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Keywords: Corporal Punishment

  • RELIGION

    Best of 2023: The Empty Honour Board

    • Michele Gierck
    • 11 January 2024

    In his latest book, The Empty Honour Board: A School Memoir, Martin Flanagan reckons with the legacy of abuse in the Catholic Church by looking back at his experiences at boarding school in Tasmania. In an interview with Michele Gierck for Eureka Street, Martin talks about the process of uncovering what happened all those years ago. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Backwards to go forwards

    • Barry Gittins
    • 16 November 2023
    6 Comments

    How should our nation reckon with its colonial history and its lasting impact on contemporary society? From the stark realities of early settlement to the enduring legacies of injustice towards Indigenous peoples, this piece explores what it means for a country to grapple with its identity amidst a backdrop of change.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Father down the road

    • Barry Gittins
    • 31 August 2023
    2 Comments

    Father's Day: a symbolic marker in Australia's calendar, often evoking mixed emotions. From fond memories of childhood to the challenges of modern fatherhood, the journey is both beautiful and complex as the role of fathers continues to evolve.

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  • RELIGION

    The Empty Honour Board: In Conversation with Martin Flanagan

    • Michele Gierck
    • 18 August 2023
    5 Comments

    In his latest book, The Empty Honour Board: A School Memoir, Martin Flanagan reckons with the legacy of abuse in the Catholic Church by looking back at his experiences at boarding school in Tasmania. In an interview with Michele Gierck for Eureka Street, Martin talks about the process of uncovering what happened all those years ago. 

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Bridging histories: In conversation with Tony Birch

    • Paul Mitchell
    • 23 June 2023
    1 Comment

    Renowned author and academic Tony Birch is known for his insightful and compelling narrative explorations into societal issues like marginalisation, Aboriginal identity and racial struggles. In conversation with Paul Mitchell, Birch discusses his work, the unique intersection of academia and creative writing, and the profound impact of historical dispossession.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The ebbtide of responsibility

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 28 July 2021
    9 Comments

    The tidal movement from treating children as persons each with their own dignity, and worthy of respect and of encouragement to a good future, to treating them as adult and incorrigible criminals worthy only of punishment is both irrational and injurious of society as well as of the children themselves. Yet it is deeply rooted in the mindset of all Australian Governments.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Father shows best

    • Barry Gittins
    • 03 September 2020
    7 Comments

    I have been thinking for several months about fathering and wisdom. To my surprise, I found some of Marcus Aurelius’ truisms to be reflected, if erratically, by the pronouncements of my own pater familias, Kenneth Hugh Gittins.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    A different approach needed for youth justice

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 11 September 2019
    4 Comments

    The Victorian Ombudsman Deborah Glass has published a damning report of the use of isolation for children in Victorian justice centres. Those acquainted with the administration of juvenile justice in Australia will find nothing new in the report. Therein lies its scandal.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Cultural change beyond royal commissions

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 31 January 2019
    17 Comments

    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.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Rage, revile, repeat: Hanson's great swindle

    • Barry Gittins
    • 03 October 2018
    4 Comments

    Consider the sheer volume of Hanson's emotive denouncements over decades. The anti-intellectualism that undergirds her populism. The shifts in tack, to capture the wind of whichever tragic event puffs up her sails. We're breathing in Hanson's views without conscious recognition of their invalidity. That's why this book matters.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Parents, it's time to spike the spank

    • Barry Gittins
    • 19 June 2018
    4 Comments

    If you are inclined to discount expert opinion from medicos, lawyers and criminologists, you could consider the evidence of your own eyes. Observe the body language around you if a parent hits their kid in public. A hush descends and tension increases. Post-Royal Commission, violence against kids is more and more on the nose.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Dickensian England lives on in Australia

    • Kate Galloway
    • 26 August 2016
    15 Comments

    Oliver Twist is still used to aid understanding of the trauma arising from poverty, and the suffering of children at the hands of individuals and within institutional settings. In broader Australian society we assume Dickensian attitudes to children have evolved. Aligned with the sentiments behind child protection, society's image of children and childhood is idyllic. Yet beneath this veneer lies a substratum of deeply ambivalent, even malevolent, attitudes towards children with a distinctly Dickensian flavour.

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