Home » Edition

POLITICS

Timor Diggers' guerilla war  
August 24, 2010
Paul Cleary
Kevin Rudd's failure to embrace the Timor legend with more imagination and substance was a missed opportunity to connect with Labor's Second World War legacy. Wartime Prime Minister John Curtin saw the guerilla war in Timor as a unique and significant part of turning back the Japanese tide.

Vote for hope  
August 20, 2010
John Falzon
Ngunnawal Elder Aunty Janet Phillips says that for Aboriginal Australians there's no 'justice'; 'just us'. How can we turn this election into a building block for a more equal society? The answer involves weighing up the known policies and track-record of both sides to assess their impact on the growth of inequality.

HUMAN RIGHTS

A modern approach to refugee resettlement  
August 20, 2010
Kerry Murphy
According to the Coalition, 'bad refugees' who come on boats take places that could otherwise go to 'good refugees' who wait patiently in camps. Labelling refugees as 'good' or 'bad' according to how they arrive in Australia reflects an insular opinion that does not reflect what is happening worldwide.

POLITICS

Politics must be more than noise  
August 20, 2010
Andrew Hamilton
The public sphere is often spoken of as debate, conversation, market place, or theatre. The dominant image this election campaign suggests have been of monologue and static. There is not much point in a public space if you can't hear yourself think there.

EDUCATION

A vote for the Greens is a vote against Catholic education  
August 12, 2010
Stephen Elder
I differ with Frank Brennan in his belief that there is no harm in voting Green. The Greens' policy on funding for Catholic schools will force closures, increase fees and change the ability of Catholic schools to be genuinely Catholic. Stephen Elder, Director of Catholic Education, Melbourne

POLITICS

Don't despair of election 'race to the bottom'  
August 06, 2010
Bruce Duncan

The election has been plagued by trivial spats and personality conflicts, to the neglect of policies based on the values of equity and social justice for everyone. This reinforces the importance of church and community groups being more active in their social advocacy.

EUREKA STREET/ READER'S FEAST AWARD

The mingled yarn  
July 21, 2010
Bronwyn Lay
My granddad was a fourth generation white Australian who worked with sheep. I used to tell the story that he was a small town racist who disliked Blacks, Catholics and Jews. The punch line was that his daughter married a Fijian, his son married a Jew and my dad married a Catholic.

RELIGION

Christian sect's gay snub  
July 16, 2010
Andrew McGowan
Gay and lesbian youths are at greater risk from suicide and mental illness, and from religious and other forms of exclusion than from their own sexuality. Jesus cared less about the risk he might 'promote' Samaritanism than about the need to promote an ethic of unconditional acceptance.

APPLICATION

Pope Benedict's greed-free capitalism  
July 15, 2010
Paul Oslington
Some commentators have latched on to Benedict's encyclical Caritas in Veritate as a new 'third way' between socialism and capitalism. This is a remarkably bad idea.

ENVIRONMENT

How to survive the next five billion years  
July 09, 2010
Jeffrey Nicholls
Every year we mine about a billion tonnes of iron ore. If we keep this up for five billion years, we will have dug up the whole earth to a depth of about 10 km. Here is a guide to how human existence might continue until the sun dies.

THE MEDDLING PRIEST

Speaking for country, speaking for self   
July 07, 2010
Frank Brennan
Fr Frank Brennan's address to the Melbourne College of Divinity Centenary Conference, Trinity College, University of Melbourne, 6 July 2010.

Letting Aboriginal Australians speak for themselves  
July 07, 2010
Frank Brennan
Kevin Rudd stood in the forecourt of Parliament House Canberra and recalled with great emotion the morning on which he had welcomed the members of the Stolen Generations. There was no mistaking his sense of solidarity: he knew there and then what it was to be dispossessed, alienated and outcast.

INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS

Other unsung Indigenous heroes  
July 07, 2010
Myrna Tonkinson
Not yet 40, she must live in Perth, hundreds of kilometres from home, to receive dialysis. She is currently in hospital recovering from spinal surgery, and so is separated even from her city-based loved ones. Yet she appears always with a beaming smile.

