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Asylum seekers have also always needed help to make their journey to safety. Our people smugglers may be seen as distinctive in that they charge high prices for their troubles. But asylum seekers have always relied on people who exploited them.
SIEV X survivor Amal Basry died of cancer in 2006. By then she had received her permanent visa and was able to return to see her children, grandchildren and father in the Middle East one more time. When she returned, she expressed a wish to be buried in Australian soil.
In earlier generations, Australian priests were treated as tribal heroes. But the sexual abuse scandals and their inept management by Church authorities have dealt lethal blows. The paradigm is broken and needs a full review.
Even in death asylum seekers open a faultline in Australian culture and society. The two Sydney funerals for the asylum seekers who died trying to reach Christmas Island raise larger questions that deserve comment.
When I first moved to Greece, my language skills were reduced to those of a three-year-old. The pain of this was exacerbated when six months after our arrival, my six and eight-year-old sons started speaking to each other in Greek.
Mary MacKillop's face is on the Sydney Habour Bridge, at least temporarily. Is she becoming one of the clichés for Australia, alongside bushmen and Hills Hoist mums in our catalogue of national identity?
The living are burdened with responsibility for those who have died. New Zealand can take strength from Cambodia, a country to whom tragedy is no stranger, reaching out in communion as each of them comes to terms with the torment of loss and bereavement.
The full moon illuminated the silky water and tepid sand like a disco ball. Rounding one corner suddenly we could see a kilometer of open beach and, in the middle distance, two men standing around a fire. The group mentality did not counsel caution. But what were they doing here?
At the edge of each knot of resplendent women stood the groom. Uncomfortable in a constricting collar or a slightly askew bow tie or colours they'd never worn before and would never wear again. Many looked curiously grumpy. Wasn't this their day of days? What was going wrong here?
At the IGA, the woman at the check-out peppers her speech with Darl. Her friendliness, the way she packs my plastic bags, greets me two days later – a connection Facebook can’t provide.
Cardinal Pell, with whom I have voiced disagreement, preached superbly at the mass of thanksgiving after the canonisation of Mary MacKillop. 'She does not deter us from struggling to follow her.' As we wrestle with the common good, let's make a place for all our fellow citizens.
When my grandparents died earlier this year, I barely cried at their funerals. While reading aloud at my grandmother's, I glanced out at the congregation and saw my grandfather's face shiny with tears, looking up at me ... My voice cracked, but I'm a good girl so I held it together.