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While the Australian Jewish population is about 0.4 per cent, they constitute about 12.5 per cent of the Wentworth electorate, with Christianity the largest group overall (43.8 per cent). It is highly likely the LNP is counting on the embassy stunt to result in more votes in the Wentworth by-election. But the political ramifications are much broader.
Australia has too many security and diplomatic interests in Iran to squander lightly. The fact its officials are willing to jettison these without getting anything in return vindicates the suggestion that the rather nebulous fact of relationship with the US features much more heavily in Australia's security calculus than its own interests.
Day by day, home owners in this Canberra street scout out potential wealth and children walk to school, unaware of who they've attached their names to. Mick Shann wasn't just any public official and his legacy lives on in other places. In scars carved into the backs of miraculous survivors. In empty coffins and overflowing graves.
These days, the military tattoo is just too sad for words, the soldier-children twirling, dancing, fluting, prancing, singing, some with rightful Maori marks, or cheekbones high as Indian hills, thin teenage girls in kilts and fancy Argyle socks ... What have they to do with war or death? Yet men strap bombs on ten-year-olds.
Collars and ties, or lack of them, can have a specific political application. In 2007 Robert Mugabe, fearsome Zimbabwean dictator, was invited to an EU summit in Lisbon. The Anglican Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, cut up his clerical collar on television and vowed to replace it only after Mugabe had gone.
Perhaps we couldn't care less about what happens to an au pair or the person who let her in. But to know that there is rot in the ceiling — embodied in relationships of mutual benefit between those in office and those with money — and still be fine retiring to bed underneath, does not really bode well for anyone.
The school funding battle has featured in the last two rounds of federal by-elections. Economics writer Ross Gittins has suggested the Catholics are trying to extract special deals. There are three principles of public policy at play in this ongoing saga, and the consistent and fair application of all three principles is a big political challenge.
Greece is a fire-prone country, and climate change has meant an extremely hot summer. In addition, the austerity forced on Greece during recent years has meant a reduced fire service, with not enough firefighters and no money to buy the latest equipment. Even so, it is heartening to see the reaction of the Greek public to the fires.
The Fitzroy Soup Van is in good hands because its people recognise the tension between the need for compliance with security and safety regulations and the call to draw close to people whose lives are lived beyond those boundaries.
In the 1980s, the international solidarity movement for Nicaragua had thousands of supporters, including many in Australia. The nation was undergoing severe repression at the hands of dictator Anastasio Somoza. Fast-forward 30 years and a Nicaraguan rebel movement is again calling for international solidarity.
In Mexico, every two hours a person vanishes. Most likely they are executed and thrown into narco-fosas, the term given to the thousands of clandestine graves used by narco-organised crime to bury their victims. Most of the victims are young. More than 46,000 young people were killed between 2007 and 2016.
A little over 77 years ago, Allied forces fighting in northern Greece were overwhelmed by German strength. In Kalamata, for years now there has been a wreath-laying ceremony at a memorial close to the waterfront. It occurs days before the Nakba, the remembrance of Palestinian displacement that this year marked 70 years.