HUMAN RIGHTS

Asylum seeker focus should be protection, not punishment  
July 06, 2010
Jesuit Refugee Service
Jesuit Refugee Service Australia says Labor's new policy on asylum seekers should be focused on the protection of vulnerable people rather than the elimination of people smugglers.

THE MEDDLING PRIEST

The 747 or the leaky boat  
June 21, 2010
Frank Brennan
As the election lather on the asylum seeker issue continues, let's ask, 'Why is it right to treat the honest, unvisaed boat person more harshly than the visaed airplane passenger who fails to declare their intention to apply for asylum?'

Fear and fiction in Australia’s asylum seekers responses   
June 18, 2010
Frank Brennan

ENVIRONMENT

Shame under Howard and Rudd  
May 27, 2010
Tony Kevin
The Howard years made me feel ashamed to be Australian, and I felt about his electoral defeat the way East Germans felt about the Berlin Wall coming down: as a kind of cleansing. Rudd disappoints for a different reason.

THE MEDDLING PRIEST

Frank Tenison Brennan on Julian Tenison Woods  
May 25, 2010
Frank Brennan
Fr Frank Brennan SJ's address at the Commemoration of Julian Tenison Woods Park, Penola SA, 23 Mary 2010

POLITICS

Communities still need the stimulus  
May 10, 2010
Julie Edwards
There are widespread calls for the stimulus measures to be wound back as the Australian economy emerges from the global economic crisis. It might be better in this year's and subsequent budgets to continue the economic stimulus, but focused on our most disadvantaged communities.

Beating poverty is up to the Government  
May 07, 2010
Frank Quinlan
'Poverty alleviation is a national goal that should be financed by the national government,' argues the Henry report. This sentence cuts through years of evasion and obfuscation. Poverty is back on the agenda, and it's the Federal Government's responsibility.

RELIGION

Two responses to Bishop Pat Power  
May 04, 2010
Shane Woods and Peter Hai
What do Hans Kung, Geoffrey Robinson, and Pat Power have in common?

EULOGY

Peter Porter in the capital of the English language  
April 30, 2010
Peter Steele

Feed and clothe this Australian poet and lodge him in a library attached to a music venue, and remarkable things would happen. He made of London a country of the mind, its vices, virtues, constant features and mutability there to be inspected and eventually portrayed.

RELIGION

Storming the atheist ethic  
April 27, 2010
Neil Ormerod
The Melbourne Storm salary cap scandal indicates a major ethical breach somewhere within the club. Perhaps their senior executives might benefit from the NSW trial of school ethics classes.

THEOLOGY

Catholic Church needs total reform  
April 23, 2010
Pat Power
The crisis facing the Church arising out of sexual abuse is arguably the most serious challenge it has faced since the Reformation. Issues such as authoritarianism, compulsory celibacy, the participation of women and the teaching on sexuality cannot be brushed aside.

HUMAN RIGHTS

Immigration control versus human rights  
March 30, 2010
Kerry Murphy
Once again the coalition is inflaming passions about what is actually an insignificant number of people arriving in Australian waters and claiming asylum. Unfortunately the Government is getting caught up in this debate because it insists on maintaining the excision and Christmas Island Centre.

RELIGION

The apology Benedict should have given  
March 23, 2010
Garry Eastman
Pope Benedict's letter to the Catholic Church in Ireland released this weekend is a watershed in the way the Church speaks on abuse committed by priests and religious. The Pope's letter would have been better received, not just in Ireland but throughout the world, if he had added a few extra paragraphs.

THE MEDDLING PRIEST

Poverty and plenty: where do Christians stand?  
March 22, 2010
Frank Brennan
Text from Fr Frank Brennan SJ's presentation Poverty and Plenty: Where Do or Should Christians Stand? at the Centre for an Ethical Society as part of the 2010 Series Forum at the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture, 17 March 2010.

Schooling for a more cohesive society  
March 19, 2010
Frank Brennan
The challenges and opportunities are to fund equitably all networks in education and to ensure that robust morale and community engagement are hallmarks of all parts of the network, including state schools and emerging schools such as Muslim schools.

HUMAN RIGHTS

The Western origins of Hati's 'curse'  
March 04, 2010
Adele Webb
The story of Haiti, even from the earliest decades of its independence, is one of a downward spiral into debt and underdevelopment. It has been at the short end of the stick, time and time again, in its relationships with richer and powerful countries. Haiti, it turns out, never stood a chance.

