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One of Australia's foundational myths is of white settlers weathering nature's worst. It's actually in our national character — the story we tell about the nation — to dismiss climatic extremes like heatwaves. Maybe one missing part of taking climate change more seriously in Australia is a shift in culture to respect the heat.
Mary Oliver, who died recently, came to realise it's not just kneeling and kissing the ground that needs to be encouraged, but that the natural world itself, which fed and sustained her creatively and emotionally for a lifetime, is now endangered. We are in danger of wrecking creation.
John Howard promised to 'stay the course' in Afghanistan. So too did Tony Abbott, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard. So complete was the political consensus that parliament didn't even debate the Afghan intervention until nine years after it began. Now that there's no longer a course on which to stay, we're due some accountability.
Experience suggests that royal commissions disclose only a fraction of unacceptable behaviour committed, and that the cultural attitudes that entrench it outlast the proposed reforms. The reasons for their comparative ineffectiveness can be illuminated by reflection on reforms of the 19th century.
Transitioning to a networked world replete with data is a challenging task. Our parliamentarians have a duty to appraise themselves of the basics of human rights, data ethics, and the technological frameworks that will deliver good governance. Until then, we will be left lurching from one technology omnishambles to the next.
Rahaf Mohammed is very lucky to have been granted residence by Canada so quickly. In my nearly 30 years of working with refugees in various capacities, I have never heard of anyone being granted residence as quickly. The speed of the process, and also the way she conducted her case on social media, bear deeper consideration.
When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression. Sometimes, it's worse than that: when you're accustomed to privilege, even meagre attempts towards equality can be interpreted as unfair. This attitude is evident not only in conversations about affirmative action and quotas, but in the way we talk about sport.
The sound of the didgeridoo would be heard throughout the land. On each street corners buskers would mark out their patch, playing violins, oud, piano accordion, berimbau, nyatiti, cello, mouth organ, zither, anklung or daduk singing the love songs and epic poems from the many civilisations that have enriched Australia.
This Invasion Day, instead of calling on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to conform to simplistic solutions such as changing the date of a public holiday geared around reinforcing jingoism and nationalism, walk alongside us and commit to doing better.
Inequality is not an aberration that comes with neoliberalism. It is the foundation of neoliberalism, along with its partners in social crime: patriarchy and colonisation. As Sharan Burrow, the Australian General Secretary of the ITUC, puts it so poignantly: 'We live in a fragmented world.' The excluded form the majority across the globe.
There are others here on the beach, standing and staring at the border wall as the ocean tides crash and spray. I've met so many now who have been separated from their partners, parents, and children, those physical bonds forcibly torn with little possibility of reconnection.
One of the issues raised at the royal commission into banks was the size of salaries and bonuses paid to senior staff. Subsequent discussion has tripped lightly around the issue. The larger question is whether it is in the best interests of financial institutions to offer to its senior officers huge salaries and bonuses.
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