullins 12-May-2013
 Victims of church sexual abuse have suffered a setback with NSW Government moves to impose a ten year statute of limitations. For many victims, it takes much longer than ten years before they are ready to tell their story. If they are forced to speak before they are ready, they may speak half-truths or not speak at all.
Rudd's gay marriage backflip fires church-state debate
Ray Cassin 21-May-2013
Most responses to Rudd's conversion on gay marriage have focused on the implications for Australia's political dynamic. Those who bother to read the lengthy blog entry in which he announced his change of heart will be drawn into a broader debate about the relationship between church and state that takes place too rarely in Australian politics.
Time to draw the line between Australia and Timor Leste
Frank Brennan 13-May-2013
Australian governments of both political persuasions have reassured the Australian public that they are decent and special when it comes to dealing with the Timorese over disagreements in the Timor Sea. Time for such special pleading is over. For the good of ongoing relations between these two unequal neighbours, it is time for Australia to commit to negotiating final maritime boundaries.
Aged care dirty work done dirt cheap
Michael Mullins 28-Apr-2013
Wage increases for aged care workers should not be allowed to become yet another laudable but failed Gillard Government initiative that an incoming Coalition government refuses to countenance because of its stated commitment to fiscal responsibility. The dignity of older Australians is not expendable.
Making an example of asylum seeker children
Andrew Hamilton 15-May-2013
 Many of the increased number of boat arrivals are families with children, driven to travel together because of the long delay in processing. To save children from dying at sea we drive more children to risk dying at sea, then inflict more indignities on them when they arrive. It is not a policy to be proud of.
Getting a grip on our asylum seeker whingeing
Caz Coleman 12-May-2013
It has been embarrassing to sit in on meetings of the UNHCR recently and be asked by other countries' delegates why Australia is so worried about its relatively small number of asylum arrivals. We need to take a broader perspective on this issue and, rather than complain, learn how to better manage arrivals.
Clobbering religious gay prejudice
Michael Kirby 21-May-2013
 The 2011 book Five Uneasy Pieces offered an alternative reading of the so-called 'clobber passages' that are at the core of religious unease about homosexuality. A follow-up volume pushes the envelope further by examining the biblical recognition of the variety of human love beyond traditional marriage.
My family connection to Aboriginal genocide
Paul Newbury 29-Apr-2013
My great-grandfather John Eckersley Newbury was a convict and a squatter who became wealthy through a generous land policy and because his wife's family helped set him up on the land. During this period, the Kamilaroi of northern NSW fought a guerilla war of resistance against the British.
Buried Treasure
Catholic communicators navigating new media
Michael McVeigh 06-May-2013
My father's memorial service gets edgy
Ian C. Smith 20-May-2013
 Smoke pours from a meter box outside. Firemen scurry like comic extras, unable to locate the smoke's source. Spaced apart in orderly rows we swivel, casting sideways glances through tall windows. Organist and minister struggle with focus.
Cronies of the nudge and wink
Grant Fraser 13-May-2013
 When ibis move, they do so in rosters of fastidious steps, each bird as polite as a grandad who is looking for the salt ... Stooped in twos or threes like patient skittles, they whisper quiet inventories of silvered figments and storied frogs.
Angelina Jolie's pain is a gain for all of us
Michael Mullins 19-May-2013
Angelina Jolie's rational choice to undergo a pre-emptive double mastectomy has shown that science can improve human wellbeing with the use of highly specialised surgical techniques. But other rational choices we might make, in favour of techniques that involve therapeutic cloning, would do more to undermine human civilisation.
Frantic chat on the world wide spider web
Various 29-Apr-2013
And in the raucosity of blogs, the avidity of trolls, the ubiquity of porn, the vidvidvidity of tubes, the facebookery of profiles, the aviary of twittervation — can the mind still find that space to stretch itself?
Pablo Neruda's prophecy in poetry
Philip Harvey 14-May-2013
 On the eve of the violent overthrow of the elected government of Chile 40 years ago, Pablo Neruda wrote a cycle of cantos that came to be called The Book of Questions. Twelve days after the coups the poet was dead. It is hard to miss the military and political connotations of some of Neruda's 'questions'.
Gutsy budget built around icons
Lin Hatfield Dodds 15-May-2013
The 2013 Federal Budget is framed around a national disability insurance scheme, education reform, and welfare to work focused welfare spending. The jewel in the crown has to be DisabilityCare, which will make a significant difference in the daily lives of nearly half a million Australians.