EUREKA STREET/ READER'S FEAST AWARD

Eureka Street/Reader's Feast Award 2010: Australia - a racist country?  
February 22, 2010
Staff

RELIGION

What is Christianity  
February 12, 2010
Peter Vardy
Some Protestants question whether Catholics are Christians. Some Catholics say there is no salvation outside their Church. Identifiying the essentials of Christianity matters in today's post-Christian society, where young Westerners are bored with Christianity and they feel that they have moved beyond it.

THE MEDDLING PRIEST

The Church as advocate in the public square  
February 09, 2010
Frank Brennan
'Tonight I want to reflect in light of the National Human Rights Consultation how we as Church can do better in promoting justice for all in our land. Full text from Frank Brennan's 2010 McCosker Oration, 'The Church as Advocate in the Public Square: Lessons from the National Human Rights Consultation'.

Toothless, Trojan or true to Trinitarian anthropology  
January 28, 2010
Frank Brennan
The full text of Frank Brennan's January 2010 address to the Australian Association of Catholic Bioethicists, 'Toothless, Trojan or True to Trinitarian Anthropology? Reflecting on the 2009 National Human Rights Consultation'. 

POLITICS

Abbott blinded by Howard's brutal immigration principle  
January 25, 2010
Andrew Hamilton

Tony Abbott has declared John Howard's statement, 'We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come', to be 'self-evidently and robustly true'. The Australian people deserve a better basis for policy than an appeal to self-interest.

INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS

Prince encounters 'unfinished business' of Indigenous history  
January 25, 2010
Brian McCoy
Australia Day remindes us of stories of separation within our country, such as the stories of the Stolen Generations. Separation from a parent is something Prince William understands. 'Did your mummy die?' a six-year old asked him during his visit last week.

THE MEDDLING PRIEST

Australians aspire to lift their climate game  
January 25, 2010
Frank Brennan

For a while we were leading the world on climate change. But once Copenhagen collapsed Rudd assured us 'Australia will do no more and no less than the rest of the world'. The lowest common denominator is not usually the solution to the great moral challenges.

HUMAN RIGHTS

Precarious lives: Involuntary displacement of people in Asia Pacific today  
January 18, 2010
Mark Raper

Significant agreement was achieved in Copenhagen on the present and future forcible displacement of people because of climate change and environmental degradation. Can global cooperation for the protection of vulnerable displaced persons be renewed to meet new circumstances?

RELIGION

Pope's fighting words for a world in crisis  
January 07, 2010
Bruce Duncan
In his World Day of Peace statement for 2010, the Pope again highlights the urgency of responding to climate change. Pope Benedict has had major problems in communicating this message, notably a lack of journalistic expertise to make his documents more readable.

MULTICULTURALISM

Keeping vigil for slain Indian student  
January 06, 2010
Cara Munro

They came to stop the violence. Four, maybe five of them, in hooded jackets and pale, worn jeans. Hovering in the car park. Shadow-like. Haunted. We were gathered outside the place to which he had come, bleeding, begging for help. Wrongly, we assumed they had come to join us.

INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS

Irresponsible reporting misleads on welfare quarantining  
December 17, 2009
Frank Quinlan
Governments are likely to grasp at feeble evidence in order to support preferred policy positions. When reporting on issues such as welfare quarantining as part of the Intervention, The Australian and the ABC ought to read further than the Minister's press release.

COMMUNITY

John Smith Christmas homily: faith and welfare in action  
December 10, 2009
John Smith
Much can be achieved in cooperation with friends who don't necessarilyshare the same faith or any faith at all. If you're homeless, who careswhether an atheist, a Christian or a Buddhist provides shelter?

ENVIRONMENT

Climate update from 'Hopenhagen'  
December 10, 2009
Sean McDonagh
Columban missionary priest and environmental activist Sean McDonagh reports from the climate convention in Copenhagen, where negotiators have been told to 'go very far and very fast' and turn Copenhagen into 'Hopenhagen'.

RELIGION

Men in dresses and conversations about peace  
December 04, 2009
Katherine Marshall
There's as much cynicism as hope around such 'Kumbaya' happenings as the Parliament of Religions. And the male domination at official interfaith gatherings turns many off. The goals for interfaith meetings, however, are ambitious and right at the heart of today's global agendas.

