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Most responses to Rudd's conversion on gay marriage have focused on the implications for Australia's political dynamic. Those who bother to read the lengthy blog entry in which he announced his change of heart will be drawn into a broader debate about the relationship between church and state that takes place too rarely in Australian politics.
Labor is struggling with a $12 billion write down in anticipated revenue for 2012-13 after Treasury bungled the forecasts. It could cut back on government assistance to those who can fend for themselves. But it has chosen to penalise the poor, with those on the parenting payment being switched to the lower Newstart.
Women have fought the long, hard fight, marching into battle with a baby tugging on one heel and a man hanging off the other. And while the man has largely loosened his grip, the baby never will. Many women are still forced to submit, if not to patriarchy then certainly to maternal instinct. Thursday 8 March
When I'm scrabbling around wiping up cereal under the baby's highchair and she's twisting her milky fingers into my hair, what good is it to recall that it is due to the privileging of men's professional work and their superior earning power that it is me, not my husband, who is being subjected to this assault?
Full text from Fr Frank Brennan SJ's address 'Advancing human rights in Australia — lessons from the National Human Rights Consultation' at the 'Human Rights Matters!' conference marking Anti-Poverty Week 2012. 17 October 2012, Cardinal Knox Centre, St Patricks Cathedral, Melbourne.
Last week we witnessed one of the most powerful articulations of gender equality by any prime minister. Sadly on the same day the Government and Opposition pushed through legislation to force 140,000 sole parents onto the inadequate Newstart Allowance. Gender analysis is mainstream; it is time for class analysis to become so too.
Squeezing my own body fat in front of the mirror is a horrible, but familiar experience. Reflecting on the self-loathing involved makes me red with rage and embarrassment. I should be above that. Today's women are united more by their collective disgust of their bodies than they are by any other factor.
You could you call it coincidence that the week I'm asked to write on budgets, ours blows out. I call it life. Such is the cyclic nature of our 1.5-incomes-and-two-kids lives that just when we think our savings are safe, a new enrolment fee is due, the kids' jeans are suddenly a size too small and I've run out of nappies.
When budgets are tight, governments seek savings by moving people from an expensive payment to cheaper payment categories. By moving a larger number of single parents from parenting payment to the cheaper Newstart allowance the Government will effectively remove $686 million out of the hands of low income families.
Full text from Fr Frank Brennan SJ's address 'Bringing the modern world into contact with the vivifying and perennial energies of the gospel (John XXIII's half century challenge)' at the Catalyst for Renewal Dinner, Hunters Hill, 23 March 2012.
Text from Fr Frank Brennan SJ's Lenten presentation 'Justice, the Church and the Ignatian tradition' at St Ignatius Parish, Norwood, 13 March 2012 and St Michael's, Clare, 14 March 2012.
Women have fought the long, hard fight, marching into battle with a baby tugging on one heel and a man hanging off the other. And while the man has largely loosened his grip, the baby never will. Many women are still forced to submit, if not to patriarchy then certainly to maternal instinct.