Giving stick to incipient police violence
Brian Doyle 30-Apr-2013
 A nightstick doesn't sound fearsome, but when you see one up close you respect the inherent violence of the thing. I stared at it for a while, contemplating how a burly policeman with his feet set could deliver a cracking blow to a head or a shoulder or an arm flung across your face to protect your eyes and brains.
New maritime rescue failure leaves unanswered questions
Tony Kevin 19-May-2013
 On Friday, Fairfax reported on another ordeal at sea, over ten days between 27 April and 7 May. Only two people died, but the toll could easily have been far worse. The story as we know it so far raises disturbing questions about Australia’s adherence to its rescue-at-sea obligations.
Good policy comes second to voter trust
Ray Cassin 07-May-2013
Gillard's adroit manoeuvring of Abbott into supporting the NDIS will do little to help her come September. People typically vote for whoever they trust to govern, and the public's lack of trust in Labor derives not from policy or the legislative record but from the circumstances in which she became prime minister in the first place.
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Today's lead
POLITICS
Odds stacked against young online gamblers
Lin Hatfield Dodds
 Research indicates online sports gambling is an escalating problem that particularly impacts young men. The South Australian Premier has already made a good start, but there are still practical steps we can take at state and federal level to reduce the risk.
Recent leads
RELIGION
Unlocking Australia's incarceration culture
Andrew Hamilton
 The Commonwealth and the Victorian state budgets this year were marked by a contradiction. Both committed more money to incarceration — detention centres and prisons; and both limited programs to help the people confined there. Such contradictions are usually signs of a bad policy that flows from shallow cultural values.
5 comment(s) about this article.
POLITICS
Rudd's gay marriage backflip fires church-state debate
Ray Cassin
Most responses to Rudd's conversion on gay marriage have focused on the implications for Australia's political dynamic. Those who bother to read the lengthy blog entry in which he announced his change of heart will be drawn into a broader debate about the relationship between church and state that takes place too rarely in Australian politics.
35 comment(s) about this article.
New maritime rescue failure leaves unanswered questions
Tony Kevin
On Friday, Fairfax reported on another ordeal at sea, over ten days between 27 April and 7 May. Only two people died, but the toll could easily have been far worse. The story as we know it so far raises disturbing questions about Australia’s adherence to its rescue-at-sea obligations.
15 comment(s) about this article.
RELIGION
Pope Francis the smiling revolutionary
Neil Ormerod
It is difficult to get into the mind of a person who might have been pope eight years earlier. Would the intervening years have been filled with 'what ifs'? Would he have watched Benedict and wondered how he might have led differently? Whether they knew it or not the cardinals initiated a quiet revolution in electing this man.
15 comment(s) about this article.
POLITICS
Making an example of asylum seeker children
Andrew Hamilton
Many of the increased number of boat arrivals are families with children, driven to travel together because of the long delay in processing. To save children from dying at sea we drive more children to risk dying at sea, then inflict more indignities on them when they arrive. It is not a policy to be proud of.
19 comment(s) about this article.
Flawed beauty in back-to-the-wall Budget
Paul O'Callaghan
The Treasurer has emphasised his belief that Labor's values and priorities are reflected in this Budget. He is keen to help the battler. Yet there is a sharp dissonance between the Government's promotion of a 'fair go' through big reforms and its evident disinterest in so many citizens whose financial struggles are profound.
13 comment(s) about this article.
THE MEDDLING PRIEST
Time to draw the line between Australia and Timor Leste
Frank Brennan
Australian governments of both political persuasions have reassured the Australian public that they are decent and special when it comes to dealing with the Timorese over disagreements in the Timor Sea. Time for such special pleading is over. For the good of ongoing relations between these two unequal neighbours, it is time for Australia to commit to negotiating final maritime boundaries.
23 comment(s) about this article.
POLITICS
Getting a grip on our asylum seeker whingeing
Caz Coleman
It has been embarrassing to sit in on meetings of the UNHCR recently and be asked by other countries' delegates why Australia is so worried about its relatively small number of asylum arrivals. We need to take a broader perspective on this issue and, rather than complain, learn how to better manage arrivals.
19 comment(s) about this article.
