Search Results: Ben Fraser
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AUSTRALIA
- Eliza Berlage
- 18 January 2019
10 Comments
Entering an election year is like coming home for the holiday season. It's full of hope and hijinks but also promises and pain. And like every family, each party has its quirks. Hopefully a post-election Parliament will green light some meaningful reform to improve people's lives rather than always culture warring. But don't hold your breath.
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AUSTRALIA
- Joshua Badge
- 27 November 2018
2 Comments
Far-right extremists are savvy political actors. They know openly discussing their beliefs risks running afoul of anti-discrimination laws. Because of this, they have mastered how to speak in the negative and convey meaning through allusion.
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AUSTRALIA
- Dani Larkin
- 24 October 2018
4 Comments
The system that keeps Aboriginal cultural autonomy oppressed calls itself representative democracy, yet our voices remain unheard. Seeing the royal couple prioritise our own land conservation more than the Australian government does is the ultimate example of how disrespected and politically powerless we are.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Jenny Blackford
- 10 September 2018
These days, the military tattoo is just too sad for words, the soldier-children twirling, dancing, fluting, prancing, singing, some with rightful Maori marks, or cheekbones high as Indian hills, thin teenage girls in kilts and fancy Argyle socks ... What have they to do with war or death? Yet men strap bombs on ten-year-olds.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Grant Fraser
- 27 August 2018
2 Comments
Higher up, with head down in devotion, a kookaburra was beaked out for small murders; with the azure armorial flashed on his wing, he was a rakish monk on his saintly wire; in his taut patience, he was always able to laugh off his murders at the end of the day.
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AUSTRALIA
- Susan Connelly
- 17 August 2018
3 Comments
We see the occasional extreme Muslim cleric railing against the west. This week we witnessed a similar incident in Parliament, with a senator calling for a return to the White Australia policy and a ban on Muslim immigration. An insight of René Girard's assists in interpreting this incident and the resentment and fear which lies beneath it.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Andrew Hamilton
- 19 April 2018
2 Comments
In recent months comment on international politics has been about taking sides and falling into line. Against such strident calls, two apparently unrelated pieces of speculation passed with little response: the prediction of a further cut to aid, and the assertion that China wanted to establish a military base in Vanuatu.
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INTERNATIONAL
- David Holdcroft
- 26 March 2018
8 Comments
There are two laws for how to get out of a hole: the first is to acknowledge you are in one. The second is to stop digging. I suspect Peter Dutton won't care too much for this advice. He is clearly enjoying his job, playing the populist card with great aplomb, including recently in his advocacy for white South African farmers.
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AUSTRALIA
- Eliza Berlage
- 02 March 2018
1 Comment
Is it any wonder that when I came to work in the press gallery I was cynical about arts policy? In those lockup hours scouring budget papers it was clear yet again the arts would not see any wins. It wasn't always this way. Prime ministers and arts ministers of yesteryear produced arts policy informed by their personal and political interest.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Jenny Blackford
- 22 January 2018
3 Comments
I ask the kids to pick a character and write a sentence or a paragraph to start the telling of those lives cut short. A tragedy so far away in space and time is made brand-new, but still as sad, by Aussie Muslim hands and shiny minds.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Grant Fraser
- 15 January 2018
7 Comments
On days like this, with blisters of tar already softening on the road, the nuns would curdle in the heat, shifting their stays by habit; sometimes, a bead of sweat would tempt their brows. Cooped in our desks, we steered our wilful pens over acreages of white pages.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Talitha Fraser
- 27 November 2017
Did you see the news today? Law failed love. Let love be law.
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