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POLITICS

Odds stacked against young online gamblers  
May 23, 2013
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. 

BY THE WAY

My theatrical encounter with Don Dunstan  
May 23, 2013
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.

FILMS

Lives broken by false abuse claims  
May 22, 2013
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

Unlocking Australia's incarceration culture  
May 22, 2013
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.

CARTOON

Tiny Tom's little league live odds  
May 21, 2013
Fiona Katauskas

POLITICS

Rudd's gay marriage backflip fires church-state debate  
May 21, 2013
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. 

RELIGION

Clobbering religious gay prejudice  
May 21, 2013
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.

POETRY

My father's memorial service gets edgy  
May 20, 2013
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.

POLITICS

Labor lost in democracy's gaps  
May 20, 2013
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. 

New maritime rescue failure leaves unanswered questions  
May 19, 2013
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.

THE AGENDA

Angelina Jolie's pain is a gain for all of us  
May 19, 2013
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.