ECONOMICS

Brake failure on the economic freeway  
October 26, 2009
Neil Ormerod
Even if we understand the intelligiblity of an automobile, we can still drive badly. With the GFC, the argument is not that better theories will ensure everyone behaves properly, but that without a proper economic theory even people of good will cannot work to achieve the good.

RELIGION

Where to now for Anglicans and Rome  
October 22, 2009
Charles Sherlock
If the Apostolic Constitution is phrased in overly-confident 'Romanista' style it will communicate a bureaucratic message and reinforce the suspicion that 'ecumenical endeavour' means 'return to Rome', rather than the vision of every Christian tradition being converted to unity.

ECONOMICS

Why ignorance, not greed, caused the GFC  
October 20, 2009
Neil Ormerod
Sixty years ago, Jesuit Bernard Lonergan developed an analysis of the boom and bust cycles of economy. He often asked, 'Where were the Christian counter-parts of Karl Marx, sitting in the British Museum voraciously reading and relentlessly studying about political economy?'

THE MEDDLING PRIEST

Human Rights Consultation and beyond  
October 14, 2009
Frank Brennan
Even if all our recommendations were implemented tomorrow, there would still be vulnerable Australians missing out on essential economic and social rights. Responsibility for meeting these needs cannot rest solely with government. We need to take responsibility for each other.

RELIGION

Problems with Hitchens and Islam  
October 09, 2009
Herman Roborgh
Modern atheists in the West and modernist Muslims in Islam are both abusing religion. Their discourse about God has been influenced by the popular demand for scientific empirical verification, and they have lost confidence in the ability of figurative language to open a way to truth.

THE MEDDLING PRIEST

Human rights: Australia has spoken  
October 08, 2009
Frank Brennan

Text from the speech presented by Father Frank Brennan SJ at the launch of the Report by the Committee of the National Human Rights Consultation at Parliament House, Melbourne on 8 October 2009. 

HUMAN RIGHTS

Paedophiles and civil liberties  
September 28, 2009
Georgina Wright

Dennis Ferguson's crimes were abhorrent, but shouldn't we allow this man to live his life now that he has served the term of punishment? The rushed passing of legislation designed to target Ferguson is a poor reflection on the state of our democracy.

THE MEDDLING PRIEST

Patient autonomy and the doctor's conscience  
September 18, 2009
Frank Brennan
In Life and Death: How do we honour the Patient's Autonomy and the Doctor's Conscience? Frank Brennan's Sandra David Oration at St Vincent's Clinic, Darlinghurst, Sydney, 17 September 2009.

POLITICS

Immigration reform review  
September 11, 2009
Kerry Murphy
On Wednesday, the Senate made two decisions which take immigration reform forward. The reforms were approved with the support of the Greens and Independents, and one Liberal Senator. Reading the Hansard gives some insight into the current debate.

Renewed acquaintances: Australia and Russia  
September 09, 2009
Luke Fraser
The relationship between Australia and Russia is over 200 years old. It began with great promise, but relations cooled following the Russian Revolution. The financial crisis presents an opportunity for both countries to look to each other with optimism once again.

MARGARET DOOLEY AWARD

Conversations with international students  
September 03, 2009
Helen Brake
For international students, the eagerness to accept new faces is intensified by a desire to make Australian friends, improve communication skills, and embrace all the opportunities available to them.

EULOGY

How Ted Kennedy changed the world  
August 28, 2009
Michael Sean Winters
The final gift of Ted Kennedy to the nation was to pass the torch of liberalism to Barack Obama. It was breathtaking to see this Irish Catholic embrace a black man as his political heir.

THE MEDDLING PRIEST

Stradbroke Island homily  
August 18, 2009
Frank Brennan
Before the mission was established here, the local Aboriginal community of 200 persons was forced to host 1000 convicts from the mainland for eight years. I daresay not all the convicts were easy-going beachcombers.

MARGARET DOOLEY AWARD

'Silly impulses' of religion   
August 14, 2009
Ben Coleridge
The lecturer's joke about religion is met with laughter. Here, 'faith' is the jester. In dismissing faith, we dismiss people for whom faith is central to the search for truth. We exclude them from that task of imagination and creation.

