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Keywords: Cross Bench

  • AUSTRALIA

    A common good frame for economic stimulus

    • Joe Zabar
    • 26 August 2019
    3 Comments

    While the current economic climate is cause for concern, it is not the time to panic. A more sensible alternative to austerity is for governments, business, unions and charities to look for ways we can together soften the impact of any global downturn. This will require bipartisan agreement to sacrifice some or all of the budget surplus.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Alt-right wolves in sheep's clothing

    • 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

    The politics of asylum-seeking children

    • John Warhurst
    • 08 November 2018
    12 Comments

    The government and the opposition are prevaricating and effectively delaying the positive outcome that many in the Australian public are crying out for. The time is ripe for action, but decisive policy movement is still absent.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Mending man

    • Julie Perrin
    • 02 November 2018
    14 Comments

    Padraig leads the Corrymeela community in the north of Ireland. It is a place committed to healing the social, religious and political divisions that exist in Northern Ireland. Corrymeela is an ancient Irish word. Padraig says they understood it meant 'hill of harmony' but recently they've discovered it is more like 'the lumpy crossing place'.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Nick Xenophon's tantalising gambit

    • John Warhurst
    • 09 October 2017
    4 Comments

    The decision by Nick Xenophon to leave the leadership of his Senate team to return to South Australian politics has rattled the political elites in his state and stirred the pot nationally. Xenophon's gamble raises two immediate implications and suggests one bigger and more tantalising question for Australian politics.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Senator Ludlam's crime and punishment

    • John Warhurst
    • 18 July 2017
    11 Comments

    Ludlam's departure means that the Senate has now had three senators, including Bob Day, the Family First leader, from South Australia, and Rod Culleton of the One Nation Party, who was also from Western Australia, declared ineligible to sit in the Parliament in the 12 months since the last election. One is an accident but three is an epidemic. This is a disturbing turn of events.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    On Aboriginal land: seeking a place at the table

    • Frank Brennan
    • 31 May 2017
    6 Comments

    Indigenous leaders this last week have called for the creation of two new legal entities. They want a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution, and a Makarrata Commission set up by legislation. The Makarrata Commission would supervise agreement making between governments and First Nations and engage in truth telling about history. The envisaged destination is a national Makarrata (or treaty). So the immediate constitutional issue is the creation of the First Nations Voice. There is no point in proceeding with a referendum on a question which fails to win the approval of Indigenous Australia. Neither is there any point in proceeding with a referendum which is unlikely to win the approval of the voting public.

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  • RELIGION

    Finding meaning in a chaotic/changing world

    • Frank Brennan
    • 08 May 2017
    1 Comment

    Our Church is presently a strained, outdated social institution with an exclusively male hierarchy and clergy. But it is also the privileged locus for us to be called to the banquet of the Lord sharing theology and sacrament which have sustained the hearts and minds of similar pilgrims for two millennia. Thank God for Pope Francis who is showing us the way, helping us to find meaning in our changing and chaotic world, putting a fresh spring in the step of all those Catholics holding in tension the prophetic and the practical, the theological and the humanist, the tradition and the contemporary reality.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Seeking a fair go on budget night

    • Frank Brennan
    • 07 May 2017
    7 Comments

    Part of the cost of the double dissolution election last July has been the creation of a Senate with the largest, most diverse group of crossbenchers ever. This will make the passage of any new contested Budget measures difficult, particularly given the Prime Minister’s vulnerability on his right flank, and the Labor Party's propensity to mimic the Opposition tactics adopted previously by Tony Abbott. The government needs to create a clear narrative as to how it will achieve equitable and sustainable growth through this Budget.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Waiting for the trickle down effect

    • Frank Brennan
    • 10 April 2017
    16 Comments

    In an age of 'budget repair', social policy risks becoming just a sidebar to economic policy which is a contest of ideas about how best to grow the size of the pie thereby providing a slice for 'the deserving poor' without having to redistribute too much of the pie, while 'the undeserving poor' drop off the edge as they would have anyway. For those of us schooled in Catholic social teaching, the so-called 'undeserving poor' are the litmus test of our commitment to the human dignity of all persons.

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  • RELIGION

    The risk and future visioning of sustainable Catholic services

    • Frank Brennan
    • 29 March 2017
    1 Comment

    'We need to be more focused on grace, Christ and God's word, rather than just on law, the Church and papal utterances. But today, I will draw more on law, the Church and the Pope to point us towards those more fruitful domains: grace, Christ and God's word. Our future visioning needs to focus more on the gospel imperatives including the option for the poor and the dignity of all persons, including those who are non-believers.' Address to Catholic Health Australia's Catholic Governance Symposium, 27 March 2017

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Watching the 'mixed bag' Senate cross bench at work

    • John Warhurst
    • 05 December 2016
    4 Comments

    To say the Senate cross bench is a mixed bag is an understatement. All that is really lacking is an extreme left senator unrestrained by Labor/Green discipline. Amid all the controversy I've grown comfortable with their place in the Senate and appreciative of their collective presence in an otherwise party dominated chamber. They each have their flaws, but they make a generally positive contribution to public discussion and to ultimate legislative outcomes. We are better off for their presence.

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