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To view the mining sector as central to the welfare of the economy is a furphy. The mining industry is not supporting other sectors of the economy, it's holding them back. Even in the states where mining dominates, the positive effects of the industry boom on the wider economy are questionable.
Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi dismissed Islamic banking as 'incompatible with Australia's Western values'. But Western values that uphold a banking system that treats its customers with disdain – as the Commonwealth Bank did last week – need to be questioned.
The Victoria Police 'electrocution email' scandal has again displayed Australian inhospitality to the world. Despite this, Indian hospitality remains steadfast. The guest is God in an Indian household. Australia's athletes would know this hospitality well.
Tony Abbott had a close association with B. A. Santamaria and personifies church ties with politics through his relationship with the man he has called his confessor, Cardinal Pell. The question is whether Abbott is a one-off or represents a larger group of Catholic Liberals.
Text from Fr Frank Brennan SJ's presentation Poverty and Plenty: Where Do or Should Christians Stand? at the Centre for an Ethical Society as part of the 2010 Series Forum at the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture, 17 March 2010.
The challenges and opportunities are to fund equitably all networks in education and to ensure that robust morale and community engagement are hallmarks of all parts of the network, including state schools and emerging schools such as Muslim schools.
In Dickens' Barnaby Rudge, pet raven Grip is given to tantalising but incomprehensible pronouncements, fluttering annoyingly around the edges of conversational gatherings, and launching sudden, inexplicable attacks.
Turnbull's and Hockey's personal dilemmas are now great. Could they in good conscience stand as Liberals in the next election, which they will know was provoked by the machinations of climate change denialists and carbon lobbyists whose views now control the Liberal Party?
The Liberal Party now contains deeper and wider ideological divisions than the Labor Party. This will be true regardless of who emerges as leader today. The question is whether the party can survive such deep differences without fragmenting.
Turnbull has forced his party to see thereis no way forward without serious internal reform. Maybe he will not beable to lead them on, but while lesser members seem blinded byseemingly irrational caution, Turnbull has called the game with ablinding clarity.
Hockey, a big friendly bear of a man, is popular in the electorate. Abbott suffers from his aggressive stance and his image as a conservative Catholic. Both are contenders for the Liberal leadership should Turnbull fall before the next federal election.
There are lessons to be learned from Sarah Palin's quip that the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull terrier is 'lipstick'. In Western politics, women are acceptable if they look 'youthful' and are attached to powerful men to whose authority they defer. (September 2008)