HUMAN RIGHTS

Religious freedom and secular society  
August 13, 2009
Moira Rayner

What do our major religions have to fear from changes to equal opportunity law? The challenge is a worthy and a practical one: in what way do the activities of religious institutions actually reflect the values of their prophets and visionaries.

Freedom of religion important for Catholic social services  
August 13, 2009
Denis Fitzgerald
A religious purpose is at the heart of Catholic Social Services. Because of this purpose, organisations need to be able to recruit people who support the social mission of the Church, and whose conduct will not compromise or undermine the witness of the Church.

MARGARET DOOLEY AWARD

Aurin: a parable of inter-faith friendship  
July 24, 2009
Cara Munro
Multi-faith dialogue is just a conversation, over time, between dear friends.

VIDEO

Winton's numinous Breath  
July 17, 2009
Peter Kirkwood
A few weeks ago Tim Winton's Breath was awarded this year's Miles Franklin Literary Award. This video trailer is a poetic combination of strong images, haunting music, quotes, and eloquent interview with the author.

EUREKA STREET/ READER'S FEAST AWARD

Winners of Eureka Street's writers awards 2009  
July 16, 2009
Staff
Reader's Feast Bookstore is delighted to once again join with Eureka Street to offer an award in the area of social justice writing. Funded by Reader's Feast Bookstore and organised by Eureka Street, the theme for the essay was 'Climate change and the global financial crisis: can we afford to save the planet?'

ONLINE

Congratulations to our winners!  
July 11, 2009
Staff

APPLICATION

Pope's 'seamless garment' bares green credentials  
July 10, 2009
Neil Ordmerod
This week's release of the new social encyclical Caritas in Veritate expands moral teaching to promote a concept of 'human ecology' that covers both human life and the environment. It would seem that Benedict is not a climate change sceptic.

Pope confronts economic injustice  
July 10, 2009
Bruce Duncan

The Pope's encyclical on social teaching is not a strident critique of capitalism, but it does confront abuses in the global economy. Benedict is critical of the free market ideology which extolled wealth creation but ignored the need for equity and social justice.

POLITICS

The Bill of Rights power struggle  
July 03, 2009
Jonathan Campton
While day one of the National Human Rights Consultation hearing ended with a growing hope for the rights of the oppressed, day two, dominated by politicians and lawyers, diluted this hope in legalism, fear and falsehoods.

VIDEO

New ethics of new media  
July 02, 2009
Peter Kirkwood

The video featured on this page is a substandard, pirated copy of an artist's work, posted on YouTube. For most of us, it's the only means of seeing some of the most celebrated work of one of Australia's leading emerging artists.

RELIGION

The context of our sex abuse shame  
June 29, 2009
Shane Wood
I am shocked and angered by the actions of fellow religious Brothers detailed in the Ryan Report. There were basic things lacking in our training that could have led to a very warped way of looking at oneself and the world.

Sharing our paradoxes: steps for a dialogue between Christians and Muslims   
June 25, 2009
Herman Roborgh
The scriptures of both Islam and Christianity are full of paradoxes. Some readers of paradoxes simply emphasise only one part of the paradox. (Full text of Herman Roborgh's Dialogue Australasia article, May 2009.)

FICTION

Curry muncher  
June 23, 2009
Roanna Gonsalves
Vincent and I were both international students from Bombay. He had lived here for a year while I had only arrived three months ago. We worked in the same Indian restaurant. The night of his attack, Vincent sounded upbeat on the train.

VIDEO

Rise of European extremism  
June 18, 2009
Peter Kirkwood

Fitna is a heavy handed piece of anti-Muslim propaganda. It plays into the kinds of sentiments and fears that are exposed when, for example, plans are put forward to build a Muslim school on Sydney's southwest fringe.

The Chaser's war on sick kids  
June 12, 2009
Tim Kroenert
Satire needs to be bold. It risks causing offence in order to achieve its purpose. It seems like strange behaviour to want to see how far The Chaser will go, then become upset when they are deemed to have gone 'too far'.