RELIGION
Aged care and the business of gift
Andrew Hamilton
 In our care of the aged, not only their health and security are at stake but also their self-respect and dignity. It is impossible not to sympathise with the argument that the high skills this requires from carers should be better remunerated. But in the business of business and remuneration, love is the skill that dares not speak its name.
9 comment(s) about this article.
POLITICS
Good policy comes second to voter trust
Ray Cassin
Gillard's adroit manoeuvring of Abbott into supporting the NDIS will do little to help her come September. People typically vote for whoever they trust to govern, and the public's lack of trust in Labor derives not from policy or the legislative record but from the circumstances in which she became prime minister in the first place.
13 comment(s) about this article.
Black hole budget will penalise the poor
Brian Toohey
 Labor is struggling with a $12 billion write down in anticipated revenue for 2012-13 after Treasury bungled the forecasts. It could cut back on government assistance to those who can fend for themselves. But it has chosen to penalise the poor, with those on the parenting payment being switched to the lower Newstart.
9 comment(s) about this article.
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Today's extra
BY THE WAY
Don Dunstan in Adelaide's heart of arts
Brian Matthews
 One of the great monuments to the 'Dunstan Decade', the Adelaide Festival Centre marks its 40th birthday next weekend. It was the first capital city complex devoted to the performing arts, before even the Sydney Opera House. For me the anniversary triggers a flood of memories, including a theatrical encounter with Dunstan himself.
RECENT EXTRA
FILMS
Lives broken by false abuse claims
Tim Kroenert
 Whereas The Hunt portrayed a small town gripped by paranoia after a sensitive and imaginative child's confused comments are taken out of context, in Broken the accusations are more sinister, used by a young girl to deflect consequences from herself, in full knowledge of the damage that her claims will cause to the accused.
RELIGION
Clobbering religious gay prejudice
Michael Kirby
The 2011 book Five Uneasy Pieces offered an alternative reading of the so-called 'clobber passages' that are at the core of religious unease about homosexuality. A follow-up volume pushes the envelope further by examining the biblical recognition of the variety of human love beyond traditional marriage.
18 comment(s) about this article.
POETRY
My father's memorial service gets edgy
Ian C. Smith
Smoke pours from a meter box outside. Firemen scurry like comic extras, unable to locate the smoke's source. Spaced apart in orderly rows we swivel, casting sideways glances through tall windows. Organist and minister struggle with focus.
1 comment(s) about this article.
THE AGENDA
Angelina Jolie's pain is a gain for all of us
Michael Mullins
Angelina Jolie's rational choice to undergo a pre-emptive double mastectomy has shown that science can improve human wellbeing with the use of highly specialised surgical techniques. But other rational choices we might make, in favour of techniques that involve therapeutic cloning, would do more to undermine human civilisation.
11 comment(s) about this article.
POLITICS
Labor goes from Robin Hood to the Sheriff of Nottingham
John Falzon
 You don't build someone up by putting them down. You don't help someone into employment by pushing them into poverty. By keeping the unemployment benefit low, successive governments have deliberately humiliated people rather than improving their chances.
9 comment(s) about this article.
Gutsy budget built around icons
Lin Hatfield Dodds
The 2013 Federal Budget is framed around a national disability insurance scheme, education reform, and welfare to work focused welfare spending. The jewel in the crown has to be DisabilityCare, which will make a significant difference in the daily lives of nearly half a million Australians.
5 comment(s) about this article.
TELEVISION
Cheap shots at religious fish out of water
Tim Kroenert
 While Anthony the Maronite is dismissive of his Buddhist hosts' beliefs, Freeman the Buddhist finds meaning in the symbols and rituals of Catholicism. The overly simplistic intention seems to be to set open and inclusive Eastern religion alongside narrow-minded, arrogant Western Christianity.
11 comment(s) about this article.
NON-FICTION
Pablo Neruda's prophecy in poetry
Philip Harvey
On the eve of the violent overthrow of the elected government of Chile 40 years ago, Pablo Neruda wrote a cycle of cantos that came to be called The Book of Questions. Twelve days after the coups the poet was dead. It is hard to miss the military and political connotations of some of Neruda's 'questions'.
7 comment(s) about this article.
POETRY
Cronies of the nudge and wink
Grant Fraser
When ibis move, they do so in rosters of fastidious steps, each bird as polite as a grandad who is looking for the salt ... Stooped in twos or threes like patient skittles, they whisper quiet inventories of silvered figments and storied frogs.
3 comment(s) about this article.
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