Welcome to Eureka Street
Looking for thought provoking articles?Subscribe to Eureka Street and join the conversation.
Passwords must be at least 8 characters, contain upper and lower case letters, and a numeric value.
Eureka Street uses the Stripe payment gateway to process payments. The terms and conditions upon which Stripe processes payments and their privacy policy are available here.
Please note: The 40-day free-trial subscription is a limited time offer and expires 31/3/24. Subscribers will have 40 days of free access to Eureka Street content from the date they subscribe. You can cancel your subscription within that 40-day period without charge. After the 40-day free trial subscription period is over, you will be debited the $90 annual subscription amount. Our terms and conditions of membership still apply.
There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.
The Australian public is being delivered a profoundly misleading subliminal message that, because the Taliban are active in the region, they are tied up in providing relief for flood victims. We need to forget politics for a while and think about the part we can play in helping Pakistanis through their crisis.
Though the Independents are raising expectations about a 'new politics', the forces behind the status quo are strong and the public is fickle. If they fail to deliver they might eventually suffer a backlash, like Kevin Rudd and the Democrats before them.
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.
The naming of participating in women's ordination as a crime against faith os disconcerting. I recently attended the ordination of a woman friend in another church. The celebration was prayerful and joyful, and promised to be the prelude to a fruitful ministry by faithful and committed candidates.
The idea of a regional processing centre for asylum seekers requires a lot of detailed diplomatic work. If Gillard is elected Prime Minister, it could be Kevin Rudd's first test as Foreign Minister. Whoever is elected, and wherever such a centre is located, it will not be East Timor.
I am not here to get rich, to receive charity, steal your job, or cheat the system. I am not a 'queue jumper'. I am not an 'illegal arrival'. I am not a 'political issue'. I am an asylum seeker, and this is my story.
Atticus works within the system and hopes thereby to reform it. He wonders 'why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro come up'. Many lawyers will understand the challenge of working for the unpopular 'other': just replace 'Negro' with asylum seeker, or Muslim women in burqas.
Julia Gillard insists that the centre in East Timor centre would be properly 'run, auspiced and structured'. For the Australian Government to ensure that such a centre respects the human dignity of asylum seekers will be difficult. Similar arrangements with Indonesia were not satisfactory.