MULTICULTURALISM

The economic cost of race violence  
June 12, 2009
Kylie Baxter
The Reserve Bank now places education behind only coal and iron ore as Australia's most important export. It is difficult to understand how the targeting of international students is not viewed with greater urgency.

VIDEO

New media makes and breaks Susan Boyle  
June 02, 2009
Peter Kirkwood

The internet raised Susan Boyle to superstardom, while traditional media heaped her with disparagement and conjecture. Might the more democratic realm of new media might provide a more saintly balance to the traditional tabloid monster? 

COMMUNITY

Bikers, violence and justice  
May 14, 2009
John Smith
Going to jail for the right reasons is noble. In effect Jesus called for a kind of civil disobedience. He went to jail for justice. Today, I would be prepared to be jailed for resisting consorting laws. Exclusive preview: The John Smith Quarterly Essay

THE MEDDLING PRIEST

Vilification laws fuel disharmony  
May 11, 2009
Frank Brennan
While it is inherently racist for a person to claim membership of the best race, it is no bad thing for a religious person to claim membership of the one true religion. That is what religious people do.

RELIGION

Behind the Pope's condom 'gaffe'  
May 05, 2009
Michael Czerny

Abstinence and fidelity win little public support in Western discourse, but are increasingly included, even favoured, in national AIDS strategies in Africa. Culture counts, and a condom is more than a piece of latex.

HUMAN RIGHTS

Refugee crisis requires international effort  
April 21, 2009
David Holdcroft
During the Indochinese crisis, the Fraser Government engaged in a policy of cooperation with other countries in the region. More than a million people were moved, and the boat people phenomenon in Australia ceased for nearly ten years.

Asylum seekers are not criminals  
April 21, 2009
Sacha Bermudez-Goldman
If we regard asylum seekers as illegals who burn boats to force themselves on us, we might choose to close our doors to them. Rather than criminals, we should regard them as human beings in great need, deserving our respect and compassion.

EULOGY

Eulogy for Francis Xavier Costigan QC   
April 20, 2009
Frank Brennan

HUMAN RIGHTS

Forward with fairness for asylum seeker policy  
April 17, 2009
Kerry Murphy
The tragic death of several asylum seekers on a boat while being towed to Christmas Island again shows the dangers for people coming to Australia by boat. But it does not justify a return to the harsh policies of the past.

THE MEDDLING PRIEST

Sex and power in the church  
April 13, 2009
Frank Brennan
Bishop Geoffrey Robinson's book is an invitation to put fear behind us. Given the treatment it has received by people who should have known better, it has become an icon; a call to conversation without fear.

Bikies have rights too  
April 02, 2009
Frank Brennan

We need to be on our guard against laws and policies enacted in the name of the public interest but with insufficient consideration for the human rights of the minority.

EUREKA STREET/ READER'S FEAST AWARD

Eureka Street/Reader's Feast and Margaret Dooley Awards 2009  
March 22, 2009
Staff
Submission guidelines for the Eureka Street/Reader's Feast and Margaret Dooley Awards 2009 are now online.

BOOKS

Cinema: the secular temple  
March 18, 2009
Barbara Creed and Richard Leonard

People have stopped going to church, but they still have an eye for and an expectation of the mystical. At the cinema, spectators, primed by the structures of the cinema itself, enter into a mystical experience with the shadow world being played out before them.

THE MEDDLING PRIEST

Euthanasia: doctors' conscience vs patient rights  
March 02, 2009
Frank Brennan
The medical pledge to do no harm no matter what the cost effective benefits, and the conscience of the doctor are still key elements in any law which promotes good medicine. –Frank Brennan, addressing the Medico Legal Society of Victoria

Human rights without God  
February 27, 2009
Frank Brennan
Professor Martha Nussbaum's recent book Liberty of Conscience provides a rich textured treatment of the place of religion in the public square. If God is taken out of the picture, it may be difficult to maintain a human rights commitment to the weakest and most despised in society.

People of hope, not hate  
February 24, 2009
Frank Brennan
In East Timor, I was able to see close up the work of Caritas in war torn conditions. There could be no reconciliation without justice. Caritas worked tirelessly to proclaim the message.

HUMAN RIGHTS

Letter from Zimbabwe  
January 30, 2009
Oskar Wermter
A young man, well educated, with several diplomas in his pocket, pestered me about getting funds to do a course in South Africa. Not because he needs that course, but merely to get out of Zimbabwe. The rats are leaving the ship.

