Search Results: disadvantaged
There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.
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AUSTRALIA
- Esther Anatolitis
- 26 November 2015
2 Comments
One of the few industries lacking a national advocacy platform, the arts, was stunned when a political move was made to undermine the key policy and investment body. The Australia Council is still reeling, and arts leaders from around the country are scrambling to save their organisations and support their colleagues following the Council's drastic cancellation of entire funding rounds. At stake here is the nature of Australian culture and the public experience of it, both now and into the future.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 15 October 2015
23 Comments
The image of the body of Aylan Kurdi cradled in the arms of a Turkish soldier jarred with our sense that poverty is simply the deprivation of material goods — there is no greater poverty than death, and no greater deprivation than that of a child stripped of life. Francis speaks powerfully of the need to address poverty. He insists that the church must move out of its comfortable centre to the margins where the poor live. To address poverty we must know people who live in poverty as our brothers and sisters.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 23 July 2015
9 Comments
It's like being trapped. Dropping out of school will be magnified if your parents are unemployed and you have come under the juvenile justice system. If you live in particular areas you will find it difficult to overcome the effects of disadvantage. The report Dropping off the Edge 2015 stresses the importance of examining the interlocking of the aspects of disadvantage.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 04 June 2015
60 Comments
The Vatican Secretary of State's post-Irish referendum comment refers to the Church's understanding of the privilege given by society to lasting heterosexual marriage reflecting the social good of the institution. But the heaviest defeats for humanity come from government policies that focus on the individual, ignore the needs of those raising children, and penalise the disadvantaged.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 28 May 2015
7 Comments
Tony Abbott's evocation of 'the tyranny of low expectations' invites more general reflection on education and public life. I believe that the Australian approach to education does indeed impose a tyranny of low expectations in the sense that the expectations are defined by economic achievement and its attendant wealth and status, and the goal for schools is success in enabling students to participate economically.
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AUSTRALIA
Neoliberal economics underlies the recent Federal Budget and the major parties’ welfare policies. It proclaims the end of the age of entitlement and speaks of small government, as it embraces the privatisation of 'service delivery'. Faith based organisations are involved as agencies of the government, often forced to impose punitive measures rather than the promise of the 'carrot' that is their purpose.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Barry Gittins
- 01 April 2015
15 Comments
Former Australian Salvation Army world leader General Eva Burrows, who died on 20 March, tried in vain to engage the former British PM in making the preferential option for the poor. ‘Margaret Thatcher was a disappointment,’ the General said. ‘I felt she didn’t have a deep, true feeling for the poor. I invited her to come out on the soup run indirectly and said it wouldn’t be a media event, we’d go incognito, but the answer was no.’
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AUSTRALIA
- Myrna Tonkinson
- 13 March 2015
13 Comments
The PM's cavalier use of the term 'lifestyle choice' is totally inappropriate when referring to the people who will be affected by the proposed closures of remote Aboriginal communities. Undeniably it is expensive to sustain remote living, and effective schooling and health services are unfeasible. But we must avoid arbitrary decision-making, and implicit disparagement of people in remote communities.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 05 March 2015
14 Comments
'Intergenerational' goings on are stirring public consciousness. On Thursday, Federal Treasury publishes its five-yearly Intergenerational Report. It provides a framework within which legitimate questions about winners and losers can be addressed, by including action on climate and narrowing wealth and international cooperation, rather than viewing society as merely the playground of competing individuals.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 05 February 2015
23 Comments
Our unpopular politicians have not been served well by advice that they should be 'on message' - more controlled and less quirky in their dealing with the media. Pope Francis, whose approval ratings are off the scales, takes the opposite approach, famously engaging the public imagination with symbolic gestures that embody his program.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 18 December 2014
16 Comments
Shady family members who turn up uninvited, unresolved sibling rivalries, end of working year pressures. In a way they recall the organisational disarray of the first Christmas... A rocky engagement, the man discovering that his fiancée was pregnant with a child that was not his, a long march to fill in tax forms, having to give birth in a paddock and suffer an invasion from disreputable shepherds and odd foreigners.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 04 December 2014
23 Comments
Pope Francis' recent reflections on Europe apply also to Australia. He points to the cult of economic growth that exists at the expense of human values and the relationships that shape our humanity. His critique suggests the challenge facing our Government is not to make its policies appear more palatable when they're not, but to offer policies that are in themselves enriching.
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