Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site
Forgot your password?
Subscribe

Search Results: Hockey

  • AUSTRALIA

    Hockey's space cadet schemes

    • Ray Cassin
    • 30 October 2013
    17 Comments

    There is a bizarre and remorseless logic to some of Joe Hockey's proposals, such as the absorption of Centrelink by Australia Post and making Medibank Private responsible for delivering the services of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. ACTU president Ged Kearney described the Centrelink proposal as 'moving into space-cadet territory'. She's right: the space cadets are flying the ship now.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Mandate mantra is mumbo jumbo

    • Ray Cassin
    • 23 October 2013
    3 Comments

    While the Abbott Government brays about a mandate to end the carbon price, it is also shrugging off what, by its own theory, it has been 'mandated' to do in respect to the budget deficit and the imperative to 'stop the boats'. The notion that a mandate to govern confers the right to implement all the policies in an election platform is inherently implausible, and all politicians know that it is.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Politicians' Catholic background

    • Ray Cassin
    • 16 October 2013
    31 Comments

    It may be that the press gallery sees no significance in Shorten’s 'Catholic background' because he supports same-sex marriage and perhaps also some other things that bishops don’t like. Is the gallery’s view that his 'background' somehow didn’t 'take'? The truth is that these days even being a practising Catholic, rather than the nebulous 'of Catholic background', conveys nothing about the course a politician will choose on issues of conscience.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Australia's game of rigged Monopoly

    • Paul O'Callaghan
    • 03 September 2013
    8 Comments

    Being born in Australia is a huge advantage. And having parents with money, a good education and connections always helps. Some of us have an advantage before we've even started school. But like the players in American psychologist Paul Piff's 'rigged Monopoly' experiments, those of us who do well tend to think we've earned our good fortune through hard work, talent and creativity.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    The politics of disgust

    • Ellena Savage
    • 30 August 2013
    6 Comments

    The moral questions presented in this election demand rational action, and not responses based on aversion to 'illegal' boat arrivals, gay men kissing or the idea of giving hard earned money to government programs in the form of tax. As long as both major parties are vying for ‘politics of disgust’ votes on the backs of vulnerable people, we can’t expect a better nation. 

    READ MORE
  • CARTOON

    The Coalition presents ...

    • Fiona Katauskas
    • 30 January 2013

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    The Church is not beyond reproach

    • Frank Brennan
    • 23 November 2012
    1 Comment

    'Might not the chief problem with Church language in the public square be that we tend to come from a position of moral superiority, approaching those dreadfully compromised politicians who will do anything to be elected? The abuse crisis reminds us that the Church is not irreproachable.' Text from Fr Frank Brennan's presentation at the Anglican Church of Australia's Public Affairs Commission Conference, November 2012.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Hail to the climate geeks

    • Frank O'Shea
    • 22 August 2012
    27 Comments

    The word geek has changed from a term of derision to one of smiling respect and even a badge of honour. The members of the Climate Commission would no doubt be happy to be called geeks. Unfortunately there is far too little 'geek' representation in the halls of power.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Hope beyond disability support flip-flopping

    • Moira Byrne Garton
    • 03 August 2012
    2 Comments

    Disability policy is no longer a short-term issue for political point-scoring, it is in the middle of the public policy sphere. While it is heartening that there is general consensus between political parties on the National Disability Insurance Scheme, some state premiers' bickering over funding has fuelled the distress of affected people.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    What gay parents are worth

    • Frank Brennan
    • 07 June 2012
    135 Comments

    When Joe Hockey said on Q&A that the 'very best circumstances' for a child entailed having 'a mother and a father', Penny Wong, who has a child with her partner Sophie Allouache, replied 'I know what my family is worth.' It was a galvanising moment in the same sex marriage debate, which is not going away.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Hockey and Thatcher's 'no entitlement' is bad economics

    • Michael Mullins
    • 14 May 2012
    15 Comments

    Joe Hockey provoked outrage with his recent suggestion that we should rely on families rather than the state for social welfare. His premise that high social spending leads to debt and decline reflects the GDP fetish of fundamentalist economists that Joseph Stiglitz blames for Europe's current economic problems.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    What difference does it make now that Mary MacKillop is a saint?

    • Frank Brennan
    • 14 October 2011

    Mary visited Rome as a young religious woman when she was being persecuted by local bishops for being too independent. She got a good hearing from the Pope and great assistance from Fr Anderledy who became the Superior General of the Jesuits. If only Bishop Bill Morris could have received the same sympathetic hearing.

    READ MORE