Gaza conversations  
January 08, 2009
Ben Coleridge

We were invited to share a meal with a Jewish family in Haifa. They welcomed us, and conversation was happy and inviting. Inevitably, the topic of conflict between Israel and Palestine reared its head. The atmosphere was transformed.

POLITICS

Thoughts from a Gaza voyeur  
January 08, 2009
Peter Matheson

An overweening trust in military muscle has led Israel into this campaign; it is hard to overlook the parallels with the Shock and Awe curtain-raiser to the Iraq debacle. It seems there is an unspoken assumption that Palestinian lives are not so important as Israeli ones.

ENVIRONMENT

Rudd's great greenwash  
December 15, 2008
Tony Kevin

Kevin Rudd's announcement of a 5 per cent 2020 emissions reduction target is a betrayal. It appears he has put short-term political survival ahead of his responsibilities to the next generation. Where is Bonhoeffer when we need him?

BOOKS

Hello, Newman  
December 10, 2008
Andrew Hamilton
Golden Years is a wonderful resource for reflecting on Catholic life over the last 60 years. The more than 70 former members who offer their memories of the Newman Society also reflect on the way in which their experience in it affected their subsequent lives.

THE MEDDLING PRIEST

Killing people for killing people  
October 17, 2008
Frank Brennan
'For me, talk of the death penalty evoked the young, frightened faces of Scott and Emmanuel, as well as the laughing, haughty faces of Amrozi, Mukhlas and Imam Samudra.' Full text from Frank Brennan's session on 'Killing People for Killing People', Ubud Writers Festival, 17 October 2008.

Educating leaders for the contemporary Australian Church   
October 06, 2008
Frank Brennan

'Lee and Christine Rush are your average Ozzie couple, except that their teenage son Scott is on death row in Bali having been convicted of being a hapless drug mule. It will not go down well on the streets of Jakarta if Australians are baying for the blood of the Bali bombers one month and then pleading to save our sons and daughters the next month.'

Frank Brennan rebuts 'authoritarian' abortion allegations  
September 30, 2008
Frank Brennan
Frank Brennan responds to Greg Barns' Crikey article which accused him of issuing an authoritarian edict regarding the Victorian abortion bill.

COMMUNITY

Forgotten veterans' hard-won legacy  
August 26, 2008
Clive Mitchell-Taylor
Clive Mitchell-Taylor, President, Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia, National Council, NSW Branch, gave the following Vietnam Veterans and Long Tan Day address at Martin Place, Sydney, on 18 August 2008. It was submitted to Eureka Street as a response to Tony Smith's article about Vietnam War protesters.

FILMS

Win: Stop-Loss movie tickets  
August 04, 2008
staff
In Stop-Loss, A decorated, young soldier returns to his Texas hometown following his tour of duty in Iraq, only to find his life turned upside down when he is arbitrarily ordered to return back to duty by the Army. Eureka Street has ten double passes to give away

EUREKA STREET/ READER'S FEAST AWARD

Eureka Street/Reader's Feast awards ceremony 2008  
July 28, 2008
Staff
Photos from the presentation of the inaugural Eureka Street/Reader's Feast Award the Margaret Dooley Award for Young Writers 2008 were presented by Mary Dalmau of Reader's Feast bookstore and Tim Kroenert from Eureka Street at the opening of the Reader's Feast Crime and Justice Festival on 18 July.

Eureka Street Writers Awards winners announced  
July 19, 2008
Staff

FILMS

Peter Norman movie/book giveaway and Matt Norman interview  
July 14, 2008
Staff
Eureka Street has five prize packs to give away, each containing a double pass to see the movie Salute, plus a copy of the Peter Norman biography book A Race to Remember. Plus, listen to Tim Kroenert's interview with Salute director and Peter Norman's nephew, Matt Norman

THE MEDDLING PRIEST

Frank Brennan's Cardinal Newman Lecture, March 2008  
June 24, 2008
Frank Brennan

Getting the balance right after the 2020 Summit   
May 26, 2008
Frank Brennan
The text is from Professor Frank Brennan's 2008 Institute of Justice Studies Oration from 22 May 2008.